Virgin On The Ridiculous Part Three

Using Albert Einstein's definition of insanity, "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results," you could make a case for saying I'm mad. After two previous abortive attempts to sign up to receive broadband and cable TV from Virgin Media (see http://rulesfoolsandwisemen.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Virgin%20On%20The%20Ridiculous) back in 2012 and 2013, you might think that I would steer well clear of having anything to do with them, particularly since my internet service provider (ISP) have been able to connect me via fibre optic cable giving me decent download speeds. And having bought a NOW TV box at Christmas, I now have some additional TV channels.

But on this occasion it wasn't my doing to engage with Virgin Media, it was they who sought me out. I regularly get mail from Virgin Media offering me their services. These letters go straight in the bin; after all, I know - and so should they - that my address is not serviceable. They have told me that more than once in the past. Well, their engineers have. As far as their sales team are concerned, there is no reason why we should not have their broadband and TV, and in the middle of March they phoned me and asked if I would be interested in signing up with them. Wearily I explained the troubles we had back in 2012 and 2013. Oh, said the lady on the other end of the phone, we have some new technology that means we will be able to connect you. This new technology is apparently confined to new cables, not self-burrowing cables complete with nano technology, just new cables. How, I asked, is that going to overcome the fact that you can't get a cable - regardless how advanced that cable is - from the box in the street to our house? No specific answer was forthcoming, but simply for the hell of it, I agreed to having a site engineer call, on the proviso that he was fully apprised of the previous difficulties.

TV? No. Broadband? No. Phone? No. Mobile? No.

Unsurprisingly, when the site engineer arrived he was blissfully unaware that this was anything other than a standard installation. He reported back to the sales team, who rang me and I again explained that we were in the same position we had been in 2013. Later the area manager called. He was doubtful that the story we were told three years ago (that the cable goes under our neighbour's property and that was where there was a blockage preventing the cable reaching our property) was actually correct. He promised that another engineer would call to try and ascertain exactly where the blockage was. As usual, the sales team were singing from a different songsheet to the installation teams, since the former were promising all sorts of wonders because of the new cabling Virgin have, but as the area manager said - bearing out my existing view - the new cables still have to be able to reach the property; if they can't then the new technology is irrelevant.

Further visits from other engineers ensued. Having been told about the blockages they suggested that a spur could be run from the existing cable that runs down our street and that they could dig up the pavement and our frontage and run one cable through the wall to the study for the phone line and broadband connection and then another round the house to the box on the lounge wall where the TV cabling could come in. Fine, I said, go ahead.

The next communication from Virgin was a text message advising that they would be sending a construction team to install the cabling. They said that I didn't need to be there when they came because all of the work would be external, but if I wanted to be at home when they called, I should reply to the text with Option 2 so they could arrange an appointment, which I did...and heard nothing further. Until one very wet Friday afternoon when I was out shopping and received a phone call from a Virgin engineer who was outside my property, asking where I was. I went home, stood on the pavement in the pouring rain and apologised for not being there, but explained that I had been expecting a call to arrange this visit. I asked exactly what work they were expecting to undertake and was not surprised to learn that they thought that they just had to run the cable through the existing conduit. Digging up the pavement was not part of their expectations. They went to explore for blockages, and guess what? They found that there was indeed a blockage under our neighbour's property. That was that, they said. As I already knew, there was nothing they could do, we could not be connected.  But by this time I had received a letter confirming that on Monday 25th April they would be calling to complete the installation.

I have a collection of these.

And then I got another text. Had the cabling been completed? I replied that no, it had not been, and that should have been that, except that Virgin Media's internal communication obviously leaves something to be desired because I received yet another text. "We'll be connecting you on Monday 25th April," it said. "All OK? Reply YES or NO." I replied "NO," to which they replied that they would call me. Which they actually did, and I explained that they could not install anything because they could not connect cable to our property. They said that they would cancel the proposed installation.

Come Monday 25th April I must admit that I fully expected  a Virgin Media van to pull up outside and for an engineer to think he could connect us up; in a way I was a bit disappointed that no one came. It seems that that final telephone conversation actually had some effect and the sales team and installation team got their act together, talked to one another and cancelled everything.

I only went along with Virgin's offer on the basis that if they wanted to waste their time and money that was up to them. It was no skin off my nose,  cost me nothing and there was always an outside chance that this time it might actually go through, giving me allegedly better internet speeds and some extra TV channels. And I wanted to find out how many times they would call and how many different options would be suggested before they finally realised it was futile. The answer was seven visits and at least as many different stories.

Anyone who has worked for a large company will have experienced a disconnect between different parts of the organisation; Virgin Media are no different. The sales team have a different imperative and different views on what is achievable from the construction team who actually have to do the work. The sales team were confident that their new technology would enable us to be connected, the engineers knew better.

I would have expected that since I have had a letter from Virgin confirming the setting up of a Direct Debit to pay for their services and a letter welcoming me as a customer, I would get some sort of confirmation in writing that the whole thing is cancelled. I don't hold out any hope of that, after all I didn't get anything like that in 2012 or 2013. For a company whose business is communications, communicating is something that Virgin seem to have some issues with. Perhaps I've had a lucky escape; given how poor their communication has been while they have been trying to get me on board, how bad would it have been if I had actually become a customer and then  had something go wrong?