wompkin

Virgin Media have so far taken over 2 months trying to work out if they can provide cable to my mother's flat in Acton in London. Her neighbour has cable. His TV is the other side of her wall. On her side of the shared wall are all the Cable & Wireless (now Virgin Media) sockets for TV and phone. I have told the various people I have spoken to on the phone this. But this is not sufficient evidence. Instead my request is sent into a 2 week limbo as they ask someone to look into it remotely. Bizarre.

Should be easy to spend money with companies. Apparently not.

(NB Sky not an option as freehold of apartments forbids it. D'oh!) over 2 years ago via web

I damaged my phone. It was insured by Carphone Warehouse.
My claim was approved. There were none in stock in the branch I was in. Another branch across London had one but they weren't answering the phone so they couldn't reserve it for me and if I drove, it would probably have gone by the time I go there. I was told come back to the store in a few days. They couldn't tell me when there be phones in stock; I'd just have to drop in.

I did. Several times. Never in stock (admittedly a 16G iPhone 3GS was what I was after and they were new and (still are) flying off the shelves).

After a couple of fruitless trips to the stores, I decided to use the Carphone Warehouse's store finder to call my local store. But all the phone numbers then go to a central call centre which couldn't tell me if my local store had any in.

I asked if I could get them to send me one centrally too, but they didn't have any in stock and weren't sure when more were coming in.

Eventually after a few calls, I got them to send one.
It's due today.
They couldn't send it to me at work (where my bill goes), as "there is a reception there and too many go missing from receptions". I pointed out that I run the company and will be in the office all day. No. It had to go to my home address (where I won't be) between 8am and 9pm. They said I should get the card through my door then use that to rearrange delivery but this time I'll be offered a time slot (first delivery just gets an all day slot).

It's now 7pm and so far, no card through door or phone.
Ho hum.

It'll be a total of c 2 months from breaking phone to replacement arriving. I couldn't wait that long and ended up getting a new contract instead (and will give the replacement to my brother to use as a pay as you go).

All in all, it was incredibly hard to get through the red tape and obfuscation surrounding Carphone Warehouse's insurance. If the handset had been in store when I went in, it would have been easy. Sadly, with the glitch of it being out of stock and missing the first time in store resolution, it then became a massive nightmare and general pain in the arse. Grrrr. over 2 years ago via web