Auto Compensation Scheme

[maryann17]

Soooo .. after being a customer of Virgin Media for 17 years .. (was with them back in the Eurobell/Telewest days too) I have now cancelled my services and switched to a new supplier.  I can honestly say that I had never had a bad experience with VM and that their CS was always fantastic .. until Dec 2022!  My TV and Internet services were awful non-existent, a technician visited in late Dec and replaced the TV box and some cabling and detected a serious fault with the exterior cable to my house which was shredded.  His handheld computer thing literally showed all red alerts and he said the worst he had seen was minus 4 mine was reading at minus 16!  Anyway it was booked in for January.  No one arrived, date changed to end of Jan.  Work couldn’t be done as a construction team was needed.  A new date of early Feb was arranged.  No one showed.  End of Feb .. No one showed.  Early March, (appointment booked for mid March) a team appeared outside digging and banging about and went. Mid March told appointment changed to 24th March - No one showed.  After various calls etc I was told work was scheduled for 4th April.  2nd April I get a text an engineer will be coming out 3rd April.  No one showed.  Work then scheduled for 13th April.  Online complaints x2 done.  I called and asked to speak to management or someone from complaints, told if I didn’t like the services I can always leave!  And that I couldn’t speak to anyone higher but they would call me in 48hrs!  No Call came!  By this point I have had enough and called and cancelled my services.  Absolute nightmare and literally been told so many lies it’s just ridiculous.  My complaint was sent to Ofcom and the automatic compensation scheme.  I received a call on Monday 10th April saying she was from complaints and was sorting final details of compensation and that she would call me back by the end of the next day with an update.  Surprise surprise NO call.  However I have been bombarded with calls from disconnections and sales teams asking me to stay and they can offer me £4.50 per month off my bill 😂  Sooo now it’s a waiting game to find out what, if any compensation is going to be paid.  And to top it off my bill has just come in payment has always been at end of the month and I’m now being bombarded with texts and notifications that my bill is overdue and I risk my services being restricted 🤣 honestly can’t make this sh*tshow up!  How long does this compo thing normally take?  Roll on 7th May when I’m free of this circus and move to my new supplier! 

[John_GS]

Hi @maryann17 

Thanks for posting and welcome to the community.

I am very sorry to hear of this experience and will PM you now to assist further.

Best wishes.

[goslow]

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@maryann17 wrote:

Soooo .. after being a customer of Virgin Media for 17 years .. (was with them back in the Eurobell/Telewest days too) I have now cancelled my services and switched to a new supplier.  <snip>

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Sadly, your story is very familiar on here. VM's bungling, and that of its sub-contractors, in the matter of cable replacement and installation is well documented on the forums.

You should familiarise yourself with the compensation scheme, if you haven't already

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0026/216962/Industry-Code-of-Practice-for-Automatic-...

and rates from April 2023 below

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/costs-and-billing/automat...

prior rates were TLS £8.40/day, Missed appt £26.24/incident, Activation delay £5.25/day

Next work out your own timeline of VM's failures and, using the above, calculate what you think you are owed.

The scheme applies to a 'total loss of service' of phone or broadband (TV isn't covered and the day rate is the same for either service or both together). A TLS is defined in the OFCOM PDF para 23.

There are many past topics on here where VM has tried to dodge paying the correct compensation by means of a range of bizarre excuses and irrelevant claims.

If the compensation offered does not match what you think you are owed, you would need to submit a formal complaint to VM first of all (a required formality which is unlikely to come to anything useful). Then, VM has up to 8 weeks to resolve, or after issuing a deadlock letter, you can go to Ombudsman Services for arbitration.

https://www.ombudsman-services.org/

[maryann17]

Hi John, Thankyou for your email regarding the above issue.  I can confirm that finally work was completed and my services are all working well.  Regarding the £58.49 credit as a good will gesture, I would like to accept and would like this credited to my account please.  Thankyou 

[John_GS]

Hi @maryann17 

I'll send you a PM to discuss this further.

Best wishes.

[John_GS]

Thanks for joining me on PM and allowing me to sort this for you.

Do pop back to the community forums if you ever need anything.

Best wishes.