Virgin refused to pay an automatic compensation

[Zulfiya]

Hi I’ve encountered internet outage for 15 days back in July , it was complete loss of internet for 15 days and I was assured that I’ll be given auto compensation when issues will be fixed. Every day I was texted the same template message that it will be fixed by 2pm and saga continued for 2 weeks. Then when internet was up and running I contacted customer relationship and every single time struggled to get to the bottom of sorting this out. I appreciate I was given some will of gesture compensation of £25 but it’s not what I was expecting to receive in the end. It’s clearly outlined on your website and your forum that daily compensation would be £9.33 per day and according my expectations I was hoping to get something around £140 in the end. I have a vulnerable child at home and this situation put me under stress even more, I wasn’t able to keep up with the hospital appointments which I get the letters via email. This wasn’t taken into consideration either. My couple of neighbours few floors up in the same block of flats were entitled to a compensation and I’m shocked that Virgin Media is not complying with their promises reasoning this that they don’t guarantee seamless service. I’d like to take this to regulators or ombudsmen but still didn’t receive deadlock letter and guidance from Virgin in order for me to proceed with this. I was hoping to give it a last chance through this community. 

[Vinegar]

Firstly, take a deep breath, get a pen a paper and write down exactly what date your internet connection went down, when it was restored, when did you have contact with VM, what was said, what actually happened?

Yes you shouldn’t have to do this (automatic compensation being the operative term), but, based on other people’s posts on here, VM seem to regard this as more of an inconvenience to be ignored rather than an obligation.

But, let’s be reasonable people, no and see if the forum team, (VM employees), when they get to this thread can sort it out. Otherwise, post back on here with any results and many of us can advise you as to how to escalate it.

[Roger_Gooner]

Note that automatic compensation kicks in two full working days from registering the loss of service to VM.

[goslow]

This kind of story is repeated on here often. Customer has a total loss of service (TLS), VM CS agent says they will offer a 'goodwill' gesture (much less that the auto comp scheme says is due), actual compensation due is ignored. However, details are everything in working out what you might be due.

You need to have phoned in to report your TLS or used one of VM's online automated tests to register the fault and start the compo clock ticking.

VM gets two clear working days to fix the fault. If they fail to do that at the end of the second working day you get an initial payment of £9.33 for the first few days of the outage. After that it is £9.33 per full day until the fault is fixed.

Often the VM forum team can/do deal with compensation issues and put them right. If not, your next steps would be a formal complaint to VM (which is a required first step but very likely to be unproductive).

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

After 8 weeks from when you first formally complained to VM, or earlier with a deadlock letter, you can go to arbitration

https://www.commsombudsman.org/

[Robert_P]

Hello Zulfiya,

We're sorry to hear of the initial service issues and also the problems getting this looked into, we appreciate you taking the time to post this via our forums and welcome to the community.

We’re eager to assist with this, I will send you a Private Message to get some more details from you so keep an eye out for the envelope in the top right when signed into the forums.

Rob