Repair after cable severed by contractors

My brother had his driveway relayed and during the works the contractor cut the Virgin Medial cable. This happened weeks ago and since then he has been without phone line, internet and tv! He still has no services!
He reported the issue to Virgin Media immediately using his mobile an engineer visited. Virgin Media tried to contact him but instead of using the mobile number they kept phoning him on the land line but of course they couldn't reach him as the cable is cut. Two other engineers have visited to prepare the site to renew the cable.
He has been without landline phone, internet and tv for weeks, is he entitled to compensation from Virgin Media for being without service and his monthly subscription for the duration of non-service? And if Virgin Media refuses to refund his subscription for the period without the service can he the approach OFCOM?

They are usually good at making these repairs within a couple of days.

Is the break still visible or have the contractors now burried it? If it's burried under a new driveway and there is no easy way to route a cable then I'm unsure what you would want them to do as they won't dig it up. However, hopefully that's not the case and the wire was left exposed. It's a real simple job to repair a broken cable, but they are only allowed to do 2 repairs. If you've had others in the past then it might be a new cable needs re-pulling. If the toby has been rendered unaccessible from the garden side (i.e. tarmaced / concreted) they might just decide the property is now unservicable.

One thing to bear in mind is Virgin Media would be in their rights to charge approx £100 for the repair due to customer damage. So although you might be able to haggle some goodwill they could also be akward and you'd be in an even worse position.

If it's just a simple repair and accessiblen and they do say they want to charge ensue you check if the protective piping (usually green) was used. If it wasn't you can aruge the point that the cable wasn't adequately burried originally and they usually waive the charge.

Edited by gary333 (Sun 21-Jun-20 10:12:35)

Same thing happened last year when our public road was being resurfaced, the contractor was liable but I photographed it for him to prove Virgin was only a couple of inches below the old tarmac. Couple of years ago a contractor friend was hit for £1,600 after cutting an electric cable on a drainage contract.

No doubt the contractor is liable (unless your brother had borrowed the digger for a DIY job ) Any Virgin claim should be passed on to the contractor who should have liability insurance.

I wouldn't think so you will be lucky if they don't charge you.

His paid contractors broke Virgins cable and HE wants compo?

Wow....

VM sent an engineer from Kier who was only qualified to connect the cables from the VM pavement to the newly installed box on the wall to the house. Whilst before there were two cables from the pavement to the box on the wall of the house there is only one now!
The result is that my brother now has TV and broadband but no phone line!
My guess is that VM has taken for granted that he has the latest HUB when in fact he has old VM internal boxes and an old HUB 2ac which does not have phone capabilities so, he has no phone connection!
H has contacted VM support in India which they say they have asked for a VM engineer visit.
The saga continues.

Photos of outside
https://i.postimg.cc/C5MDxHhM/2020-07-07-16-29-15.jpg

Photo of internal connections
https://i.postimg.cc/5NYyqkRd/2020-07-07-16-28-35.jpg

In reply to a post by scopio:

VM sent an engineer from Kier who was only qualified to connect the cables from the VM pavement to the newly installed box on the wall to the house. Whilst before there were two cables from the pavement to the box on the wall of the house there is only one now!
The result is that my brother now has TV and broadband but no phone line!
My guess is that VM has taken for granted that he has the latest HUB when in fact he has old VM internal boxes and an old HUB 2ac which does not have phone capabilities so, he has no phone connection!
H has contacted VM support in India which they say they have asked for a VM engineer visit.
The saga continues.

Photos of outside
https://i.postimg.cc/C5MDxHhM/2020-07-07-16-29-15.jpg

Photo of internal connections
https://i.postimg.cc/5NYyqkRd/2020-07-07-16-28-35.jpg

Around here the cable is one length from the cabinet to the house when fitted. Its not joined at the toby, as such the contractors have to pull a cable for new customers. The cable is still dual cable (coax and phone line) here. New cable requires a two man team.

When a cable is broken they can make up to two repairs (so long as you are not extreme lengths from cabinet). The flat joint pack I have seen used in the ground does have both phone and coax connections.

This sounds like they either didn’t have the cable or more than likely just went for simple fix and sprouted an excuse. Maybe your area is now VOIP enabled for new connections. If so, they could just send a new hub rather than messing with cable again.

The saga continues! Today my brother received a text from VM asking if the second engineer could come today rather than tomorrow which was booked. It was agreed that the engineer could come today which he did.
To his amazement the Kier engineer had fitted the wrong cable from the pod to the box on the wall on the house!
My brother explained that he had been without service since April as VM continuously tried to phone him on the landline which he did not have working as the cable had been cut. The engineer phoned his boss and arranged to send another engineer on the first week of August to replace the wrong cable fitted by Kier!
So now he has to wait another three weeks for the replacement of the cable! That will be four months since the fault was first reported to VM.