A PENSIONER has been waiting for more than six months for a broadband connection after being told it was too difficult to add her home to the network – despite her neighbours a few feet away being online.
Rosemary Shakespeare moved in to a new park home at Riverside Drive in April, and was told that because of the site’s location at the bottom of a former quarry, it would be difficult to connect to the BT network.
However other properties in the estate next to the River Frome were already connected to Virgin Media’s cable network, so Rosemary, 81, contacted the company to sign up.
She says that the company took her account details and started taking money from her account, but hasn’t provided her with any broadband.
An engineer visited her but Rosemary, who was a Virgin customer at her previous home, says she was told it was too expensive to connect her, even though the park home next to hers is connected.
Rosemary said: “It appears they have decided not to do it because it’s too expensive and not worth their while. They are telling me I’m not worth bothering with.”
She said getting the company to do anything has been difficult and believes communication issues between its offshore call centre and local engineers are to blame.
When the Voice first contacted Virgin Media about Rosemary’s connection the company said it had sent an engineer to visit her home but had been “unable to connect her due to the complicated nature of the underground network in this area”.
However Virgin now plans to visit the property again to assess whether it can connect her via her neighbour.
The company insists it has not charged Rosemary anything but has actually given her a credit in recognition of the time taken to assess her property.
A Virgin Media spokesperson said: “We apologise for the delay in confirming the serviceability of Ms Shakespeare’s new property.
“We have now arranged for an engineer to visit her new address to assess whether we can connect her.
“She has not been billed, and we have applied a credit of £255.29 to Ms Shakespeare’s account as a gesture of goodwill.”