A West Lothian couple have been left terrified they will not be able to reach anyone in an emergency after being stuck without a landline or internet.
Bob and Catharine Young had moved into their new bungalow in Murieston in March and contacted Virgin Media after theire research revealed the firm as the only fast broadband provider in the area.
Initially supposed to be sorted on March 23, the elderly couple, both in their 70s, told Edinburgh Live that a string of excuses and problems have left them with no access for over a month.
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With no mobile phone signal in the area, the Young's daughter Nicky explained that Bob was recently diagnosed with a serious heart condition that saw him hospitalised.
Now without any phone access, the family have hit out at Virgin after being left 'unable to call 999.'
Nicky said: “Around a week before they were due to move in my dad contacted Virgin Media about getting broadband and a landline set up.
“It was meant to be installed on March 23 but then there was an issue and they rescheduled for April.
“Then the night before they were due to come out they said there was a problem and it got pushed back again until May 3.
“When the engineer came out on Tuesday (May 3) he said there was some sort of box missing which meant he couldn’t connect them and just left. Then later that day my dad got an email to say that Virgin had cancelled their contract because they were not able to provide a connection to the house, there was no other options given to them it was just ‘we can’t’ full stop.
“My biggest worry is that dad has a serious heart condition which saw him almost die last year. In the last year they’ve both become so much more physically and mentally vulnerable, and my mum needs to be able to dial 999 in an emergency.
“It’s been six weeks now and it’s really affecting my dad’s stress levels and he really needs to keep his blood pressure down."
After being told their contract was cancelled, Nicky had tried to get in touch with Virgin via a number of different routes in order to try and resolve the issue.
However, following two days of web-chats and issues with detail confirmation, the family were still left waiting on a full response and explanation from the provider.
Now extremely frustrated, Nicky added: “It’s been six weeks now, you can’t just say you can’t do it and leave them with nothing.
“It’s impossible to get a hold of anyone on the phone, and my dad doesn’t any internet to try and navigate the web chats.
“My dad has a mobile phone but they have no reception at all in the house so he has to go to his car or sometimes even the shop or a Starbucks or something to get reception
“I spent over an hour on the web chat with them going back and forth with all the details, then they said if I couldn’t confirm my dad’s password I wouldn’t be able to continue.
“I hadn’t even got to explain the issue with contacting them right now, they said they could phone my dad or write to him, phoning won’t work and writing will take too long, we need a landline asap.
""If we need to we can go somewhere else for the landline but they want everything together with broadband so it's their only option for proper internet, and this should have been sorted weeks ago.
“It’s not been great customer service.”
Edinburgh Live contacted Virgin Media for comment.
