Long delay in fibre connection

[adrianpmanc]

Hello,

We started a switch to Vodafone on 13 Feb and were visited by BT Openreach a couple of days later who advised that work would needed to be done in our garden to connect the property to fibre we had delayed activation until 11 March to tie in with the expiry of our Virgin Media contract and were repeatedly advised that there was no issue, BT Openreach would visit and activation was still happening to the 11th.

We were then updated that BT Openreach would do the work on 21st March, they didn't turn up and there was no communication from Vodafone/BT Openreach to say not coming so we wasted another day waiting.  Today we have called and are now advised 9th May is when BT Openreach will do the work as they say the civils team needs to be involved (which we were advised was the case in February when they first visited).

Is this common with Vodafone who seem to not have any power to get work undertaken?  We've no confidence that we will get fibre connected on 9th May and beginning to think we should reconnect to Virgin Media who are the only company currently connected to the property. 

Alternatively we are considering a data sim to create a hotspot as Vodafone have been no help with resolving the delay installing and just read from a script each time we speak to them and we feel fobbed off every time and regretting the decision to go for fibre.

Has anyone found away to expediate complaints/resolution with Vodafone when the delay appears to be BT Openreach?

Adrian

[Effie]

Hey @adrianpmanc I am genuinely very sorry to hear about the lengthy delay in getting your broadband up and running. If you drop us a message on social media here we can look into raising the complaint for you and get this escalated with the Broadband Team to see if there is any way to speed the work up. 

[adrianpmanc]

Thanks Steph, unfortunately the team havent been able to do anything more than reparat the same convesations we already had.  The blame is on Openreach apparently and the need for major works which contradicts the conversation I had with Openreach engineer. Seems there is nothing Vodafone can do and have no influence over Openreach (to be fair that's not surprising)

Given that we now stuck in limbo until 9th May with no internet and have no confidence any work will be done on that date we are going to look at returning to Virgin Media as a priority and hoping to negotiate a better deal/faster reconnection given the disappointing experience with Vodafone.

[adrianpmanc]

@Effie Perhaps not surprisingly Openreach didn't turn up today. Vodafone called at 5pm to advise us of this which we kinda assumed given we'd been in all day awaiting the visit. Now advised 7 June but no longer clear if that's to do work or survey again as call centre can't advise more than on their script and cant deal with basic questions. Is there an email address to log a formal complaint? We appreciate that it's in Openreach hands but it will be 4 months since we placed order and there doesn't seem to be anything Vodafone can do to actually get us connected. We've reached the stage of cancelling our order and returning to Virgin Media which we at least know care about their customers.

[bc2024]

@Effie I am facing a similar issue even after OperReach has done the external work; it is delayed till the 20th Jun 🙂 Any chance to help?

[Andy]

Hi @bc2024 👋 We can certainly liaise with our activations team to see if there is anything can be done, but it sounds like this will be in Openreach hands. If you reach out to the social team here and we can see what we can do for you.

[bc2024]

Thanks @Andy for your reply. 

Anyone considering switching to Vodafone should consider a 3-6 month delay. And what I understand after talking to customer care is that Vodafone has no business relation with Openreach to understand the real issue. is. 

[adrianpmanc]

@bc2024 its worrying that Vodafone if actively encouraging switching at the moment and not able to deliver a service. Its also not right that you can select an activation date on ordering and then find it's meaninglessness as the system doesn't have the correct connections recorded. I'm wandering if a complaint to trading standards/ofcom is worth it given this seems to be more than isolated incident. We keep getting referred to the automatic compensation as if that makes it all alright for a two month minimum delay. Worst bit is being told Openreach are turning up and then they don't show up and so the cycle goes on. Sounds like you're further down the process than us but doesn't give me confidence we will be up and running speedily after the next visit in May.

[Jayach]

@adrianpmanc @bc2024 

I suspect your situations, whilst regrettable, are far from the norm.

And, if you do believe the delay is Vodafone's fault rather than Openreach, you could try via a different ISP.