Virgin Media contract

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BLUEYESTU

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7 Jul 2014
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Having a right battle with Virgin re their broadband contract and need some advice please blues.
We moved house yesterday, we’re currently getting our broadband through Virgin so contacted them 2 weeks ago to check they could provide the same fibre service at the new place. They said no problem; the engineer would be there to do the outdoor work on the moving day and then the indoor stuff next day. However a few days before we moved they emailed to say they won’t be coming til 7th October which is absolutely useless to us as the Mrs is a Uni lecturer and works from home. She contacted them and we were reassured it would be sorted moving day and not to worry. Needless to say they didn’t come and are now saying 8th October at the earliest because the wiring already dug into the street isn’t of the standard necessary and they need to upgrade it.
We’ve told them we can’t manage without broadband til then as she needs to be working and they offered us £40 to go out and buy a dongle to make do for a few weeks.
My question is are they breaking the terms of the contract by not providing a service to us? They insist they aren’t because they’re making steps to put things right. We can’t help thinking they should’ve told us the line dug into the street wasn’t up to standard when we first started the house move; if they had told us we could’ve looked at another provider, but apparently because we went ahead with Virgin we are now tied into the deal.
Apologies for it being very complicated but if anyone has any knowledge whether we’re being screwed or if we have a right to exit the contract then I’d be very grateful.
 
They've offered you a free dongle, which work perfectly fine for working from home and it's literally a fortnight away. Even if you go with somebody else I highly doubt you'd be up and running much sooner if any.

And after my previous dealings with Virgin they've been far better with you than they were with me.
 
We had a similar issue when we moved house about three years ago. Booked in the date and then at the last minute they changed it to a couple of weeks in the future.

We found out that Virgin had actually closed our account and had to set us up as a completely new customer, and somewhere along the way the job has been cancelled and had to be rescheduled in. They didn't class this as a loss of service, I think they probably did it on purpose to avoid paying out, but I think the compensation when I checked was like 50p a day or something silly, not even the cost of what you pay per day in a contract.

Two weeks without on demand Internet may seem like a first world problem, but at the time both of us were working from home and the offices still had post COVID restrictions in place, plus the kids were getting online assignments to submit. We had to go to places like Costa with free wifi to get things done, use our phones as wifi hotspot and increase our data plans at our own expense, and turn up at family houses for a cuppa half unexpectedly.

Seemed tough at the time but it wasn't so bad really. Virgin didn't offer us a dongle though and we lost money to online subscriptions that we just couldn't use like Disney+ for the kids.

We recently had a power cut and it knocked the router offline for a day and a half (typically it only strated working again once I'd bought a new one). With a now teenage daughter in the house, that 36 hours or so was far worse than the two weeks without any broadband when moving house.

The other thing I remember about that was when they came to finally install, they were overly insistent that we fill in the feedback form positively, even before they started the job. They must get bonuses from it or something, but I got two phone calls from the fitter in the following days to fill it in, even though I already had done.

We've had a few losses of service with virgin since, seems to coincide with when someone new moves onto the street and is connected up, which is odd. But generally they've been ok and at least we don't lose tv whenever there's a gust of wind like we used to with sky tv.
 
If it’s a new contract you’ve signed up to, I imagine you’d be able to invoke the cooling off period procedure.

If, as I suspect, you’re simply retaining an ongoing contract but moving it across to a new address, you’ll almost certainly be liable for an early termination fee if you throw your toys out of the pram and tell them to stick it.

I’d also be amazed if they haven’t legally covered themselves for cases where you’re without a service for a reasonable amount of time while they set you up at the new place.
 
BLUEYESTU said:
Having a right battle with Virgin re their broadband contract and need some advice please blues.
We moved house yesterday, we’re currently getting our broadband through Virgin so contacted them 2 weeks ago to check they could provide the same fibre service at the new place. They said no problem; the engineer would be there to do the outdoor work on the moving day and then the indoor stuff next day. However a few days before we moved they emailed to say they won’t be coming til 7th October which is absolutely useless to us as the Mrs is a Uni lecturer and works from home. She contacted them and we were reassured it would be sorted moving day and not to worry. Needless to say they didn’t come and are now saying 8th October at the earliest because the wiring already dug into the street isn’t of the standard necessary and they need to upgrade it.
We’ve told them we can’t manage without broadband til then as she needs to be working and they offered us £40 to go out and buy a dongle to make do for a few weeks.
My question is are they breaking the terms of the contract by not providing a service to us? They insist they aren’t because they’re making steps to put things right. We can’t help thinking they should’ve told us the line dug into the street wasn’t up to standard when we first started the house move; if they had told us we could’ve looked at another provider, but apparently because we went ahead with Virgin we are now tied into the deal.
Apologies for it being very complicated but if anyone has any knowledge whether we’re being screwed or if we have a right to exit the contract then I’d be very grateful.
Click to expand...
My advice is get the dongle and stop 'battling' with them.
 
East Level 2 said:
Did the OP inform Virgin that internet access would be required for work from the day of the move, and request a guarantee of service?
Click to expand...
Can you even do that if you're on a domestic contract? Back in the day, the only way to get a "guaranteed" connection was to have a business contract at vastly inflated costs, not sure if thats still the same however.
 
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