Installation delayed by 5 months no end in sight - VM hasn't even applied for works permit

Hi TheAnointed 

Welcome to the community forums 

So sorry to hear that your install has been delayed due to the permits and permissions not being requested/granted. 
We can take a look at our side to see what has been noted and raise to the correct team depending on what is happening on the account. 

I must advise that we aren't able to speed up anything through the forums, but we can certainly ensure that all that is needed is raised to the correct team so they can provide any available updates and chase any construction work needed. 

Please join me on private message so I can locate your account and pass account security. You can see your private messages at the top of the page, in the envelope icon or if you're using a smaller device, you can see your private messages by clicking on the Virgin Media logo at the top right and select 'Messages' from the drop down. 

Hi all, further to the above my service finally went live on Friday the 10th of May - 234 days later than promised. In addition I spent several fruitless hours on the phone to customer service trying to work out why my install wasn't happening, endured a month without any internet in the house, and stayed home for 2 engineer visits that were cancelled without notice (or communication). 

Under the current automatic compensation scheme pricing I believe I'm due £1427 approx + £60 for the missed engineer visits without notice (and that's without anyone throwing in anything extra for the pain and irritation...)

I lodged a complaint a long time ago and have now had a really strange letter denying compensation because "the account was not liable for the auto compensation scheme". Some of the letter is close to gibberish - it doesn't sound like an English speaker wrote it. 

I'm not sure where to go from here... Try Virgin again or just go straight to the Communications Ombudsman? Can anyone who's had a similar experience advise me? Thanks!

We have seen this description plenty of times on here in regards to compensation. Don't be put off.

The nonsense 'resolution' replies at the end of a VM complaint are also well-documented on here.

VM has two regular go-to excuses to try to dodge paying. The first is to try to blame 'council permits' for the delay. VM can, legitimately, reduce (but not totally cancel) compensation if part of the delay was due to waiting for a third party. VM's usual routine is to try to blame the whole of a very long delay on the council. Savvy customers, such as yourself, are able to disprove any such claims by contacting their council directly.

VM's second go-to excuse is to claim your installation date was only ever 'provisional' (which is likely what the reference to "the account was not liable for the auto compensation scheme" refers to).

The idea of a 'provisional' installation date is a nonsense that VM has invented to avoid paying out. Usually the ombudsman dismisses VM's claims but sometimes the ombudsman has considered VM's provisional claim. In that case, much was made of what the customer was told along the way while waiting for the installation to happen.

If you have your gibberish 'resolution' from VM, your next step is to reject the 'resolution' and demand a deadlock letter from VM (something they are also not good at providing). With the deadlock letter you can complain to the ombudsman as per process below

https://www.commsombudsman.org/our-process

once eight weeks has elapsed, since you complained, you can go to the ombudsman in any case (without the letter).

You need to set out your failed installation history in a timeline format (dates and times of each event in the non-installation) along with evidence linked to each events (such as texts, email, screenshots, appointment bookings etc. etc.) The adjudicator won't know anything about your case and needs an easy-read explanation to follow the sequence of events to match against the compo criteria. Past topics on here have highlighted that VM's evidence is likely to be an incoherent heap of dates and times (without any evidence to back it up).

An important date is the 'date initially confirmed in writing' when VM said it would 'activate' your service (the VM communication usually mentions something about an engineer coming to install equipment).

Sometimes VM's messages refer to needing to do outside work first of all and this is where VM will claim the install date was only ever 'provisional'.

In a past ombudsman topic, which made its way back on here, the adjudicator dismissed the provisional date claim because VM kept issuing installation dates and sending out tech's (who could not install as no cable was in place).

Take some encouragement from this topic (which AFAIK is still the record wait/compo topic) where persistence from the customer shot down all of VM's fake claims and excuses and resulted in a suitable payout

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/QuickStart-set-up-and/18-Months-later-no-connection-27-cancelled-appointments-now-quot/m-p/5510328#M245943

Good luck!

As you can imagine, I made my complaint much longer than 8 weeks ago. I'll go to the ombudsman

Please report back once you've been successful, it's good to have examples to point out to encourage others to go through the claim process. 

Good news, the Ombudsman ruled comprehensively in my favour, awarding approx £1320 for late installation, missed engineer visits without notice, and messing me about! If other forumites have questions on the outcome/process, happy to answer them. 

I now have a large credit balance I'd like to get transferred to my bank account - anyone know how I can go about getting VM to transfer it? Could the forum team help please?

Thanks all

Glad to have been able to help TheAnointed Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need any further help 🙂

Thanks,