Virgin Media engineer caused damage to our property - advice please!

db9429

Hi everyone

I’m in a bit of a tricky situation with Virgin Media.

During the installation of broadband, they drilled through a wall and into the back of a radiator on the other side, which caused quite a lot of (dirty/gunky) water damage to the wall, carpet and skirting board.

The timeline is as follows:

22/05/19: the date of the incident. We had no hot water afterwards. In the evening a Dyno Plumbing engineer came over - the central heating was making funny noises so he refilled and hot water started working again.

27/05/19: we submitted a complaint and promised a call back in 48h

29/05/19: no callback - another complaint submitted and promised a call back within 24h

30/05/19: no callback - contacted complaints team and promised a call back in 5-7 days

03/06/19: we followed up again but no further information

04/06/19: a Virgin Media engineer visited to assess the damage

10/06/19: a 3rd-party contractor, NWMS Facilities, arrived to assess the damage. They advised that a new radiator is necessary. (an interesting aside: they said that after visiting us they’ve got another house to visit with exactly the same issue just down the road - a VM engineer drilling into a radiator!). Between this day and the next time they arrived, further water had leaked, and we applied our best efforts to soak it up.

19/06/19: NWMS returned with a new radiator, but didn’t install due to the damage of the carpet, skirting board & wall and that they would need to replace/fix before the installation. We did not ask them to do this - it was their decision after the NWMS engineers spoke to their head office. They advised that they had carte blanche from Virgin Media to resolve the issue - whatever the cost (though, I acknowledge that they can’t speak on behalf of VM). They removed the old radiator but left the new one leant up against the wall (not attached/plumbed in).

30/06/19: we submitted another complaint to Virgin Media

05/07/19: another Virgin Media engineer visited to assess the damage

11/07/19: we submitted ANOTHER complaint to Virgin Media as we’d received no contact

17/07/19: we sent a formal letter of complaint with the above timeline and specifying our intent for claiming compensation for: restricted use of our living room for 2 months, time spent on the issue and the cash equivalent of installation of new radiator, supply and fit new carpet, making good/replacing skirting board, reasonable decoration costs as necessary. Sent recorded delivery, but didn’t arrive.

19/07/19: we received a template letter from Virgin Media - dated 18/07 - advising that we could escalate the case to an Alternative Dispute Resolution service - CICAS - but because our issue isn’t with the broadband service, we can’t. Aside: we had initially assumed this was a direct response to our letter dated 17/07, but we found later that ours hadn't arrived.

31/07/19: We sent a follow-up letter. Our intent here was to advise that we would commence legal proceedings. This time it was sent Special Delivery with guaranteed delivery by 1 PM. This too didn’t arrive (it seems to have been bouncing between Tyneside and Swansea - there was a mail redirection in place and it didn’t make it any further than the Delivery Office)

Of course, there’s no way to speak to Virgin Media about this without trying various tricks (ie pretending to cancel the service on the phone) - but it just ends up with false promises of a callback.

Now we’re at a complete loss as to what we can do and the musty smell in the living room is getting worse. We were advised by CAB that we should send 2 letters before commencing legal action, but as neither of them arrived - despite sending recorded/Special Delivery - we’re not sure where we stand.

If you’ve made it this far - thanks for your time! If this was you - what would your next move be? Straight to small claims? Or another attempt at communicating with them?

photome

have you searched on here, someone else had property damaged by VM . he had to take them to court, I believe he won


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5892448/help-with-virgin-claim-going-to-court&highlight=virgin+media

tacpot12

Did you send the Letters Before Action to Virgin Media's Registered Address?

If so, then you don't need the letters to arrive. The Civil Procedure Rules assume the postal service doesn't loose mail. You just need the proof of posting.

db9429

@photome - thanks very much indeed for the link to that thread. It sounds like a very similar situation to mine.

@tacpot12 - thanks. I got a little lost on the Civil Procedure Rules when I looked just now. The letters were sent to the complaints PO Box address... which isn't their HQ address. Does it specifically need to be sent to their registered address, do you know? It might be an idea for me to do that anyway as a last-ditch attempt to get a response from them.

db9429

@photome - I read the entire thread and was full of great nuggets of advice.

@tacport - I think I'm going to resend the letters via 1st class to their complaints dept. Something in the thread @photome provided indicated that non-delivered signed-for/special delivery letters do prove that I posted the letter, but also prove that they didn't arrive. Sending 1st class and just getting proof of postage is in fact even better as - like you suggested - it's assumed that they were delivered after 2 days. Also, it's perhaps even more likely they will actually be delivered.

wesleyad

Yeah that thread was good, I still cant believe VM were so stubborn about the whole thing. I hope it goes easier for you

db9429

Hi all - I just thought I would drop an update for reference.

Yesterday (5 months after the original incident) we finally got a call from VM about where to pay the money to - to the tune of over £2k!

A quick summary:

- I resent the Letter Before Action via first class non-recorded (we went multiple letters before that were recorded delivery but they mysteriously never arrived - so in effect I had proof of these letters NOT arriving!)

- after no response, we were able to start the small claims process online via Money Claims Online (very easy - although I was advised that the amounts we were claiming for were fairly “rough” at this stage and that we could change them later so I put in the amount from the only quote that we had received at that point which turned out to be v low in comparison to others - and it turned out that you couldn’t change the amount later - perhaps different if we had gone to court)

- at this point VM had the opportunity to make an offer out of court or dispute - they did neither! We had to wait a few more weeks before we could take more action.

- eventually we were offered the option to take out a CCJ against VM - which we did.

- I believe once this was in place - and still with radio silence from VM - we could request a Warrant of Control which means sending the bailiffs to VM to recover costs - again, we did this. It was about a week or so after this that we got a call from VM asking where the money should be paid to.

So overall a success - although the amount of time and effort that me and my partner put in to this matter takes the shine off! VM are a despicable company who knew they’d screwed up, had no way to dispute it and so decided to just drag their heels (and then eventually totally ignore us!) in the hopes that it would shake us off.

This whole thing looked like an incredibly daunting process at first, but looking back it was fairly straightforward, albeit time consuming. I think the person in the other thread was eventually able to reclaim the cost of repairs for damage that VM caused to their property, but in exchange for that “privilege”, VM silenced them. That wasn’t the case for me, so ask me anything!

Paul_DNAP

That's a nice result, but it's still utterly appalling that they made you go through all that just for them to set right their own error.

db9429

Yeah. I can understand them having no incentive to respond all the while it was within the remit of their complaints process - they didn’t really have anyone to hold them accountable, but surely at the point of a small claims case being raised and with me having a ton of proof, they should’ve responded and probably tried to negotiate an out of court settlement. It’s so bizarre that they let it get to the point of bailiffs visiting their premises!

Now we’ve been told by their finance team that we have to wait another 4 weeks for payment - assuming there’s no fun and games there! I think by the time we book plumbers and builders in to fix it all it will be about that time anyway, but still - that will over 6 months of having only partial use of our room due to the damage!

photome

Thanks for the update, shocking how these large companies think they can get away with everything

PaulDK

Just wondering here, Virgin Media have layed cables down our road in Rydal Avenue, Blackpool. They have also damaged the cladding on the corner of our property, and left dirty tarmac fingerprints all over the cream outside walls. We complained to Virgin media who contacted the contractors and the day after (20/12/2019), they came out promising us that they would make amends by repairing the cladding and cleaning the wall and marks off it. Nothing has been done since. Emails sent off to them, nothing back. Contacted by phone again.. fobbed off that someone will be in touch.. still nothing. Where do we stand please..?..