Virgin Media Outage Leaves Customer Offline for Nearly Five Months

Virgin Media UK faced criticism after a customer, Cathy Meredith from Totnes, was left without broadband for nearly five months. The outage began in mid-January 2025, when Meredith lost her internet connection. Despite over 50 attempts to complete the installation, Virgin Media consistently missed scheduled engineer appointments and failed to carry out necessary exterior works. The company finally completed the installation on June 27, 2025, after multiple rescheduling and delays.

The provider initially offered only about £30 in compensation, which Meredith found inadequate, especially considering the scheme mandated higher payouts for missed appointments and delays. Virgin Media claimed the fault was with a third-party contractor, but responsibility ultimately lies with the provider. Following media pressure, Virgin Media agreed to pay Meredith a total of £867.48, including a detailed payout under the Ofcom Auto-Compensation scheme and a goodwill gesture.

Virgin Media issued an apology, attributing the delay to a system error that caused repeated rescheduling of pre-enablement works. The company offered a credit of £792.48 and an additional £75, payable by cheque if preferred. This incident highlights ongoing issues with the company’s handling of compensations under regulatory schemes, often requiring external intervention to resolve.

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