Still waiting

I have now waited over 8 months for Virgin to install a phone to my house. They keep saying they don't know how long it will take. I have been told at various times that it will be "any time now", "within two weeks" etc, and they have also said that I can't cancel my contract or have any kind of refund. Still waiting......

The contract cannot be starting until the service go LIVE. If your service isn't ready, I suggest you to make a complaint to ofcom, your local trading standard and your local MP.

After a couple of months you should be able to cancel the order as they haven't provided the service in a reasonable time.

In a couple of months he'll be beyond the minimum term anyway

OP just look upon this as a lucky escape.

Section 14 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 requires services being provided by a business to be provided within a reasonable time unless the contract or dealings between the parties provide otherwise.

I doubt that anything in the contract sets a date for service provision that would be extensible to 8 months, and an 8 months delay is clearly not reasonable.


A more detailed analysis of the scenario will likely reveal that Virgin Media have breached the contract by their failure to provide the contracted service within 8 months, and this breach would be such as to entitle the original poster to breach of contract. However, that argument is more difficult to make out for someone lacking legal experience, so it's probably easier to try an argument based on s. 14 SGSA 1982 first.

That's what I stated in a more succinct way.