We have been without a landline, internet and TV for 83 days and counting, because Virgin Media has been unable to connect us after we moved house. In the meantime, I’m being billed for services I can’t access. I’ve tried cancelling the direct debit but that means that every time I phone customer service, I’m automatically sent a link for payment and the call is terminated. If I call back, I’m automatically routed to the collections department, which tells me there is no outstanding balance on my account. I’ve had to pay the bills because I feel I’m being held to ransom.
IR, Macclesfield, Cheshire
It’s heartening that Virgin Media can act speedily when it wants to. It activated your payments in a trice and helped itself to the £39.50 monthly fee with efficiency. Activating your service was lower down the priority list. It had supplied the previous owner of your house, but problems with the cabling linking your property to the cabinet were identified three days after your service was due to start. A team turned up to relay them, but encountered blockages. Spade work was needed. That required a different team. Council permits were granted for the work, but noone showed up. No one showed up on three different dates.
You had to spend nearly £100 for two months’ unreliable access to BT hotspots, burning through your mobile phone data, forcing you to upgrade to an unlimited package at triple your original tariff. Virgin Media managed to dispatch blokes with shovels the day after I raised your plight and you were connected that day. It blamed “extensive” damage to the cabling and unforeseen “additional works”. What it doesn’t explain was why those additional works were only completed when publicity loomed. “We apologise to IR for the delay in installing his services, which are now working as they should,” it says. “In light of the poor customer experience, we’ve provided a refund for the amount he’s paid so far, and he has also received full auto-compensation to cover the period he was without our services.”
Automatic compensation under Ofcom rules is £9.33 a day and you’ve been paid £830.37 in additional expenses and goodwill, on top of the refund of your monthly service charges which means, in effect, you get the contract for free.
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