Automatic Engineer Excuse???

[CP-PC]

a friend had problems with his "old" ntl box (yes its still got ntl on the front of it). the box isnt displaying the image on the screen properly and its nothing to do with the service being supplied to his house (he has 2 boxes and the other one is working fine). so he called VM up to say my box is broken i want it replaced..... go through the usualy rubbish about restarting the box... didnt work...ok sir engineer is booked for tomorrom to replace your box between midday and 4pm (thursday) he was at work so i went round so someone was in for the engineer. no one came. called up..... engineer was automatically canceled due to a fault in your local area (no courtisy call) right ok get another engineer round tomorrow (friday between 12 and 4pm) ok sir ill book that and ill make a note that its not the local area problem and that you want the set top box replaced. suprise suprise no one turned up...... called up again... engineer was automatically called off due to a so called local area problem again. i said its not the service thats the problem its the box its self you made a note of this last time they didnt turn up.... ok sir ill make a note of that and get an engineer out saturday between 12 and 4pm..... no one came yet again (and not a single call to tell me otherwise) so my mate took the phone and said get an engineer round monday morning to replace my box with out fail or i shall stop paying my bills as im not receiving the service....ok sir engineer booked for monday monring between 8 and 12 and my mate really lost his rag and told them to make a note on the account saying not to stop the engineer if there is a local fault as its the box that needs replacing.... they assured him they had done so.

just to check he called VM back up to see if there was any "notes" on his account about the box at all.... nope nothing so he told them to do it again as he had taken time off work to be in for the engineer who failed to turn up 3 times now (he was at work and i was there instead but they dont know that) and again they assured him they had noted the account. he then told VM that there automatic engineer call off system was rubbish and should be changed. the VM person just kept repeating that the engineer was automatically called off due to local area problems.

anyone want any bets about if they are gonna turn up on monday or not??

anyone else been given this excuse?? or got annoyed with this??

[CP-PC]

sorry for the language above.... but about the post.... is this "automatic" canceling of engineer if there is a local area problem actually what there system does? or is it just an excuse they come up with?? has anyone else had this said to them??

[phantom73]

Did they turn up?

TBH, I'm not too sure whether the cancelation is automatic or manually done.

Don't think that it would automatic as there are normally notes on the account that give the reason for the cancelation. Otherwise people with critical STB errors - 8888 etc - would be being penalised.

But then again, this is NTL VirginMedia after all!

[CP-PC]

well i called them up on monday morning to check if they where still comming.... no they had called the engineer off so i said im not having that get an engineer out this morning without fail. the guy came about an hour later. he fixed the problem but wanted to get into the loft to remove an unused splitter (to try and gain signal strength) but there was no ladder at my mates house...... the VM engineer has 2 ladders on top of his van but said he would have to come back tomorrow (when i could bring my ladder round to get into the loft) he turned up on tuesday no problem but why he didnt sujest his own ladder is beyond me.

[phantom73]

Sometimes this company just amazes me.