No Virgin Media Broadband or TV for 3 weeks. How can I negotiate compensation?

kookamunga

Hi All,

I live in a flatshare with 3 other people (4 people total all mid-20s working professionals) and we have Virgin Media's phone, TV & broadband package. As you can imagine, we use the internet a lot in my house. My flat has been without our Broadband or TV service for over 3 weeks now. We lost our service on December 19th, I called them the next day and I scheduled for an engineer to come out and look at the connection 2 days later. 2 days later, my flatmate waited in the house for 6 hours, and no one came. When I got home that evening, I called to ask why an engineer hadn't shown up, and they said it was because the problem was affecting everyone in my post code. Ok, fair enough, they didn't need to send an engineer to look at our property, but they should have told us that no one would show up so my flatmate didn't have to take off work!

Anyway, I've called about every other day since the outage, and I always get the same thing. They always say that the broadband and TV will come back tomorrow, and it never does. They even "promise" that it'll come back tomorrow. Well, I don't really believe Virgin Media's "promises" anymore to say the least. I've managed to get them to give us about a month and a half's credit on the account, so we're not paying for a service we haven't had.

This outage has severely disrupted mine and my flatmates' lives. Not only did my flatmate that took time off to wait for the engineer that never showed up lose some of his wages (he's paid hourly), but both me and one other flatmate were very ill before the holidays. It would have been ideal for us to be able to work from home, but because the internet wasn't working, we were both forced to go into work, which prolonged the illness past Christmas. Worst of all, my last flatmate is a researcher and so works from home 50% of the time. For 3 weeks, he hasn't been able to get 50% of his work done and has affected his performance at work.

I'm so lost about what to do. We don't have a BT landline, we have a cable landline so it would take a lot of effort for us to switch to a different service provider since most companies require a BT landline to switch. I just want the internet back in my flat to be honest! Even though I've managed to get about a month and a half free, I honestly don't think this is enough to adequately compensate me and my flatmates for the amount of stress it has caused us.

So I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for what I could do. Should I switch to a different provider? Or should I stick it out, stay with Virgin and try to get as much compensation as possible? Any suggestions would be a God send!

kwikbreaks

Unfortunately I'll guarantee that somewhere in the long VM contract there'll be something about them not being liable for consequential loss. If you've managed to get longer free than time you've lost you've done quite well.

I agree you've been shabbily treated but in the words of Forest Gump - !!!! happens

spike7451

You've lost your TV & BBand.Does your cable phone still work?

Spike (ex NTL/VM Engineer)

kookamunga

spike7451 wrote: »

You've lost your TV & BBand.Does your cable phone still work?

Funny enough, yes the phone still works. We haven't had any problems with the phone - just the broadband and TV.

spike7451

kookamunga wrote: »

Funny enough, yes the phone still works. We haven't had any problems with the phone - just the broadband and TV.

So that rules out a damaged drop cable.Dose your neighbours cable still work?
I'm thinking that your CATV services has been disconnected in the street cabinet,you see if the is a outage,it'd not be confined to your postcode but everyone off the MUX DA that your cab is connected to,so it'd be a couple hundred homes that'd be affected.

I'd ask your neighbours if they are affected &,if not,I'd demand a Service Tech to call out.

Sounds like things really have got to rat poo since VM took over....

kookamunga

spike7451 wrote: »

So that rules out a damaged drop cable.Dose your neighbours cable still work?
I'm thinking that your CATV services has been disconnected in the street cabinet,you see if the is a outage,it'd not be confined to your postcode but everyone off the MUX DA that your cab is connected to,so it'd be a couple hundred homes that'd be affected.

I'd ask your neighbours if they are affected &,if not,I'd demand a Service Tech to call out.

Sounds like things really have got to rat poo since VM took over....

Good point! I hadn't thought of that! I just texted my ex-flatmate that has virgin in the same area. He said that he hasn't had any problems, but he's not on the same street. Well, that helps me realize that it's not the post code! What would you recommend I do now?

macman

If you are on a residential VM contract then you can hardly expect compensation for loss of income when working from home. Technically you would be in breach of contract anyway if you use the service for business purposes.

spike7451

kookamunga wrote: »

Good point! I hadn't thought of that! I just texted my ex-flatmate that has virgin in the same area. He said that he hasn't had any problems, but he's not on the same street. Well, that helps me realize that it's not the post code! What would you recommend I do now?

OK,so that means in all likelyhood,he is running off the same node as you are on.Just to be safe,go & ask a couple of neighbours in your street as well.They would most certainly be off the same node as you & also the same cabinet.
If their OK,then get a tech out.