Automatic compensation not applied for 14 days TLS
I will try to keep this short. I joined Virgin Media Fiber BB on the 3rd of October. All was going well until the 23rd of October when I lost service. I won’t go into detail of the pain this was to get this fixed unless needed but I would not get service back until the 9th of November. Since then, I have been in a battle with Virgin media customer service. They are only offering me one day of lost service at £9.76.
They have failed to return my phone calls at time requested latest was today at 11am.
I have sent them my breakdown of what I believe should be the compensation but this is not going anywhere. So I have lost faith on what to do next does the community have any advice to offer?:-
Based on my calculation for the TOTAL LOSS of service I see this figure as:-
TLS Compensation:
Notification of TLS = 23/10/24 at 17:49 this was done by phone
Wait two working days = 25/10/24 at 17:49
Compensation starts thus from the 25/10/24 -> 08/11/24 as service was restored on the 09/11/24 - so expected compensation at the rate of 9.76GBP x14 days = £136.64
Missed appointment
On the 26/10/24 - Virgin did not attend a pre-booked appointment and did not inform me they would not attend based on this as a missed appointment compensation of £30.49 is due
Incorrect billing
On my October bill I was charged £24 when it should have been £21 thus expecting a further credit of £3
Extra
As we did not have internet for 14 days, we had to buy extra data on our mobile device this was £5 and receipt can be provided.
In total I'm expecting total credits/compensation to be £175,13
Any advice?
The auto comp scheme applies when you experience a 'total loss of service' of broadband and/or phone. The OFCOM scheme is explained below.
and a TLS is defined at para 23.
If you experience a TLS, VM gets two full working days to fix the fault (known as the 'payment trigger time'). If VM fails to fix the fault by the end of the payment trigger time, you get an initial payment of £9.76 to cover the first few days of the outage, the payment trigger time. Thereafter it is a calendar day rate of £9.76 for each full day until the fault is fixed. You need to phone in the fault to VM to start the compo clock ticking or use one of the automated tests to acknowledge the issue.
VM has 30 days from when your service is restored to credit your account with any compo due. Many dozens of past topics on here describe VM support agents failing to apply the compensation scheme correctly and either invent their own lesser amount of compo or try to come up with a figure based on package price. Legitimate ways VM can reduce/avoid payouts are in para 40 above.
So, if you had a TLS for 14+ days and you reported to VM in the correct way right at the start then the auto comp would apply.
An easy read summary is here
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/service-quality/automatic-compensation-need-know/
Work out what you think you are due, in line with the scheme, and make sure you get that. If you don't think you have received what is due you can escalate to the ombudsman. The reports, on here, of those who have used the service have said it was a fair and accessible process.
The VM forum team will reply here in due course and may be able to bypass all of the above to ensure you are paid correctly but, while waiting, there is a useful post below on how to prepare evidence for the ombudsman.
the above was actually for an installation issue but the same principles apply to claiming for a fault.
