Compensation Owed

[alexstillx]

I am owed over £800 from Virgin Media in compensation, and need to speak to someone about how to go about claiming this / logging a complaint, as I have been told by multiple people at their call centre that we have been rejected compensation as they cannot find record of our initial missed appointment or the endless issues we had, despite waiting around 5 months to get set up after moving (I was an existing customer at my previous address). 

I was moving on 19th June and had booked a Virgin engineer to come on that afternoon and just install our existing box that we had at our old address. They did not show up on the day and did not contact me - this alone warrants £25 compensation per Virgin's Automatic Compensation Scheme. I called Virgin that evening and they rebooked the appointment for a few weeks later. It later transpired that external works were required to get us set up at our new address. I then had months of failed external appointments, no communication from Virgin, and me having to personally call the third party company that handles their external works to find out what was going on. This is all while me and my partner are attempting to work from home, spending a fortune on 4G because Virgin did not offer a dongle / SIM card for 4G until earl November. We finally got set up on 26th November.

Virgin's automatic compensation scheme states that we are entitled to £5.04 per day from a missed installation appointment until we are set up (159 days), + £25 for the initial missed appointment, totalling £826.36.

It seems the reason Virgin can't find record of our missed appointment in June is because when we moved, they ended our account and closed down our account, saying we would get set up with a new account at our new address. I do not have access to this old account as I don't remember the password. According to the person I spoke to on the phone, I will have to have a password reminder sent out to my old address, travel there, request the current tenants to let me in to the building look for the letter, in the hopes that there is record of the missed June appointment on that account. This seems extremely unreasonable to ask of a customer to me, especially since there is no guarantee there will be record of the missed appointment there, plus the record of an appointment at my new address should be under my new account anyway, so comes down to poor record keeping by Virgin.

Many thanks,

Alex S

[goslow]

If you have not done so already, do have a really good read through the T&Cs and all the small-print of the compensation scheme.

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/automatic-compensation

https://store.virginmedia.com/the-legal-stuff/terms-and-conditions-for-fibre-optic-services/automati...

There are plenty of get-out clauses for VM to avoid paying under certain circumstances.

From the posts on here, there are numerous examples of VM CS on the phone giving out wildly in accurate information.

In the meantime you should set about gathering all your evidence together as to what happened (dates, times visits etc.). Presumably you will have records of texts etc. for appointment bookings etc.

You could also submit a DSAR to obtain VM information on you

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/dsar

You should be able to submit your complaint via 'My Virgin Media' (assuming the revised version is actually working today). VM have 8 weeks to respond and you can then submit to CISAS for arbitration. If it looks like VM are dragging their feet then request a deadlock letter and you can then go to CISAS

https://www.cedr.com/consumer/cisas/complainnow/

Before doing any of the above though, wait for a VM forum team member to respond here to see if they can provide some more helpful input.

[alexstillx]

Thank you. It should be said as well that my upstairs neighbor has waited less time than us and has been given his owed compensation. 

[gary_dexter]

I don’t believe any compo is owed under the scheme if it involves third-party works that are delayed:

2.  If you require an engineer installation, we’ll arrange the most convenient date. If at the point of placing your order, we’re aware of any additional engineering work required in order to provide the service – such as the premises to our network, it may require third party permissions or permits outside of our control. In which case, we’ll provide a provisional activation date, but we may need to contact you to let you know if we need to confirm a different install date. If we have to change a provisional activation date, this will not trigger a credit under the scheme.

[Kath_F]

Hi alexstillx, 

Thanks for your post and apologies to hear you've been having an issue since trying to move home. 

Any automatic compensation is assessed at the time. As soon as the installation appointment was moved, the account would go through the assessment and if payable, the credit is then added automatically. 

If this hasn't been added then it would mean you were not eligible for the compensation I'm afraid. 

I haven't been able to look fully at the account as the only one I can find based on your forum credentials is a non-serve account. I'd like to confirm some information with you to allow me to check on things more thoroughly for you. I have sent you a private message regarding this. Just click on the little plum envelope at the top right-hand side of the page to access your inbox.

Thanks, 

[alexstillx]

Thanks Gary, but our neighbor was given compensation and went through the exact same ordeal. 

[Kath_F]

Hi Alex, 

As mentioned previously in private message, it may seem like the same situation but it may be different. 

As we don't have your neighbours account, we're not able to comment on it. 

I have given you the terms and conditions and reasons why your account is not eligible for the compensation. If you would like to appeal then please follow the instruction in the PM I sent you. 

I can only apologise that we're unable to help any further on this occasion. 

Take care and good luck going forward. 

Many thanks, 

[alexstillx]

Hi Kath,

Other than maybe some small technicalities like one missed call that Virgin seem to be clinging on to,  I think it's clear that the situations are identical. Are there any details I could give you of my neighbors account that would enable you to discuss it with me? We're friendly and in fact have bonded over this nightmare. He would be happy to help.

Best,

Alex

[alexstillx]

Just thought i'd post our message here to hear the community's thoughts:

Please can you explain how the appointment can be considered to be rescheduled if the customer has not been notified in any way? I had no text / email / voicemail that told me the appointment was not taking place and was rescheduled, all I have is your word that it was rescheduled. The fact that Virgin attempted to make contact once about rescheduling is not good enough to now be the grounds to deny this much compensation. This is a total scam. 

Imagine for instance I turn up for a haircut appointment, and when I arrive they tell me that my appointment has been rescheduled, and they tried to call me once but when they didn't get through they just left it at that. That is clearly not right and unacceptable communication for a paying customer. Surely you can understand where I'm coming from and agree this is not ok?

Thanks,

Alex

[goslow]

---

@alexstillx wrote:

Just thought i'd post our message here to hear the community's thoughts: <snip>

---

Do you actually have some evidence yourself that VM tried to contact you as claimed, such as a missed call notification, text or similar?

VM do frequently claim this 'failed contact' excuse, as reported by customers on here quite often in relation to complaints, but VM don't seem to have realised that the customer will normally receive some kind of 'failed contact' notification such as a missed call message or text or that voicemail is a thing!

Sometimes topics and discussion on here do run into a deadlock situation early on and yours looks like it is going to be one of those. If that is so then, rather than pressing on with further effort on here, you should probably devote your energies to the complaints process described at #2 above.

The complaints process to VM first of all will, most likely, be just a formality and will probably be closed quickly/automatically by VM so request a deadlock letter ASAP and move on to the CISAS complaints process. The odds of success there are weighted in favour of the customer if VM do have a case to answer.

Do, however, make sure you read through all of the T&Cs of the compensation scheme to make sure your case fits the requirements and is not thwarted by one of the many get-out clauses for VM to use.

In regard to delays by third parties, that would be things like waiting for a council permit where VM has no control. Delays by VM's own sub-contractors should be under VM's own control/influence. If delays caused by the council do form any part of the overall delay, do make your own checks with the council as to when permits were applied for/granted as past topics on here have reported that the council's version of events and timelines and VM's have not sometimes matched each other.