no automatic compensation credited

[PP13]

The 12th August was the date given to me for installation of my new Virgin broadband. The date was postponed 3 times and the installation finally happened on the 4th september . Their automatic compensation scheme says they will pay £5.83 per day until installation. 

I went on their ridiculous Whatsapp chat on the 13th september and two hours later they agreed to pay £73.50 which is what i had to pay to stay with Sky while they were getting their act together. When I said "actually shouldn't it be £5.83 per day and the guy signed off. It was never credited to my account. Since then I have whatsapped them 3 times. On another occasion they said they had already refunded the £73.50 but they hadn't and when I asked about the rest, they just lodged a complaint C-1309231333 which never got a reply at any point.

On tuesday 3rd October I waited for a reply on whatsapp for 7 hours then had to go to bed. On the 4th october they contacted me at 7.30 in the morning saying their guys come on at 8, do I still need help? yes, 3 hours later another agent agreed to the £73.50 credit and told me to talk to Ofcom about the rest (nonsense). Once again it was not credited.

On the 6th of October I threatened to cancel and they switched me to Web chat conversation "which will be 3 x faster than whatsapp". 2 hours later still not heard and my account has not been credited.  Should I just cancel the direct debit? Why is it so hard for them ? Surely they lose half of their customer every 2 years with this apalling customer service. It seems like a ridiculous business model.

[Kain_W]

Hi PP13,

Thanks for your post and welcome to the community.

I'd like to extend our apologies for the issues faced with this, from checking our service I can see you've recently been in contact with the team.

Have you received a bill since the credit was agreed? As this would be reflected on the bill due to be generated.

Regards,

[goslow]

The 'automatic' compensation scheme is not quite as automatic as you might hope for in the case of VM because VM's scheme includes a few add-on embellishments to the OFCOM minimum requirements with the aim of reducing, or avoiding, pay-outs for VM.

Have a look through the OFCOM minimum requirements document (para 9)

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

which refers to 'the date initially confirmed in writing' when VM said it would 'activate' your services.

Seems simple enough but VM has created the idea of a 'provisional' installation date (para 1) in VM's scheme

https://www.virginmedia.com/legal/fibre-optic-services-terms-conditions/automatic-compensation

Whether or not this has any relevance to your compensation may possibly need to go to arbitration to be tested.

Past arbitration judgements, which have made their way back on here, have dismissed the 'provisional' installation date idea when VM never made it clear the date was provisional or when VM kept providing installation dates when there was no prospect of an installation happening (for example, because a cable was yet to be laid).

Some past arbitration cases though do seem to have considered the idea of 'provisional' and made deductions accordingly.

VM has 30 days to credit your account with the compo from the day your service went active. If you are in between bills then you could maybe look in 'My Virgin Media' for any credits in the usage charges section perhaps.

In all likelihood, you won't have been credited with anything at all and will need to lodge a formal complaint first of all about the missing credit. Then 8 weeks later, or earlier with a deadlock letter, you can go to arbitration.

https://www.commsombudsman.org/

Hopefully you have been keeping a detailed record of events (dates, times of all calls, messages, texts etc. along with any missed appointments and failed appointments where someone turns up but no work was carried out). Keep the record in a timeline format with links from the timeline to each piece of recorded evidence. This will make it easy for you in the future to put forward a case to arbitration for the correct compensation, should that be necessary.

Some past topics below (similar circumstances) may offer you some encouragement that the arbitration process can produce results. It costs you nothing (other than time/effort) but costs VM to process each case.

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/QuickStart-set-up-and/Compensation-awarded-by-CISAS-after-faile...

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/QuickStart-set-up-and/Pre-Pull-Nightmare/m-p/5275679#M226421

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/Compensation-Scheme/m-p/5304899#M22...

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/QuickStart-set-up-and/Compensation-advice-please/m-p/5326587#M2...

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/Compensation/m-p/5375731#M236832

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/QuickStart-set-up-and/Waiting-for-pre-installation-work-can-I-c...

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/QuickStart-set-up-and/My-Install-Tale-of-Woe-Since-October-So-F...