Wired booster

[Chrispye]

My wired booster has blown.

I can't get through to virgin, how do I get them to send me another?

I presume its free as they own the equipment 

Thank you

[Andrew-G]

When you say "blown", do you mean simply not working, or do you mean it actually went bang, or emitted sparks, flames or smoke?

Read this post for advice if it was a potential fire risk.  I'll leave it to forum staff to resolve the replacement booster - but don't get your hopes up - previous posts indicate that if your current package includes free wifi pods then you'll have no problem, if it doesn't then VM will turn round and say that you'll have to pay extra.

[Chrispye]

Yes sorry

I have been away and had everything turned off. Came home yesterday and turned the socket back on and the unit sparked and smoked.

Now it is no longer working

[Andrew-G · Accepted solution]

OK, then report that to Citizens Advice as per the linked post, and let us know if you think that you're being fobbed off.  These crappy fire risk boosters have been failing in this way for years now, and the company have resolutely failed to act.

The failure of VM to act in response to many reports here of fiery boosters would seem to me to be a straightforward breach of Section 7 (3) of the General Product Safety Regulations 2005

[Molly_T]

Hi Chris, welcome to the community! Thank you for posting. 

Really sorry to hear about your booster, I will send you a PM to confirm a few account details and offer support with this! You will find the PM in the top right corner of the page in your Inbox. 

We can then return to this public thread with an update where possible. 

All the best!

[Chrispye]

I have had a message and have passed on my account ect.

Gone quiet but at least I have had a reply. See what happens.

Thank you for help

[Chrispye]

Still no reply, 

That's 6 hours with poor Internet in most my house. 

Do virgin work Saturday afternoon / sundays or will I have to wait till Monday now?

[Ayisha_B]

Hi @Chrispye,

I can see Molly has been working with you via PM regarding this issue. If you do need to discuss anything further, just pop her a message and she'll be happy to help further.

Thank you

[DavidOrmond]

There used to be many many of these reports on this forum each identifying a fire risk with VM's wifi booster. These have now all been "archived" and are no longer visible. I can only assume Virgin Media are hiding the true extent of this issue. How many people have had their lives put in danger by these defective units and VM just don't care? 

I had the same issue. i managed to get to it before it actually went up in flames, VM gave me the run around and refused to resolve the issue. I eventually got passed to their legal team who - surprise surprise - did nothing. I got email after email saying they were passing the issue to the right team, but took no action apart from clearing out the forums of any trace of this issue. 

This is a serious fault that needs to be resolved. VM need to get all of these defective units out of service NOW before someone gets killed

How long before this message gets "archived" I wonder.

If anyone finds this message and has had the same problem, ask to speak to VM's legal department. or just email defence@virginmedia.co.uk or insuredclaims@libertyglobal.com and also contact your MP to get this raised in parliament.