Virgin Media went down again leaving hundreds of customers without internet access
VIRGIN Media services went down again for hundreds of broadband customers this afternoon.
More than 826 reports were recorded over the past 24 hours to 12.15pm, according to outage tracker DownDetector.
Of those, 73% related to landline internet outages, 18% to total blackouts and 9% to TV streaming.
Most reports shown on DownDetector’s map were coming out of London and Birmingham, although these have now eased off.
Virgin, which has around six million broadband customers, says that the issues were localised in Warrington and have now been resolved.
A Virgin Media spokesperson said: “Our broadband services are running as normal – there is no widespread issue with our network.
“If customers are experiencing individual connectivity issues they can contact our customer service team for assistance.”
It comes just days after customers reported losing their broadband service over the weekend too.
Angry customers took to Twitter to complain about the outage.
One said: “I presume because my expensive, top of the range Broadband service has crashed again (in the middle of something important) that’s there’s another fault somewhere!?!”
Another wrote: “Virgin Media is down in the north west again but even the service status on the website isn’t working.”
While a third tweeted: “Honestly sometimes devastating when your phone and your home broadband are both with Virgin Media.
“I’m basically living in the early 90s with no internet today (except Twitter for some reason).”
And a fourth said: “The Wi-Fi has been out for 12 hours and your still probably going to charge me full price for this unreliable service what is going on???”
The internet provider responded to some complaints online urging customers to check the online service checker to see if there are any known faults in the area.
A spokesperson said: “I am so sorry to hear that you are facing these issues with your services!
“Can I just check, have you used our service status page to check for any potential faults causing this, or to run diagnostic on your equipment.”
Virgin Media services have gone down for customers several times in the past few weeks.
Last week, they went down for almost 2,000 customers.
And a few weeks ago, tens of thousands of internet users were affected by a widespread outage.
Am I entitled to compensation?
You may be entitled to compensation if you have suffered issues with your internet, call or mobile services – but not for shorter outages.
When it comes to TV outages, the services don’t come under that same scheme.
Internet firms usually pay out £8 for each day broadband and home phone services are not repaired after two full days of no service.
They will also pay £25 for each missed appointment, or for appointments cancelled with less than 24 hours notice, plus you’ll get £5 for each calendar day delay to the start of the new service.
This is usually automatic.
If you’re a mobile customer and you suffer from a lack of service then depending on the circumstance you may be entitled to a refund or account credit.
If you’re without service for a sustained period of time then you may also have the right to leave without incurring a fee, although neither of these is automatic – you need to ask your provider.
If your problem is still unresolved after eight weeks, you can complain to an independent Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) scheme.
Virgin Media is signed up to the CISAS ADR scheme.
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