How can I contact a human being at VM who can actualy help ne?

[IMJ]

WARNING

This could go on!

Despite numerous engineers' futile attempts to restore my broadband connection, I have so far been without it, and a landline, for over 12 months!

The engineers' latest belief is that there is a blockage under the pavement, somewhere in my street, which is preventing a new cable from being 'blown' through!?

I was advised by VM in the early days of lost service to continue paying my monthly subscriptions, which I have done so, as reimbursement and compensation would be calculated on resumption of service.

I purchased an alternative broadband supply, for which I pay £50+ monthly (In hindsight, I should have purchased a yearly subscription at less than half the amount!).

For the last 9 months, I have been trying to contact a human being at VM who can give me proper assistance or advice! I only want to know 2 things, 1) Will I will be reconnected in the near future? and 2) If not, how do I cancel my contract, be reimbursed 13 months subscription payments, and claim statutory compensation as advertised on the VM website!

Would prefer to remain with VM, for no other reason than they are the only suppliers of high speed broadband available in my area!

Does anyone know how I can shake them up and elicit a response? Should I 'Name & Shame' on social media? Contact Consumer Protection Agencies, or take the matter to the Small Claims Court? Any Ideas?

Thanks for reading what is a much-abridged account, Apart from hours waiting for what turns out to be utterly useless helpline advice, I also have over 300 text, Whatsapp, and email messages recorded (mostly by bot!) and 76 updates to my complaint lodged on my VM account, all of which contain phrases similar to, "We are looking into the issue" or "You will be contacted shortly"

If anyone can provide me with a direct contact number for Sir Richard, I would be most obliged!

[Andrew-G · Accepted solution]

Some thoughts below.  In summary, you're entitled to significant compensation, whether VM will reconnect you quickly or even at all is difficult to say.

1.  Branson isn't involved and doesn't care.  The Virgin brand is rented from Virgin Group, and stuck on to the UK cable business of Liberty Global.  LG execs probably know what a shambles VM is, but don't care - the focus is really on merging with O2, and then selling the business on in some structure.  By all means complain to Ofcom, and leave a Trustpilot review of your experience, but neither of those will pressure VM to act differently in the short term.

2.  If you've got a complaint over 8 week old, then you can escalate the matter to CISAS, the industry complaints adjudicator, asking for VM to be required to pull their finger out and reconnect you, to then pay compensation at the Ofcom rate of £8.40 a day.  As you've lost both broadband and phone, I'd ask for £8.40 per day for each of those, although I don't know if CISAS will agree with that.  You should additionally ask for compensation for any broken promises of call backs that never came, fix dates that came and went, rudeness, disconnections when on hold (incl Whatsapp).  You can ask for the additional refund of payments made and the alternative service you've put in, I doubt you'll get everything, but even so you should still be looking at a minimum of £3k, just based on a single £8.40 per day for a year.  Be as detailed and clear on the background and summarise the number of contacts, the whole customer experience you've had, and spell out what you'd like as a resolution - the onus on you is to build a case.   

3.  In terms of genuinely expediting the reconnection, don't get your hopes up - previous evidence in this forum in relation to blocked ducts, new installations, repairs and repulls shows that nobody has a clue, nobody can bypass the system (including CEO complaints), and the system works at its own erratic rate.  There are other members of this forum who have waited 13 months for a new connection (and are still waiting).  Out of polite interest, exactly how long have you been without service?

4.  VM are misers, and will want to pay any amount as a credit against your VM account.  Make the CISAS complaint include the request that you want compensation paid by cheque.  

5.  Potentially VM can say "not economic, not going to reconnect you".  In this case you're still entitled to compensation until VM have issued a formal "cease notice" in line with Ofcom rules, AND until they have arranged suitable alternative provision.  Simply saying that they won't reconnect you isn't enough to stop the compo accumulating.  If it comes to this I'd be arguing that suitable alternative provision is that they can pay for an Openreach FTTP on demand installation to give you equivalent speeds, although they'll fight that.

6.  Forum staff here can try and make enquiries, and are as helpful as they're allowed to be, but in practice this is often limited - Area Field Managers often ignore email enquiries from this team, any promises they can elicit from the area team remain the same works of fiction that you'll already have heard.

[Paulina_Z]

Hi @IMJ,

Welcome to our Community Forums! Thank you for your first post and I'm very sorry to hear about your experience with our team and your ongoing connection issues! I can completely understand how frustrating this must have been for you. I do apologise that this problem is still ongoing and you're having to chase our team up for this problem.

I'll be more than happy to investigate what happened and so my best to assist you and have this issue resolved.

I will send you a Private Message to have this issue looked into further. Please keep an eye out for a purple envelope at the top right corner of your Forum page. I will be in touch soon.

Thank you.

[IMJ]

Thanks for the enlightening reply.

Sounds like I shouldn't get my hopes up!

In answer to your question, I've had no service since 2nd June last year.

[Andrew-G]

Thirteen months come next Saturday.  How can any company be this shambolic and still be in business?