Unresolved Issues with Virgin Broadband Service and Lack of Compensation

[Detrece]

Account number: [removed]

I first got my Virgin broadband disconnected on the 12th of February 2024. An engineer came 2 days later. After checking, the engineer found out that the internet cable was passing underneath a neighbour's garden, and the neighbour had cut it off while doing jobs in the garden. The engineer assured me, "do not worry, we will sort it out," with an estimated time of approximately 2 weeks.

After 2 weeks, I contacted customer services by phone. They told me it would take another 2 weeks and that I would be eligible for compensation. After another 2 weeks, I contacted the engineer who said it would be fixed in another 2 weeks. This pattern of two-week delays continued until the 26th of May 2024, when I requested to cancel the service.

In total, I have paid £191.93 for no service, no compensation, just excuses, and constant promises that it "will be done in two weeks."

After cancelling, a lady from Virgin called. She asked for the reasons behind my cancellation. I explained that I had no service since mid-February and had been paying for a service I did not receive. She assured me that I would definitely get a compensation for all the trouble and apologized for what happened.

As of today, the 24th of July 2024, I still have not received any communication from Virgin regarding the compensation. I have already returned the router, and I am £191.93 out of pocket for nothing.

This has been a very awful experience with Virgin.

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[goslow]

If you phoned in the fault on 12/2/24 and you cancelled on 26/05/2024 that is 104 days. You (presumably) had to give 30 days notice from 26/5/24 and you would still be paying your subscription to VM. That comes to 134 days (minus 1 day of the payment trigger time when VM failed to repair) = 133 days

Day rate for a TLS was £9.33 in 2023/24 year so 133 x 9.33 = £1240.89

You can add in £29.15 per missed appointment when VM said you had to be in but failed to turn up. Adjust the calc's accordingly if I have misunderstood the timeline of events.

Have you had your final bill from VM and are your dealings with VM done from that side (apart from the compo)?

If your (administrative) disconnection date, after 30 days notice, with VM was 25/06/2024 VM has to credit your account within 30 days of that (which should be 25/7/24, tomorrow) if your account is still open. If the account is closed you cannot receive a bill credit as part of the leaving process so VM has to send you a cheque.

Needless to say VM will not do any of the above and will deny any liability to pay you anything or will try to reduce what it actually owes, based on many similar past topics on here. They will use a range of dubious excuses to avoid paying.

Have you made a formal complaint to VM first of all? You have to do that as a first step but inevitably you will have to go to the ombudsman to get paid whatever you are due by following the processes and timescales here

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

Don't delay waiting around for VM. They will likely close your formal complaint quickly with a meaningless 'resolution'. From there reject the resolution and go to the ombudsman via a deadlock letter.

Don't be put off by the process here is the most recent similar topic where the customer got a good outcome for a delayed installation

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/QuickStart-set-up-and/compensation-for-delay-in-broadband-insta...

and there are some good tips on how to process the ombudsman claim

[Carley_S]

Hi @Detrece 

Welcome to the community forums 

So sorry to hear of the issues you've had with resolving a damaged cable that ran through a neighbours garden. Sounds like we weren't able to obtain all the wayleave permissions to work on the area. 

We can certainly look into this further for you at our side. 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.