Virgin Media issues compensation update after thousands left without broadband

05 April 2023 , 08:57

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Thousands of Virgin Media customers were without internet for two periods yesterday (Image: PA)

Tens of thousands of Virgin Media customers who were hit by broadband outages yesterday won’t receive compensation.

Virgin is signed up to the Ofcom automatic compensation scheme, which sees households entitled to £9.33 for each day their service is disrupted - but this only kicks in after two days.

The telecoms giant told The Mirror this morning that its services “have been stable and running as usual since early yesterday evening”.

However, outage tracker Downdetector shows more than 700 people are still experiencing issues - although it is unclear if this is related to yesterday’s problems.

Downdetector showed more than 54,000 people complained their broadband wasn’t working on Tuesday.

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Virgin appeared to suffer two outages, with the first issue starting at 8am. After this was fixed, another spike in complaints was logged just after 4pm.

A spokesperson said: “Our engineers are continuing to monitor the network and we apologise again for the issues faced by some of our customers yesterday.”

Social media was awash with complaints from angry customers yesterday as they struggled to get online.

One user said: "Down once AGAIN in London.... what are VM playing at?"

Another customer added: "No VM broadband in Lewisham and can't check status on VM site or register for update via phone."

Virgin Media, which has now merged with O2, has around 5.8 million home broadband users across the UK.

The outages come after Virgin joined other telecoms companies in hiking broadband and mobile bills this month.

Virgin Media customers with broadband, landline and TV will see their prices go up by 13.8% on average from April or May.

Most vulnerable users will not see their prices change in 2023. This includes those on Essential Broadband packages, as well as Talk Protected landline customers.

Separately, Virgin Mobile customers are seeing bills rise by 17.3% from this month. This applies to SIM-only customers and the airtime part of your bill if you're a Freestyle customer.

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The handset part of your bill will remain at the same price. Freestyle packages charge separately for your airtime and device.

Levi Winchester