VIRGIN MEDIA HAVE OVERCHARGED ME BY £2K, AM IN DESPERATION

[Liberty143]

Does anyone have an escalation point for Virgin Media? No joy from CEO email and every agent I speak to (probably around 30 now) has a different version of events.

When I downsized my life and moved in with relatives last Autumn I cancelled my Virgin Media subscription. Unfortunately they did not process the cancellation at the time and I didn't immediately notice my Direct Debit as I had a very difficult situation going on in my personal life and admin moved to the bottom of my priorities. I hold my hands up for stupidly trusting that a major company would do their job properly.

The sum is now around £2k and none of the agents can do anything because "it's such a huge amount" - yes, I know. They will be able to see that following my cancellation of service I moved out and as the place is empty with no electrical equipment none of the services have been used. One person says the complaint is raised and to sit tight, the next that no complaint is raised at all.

So please, please Mumsnet, does anyone know how I can get in contact with someone who can resolve this? I'm feeling so distressed by the money and also the constant stonewalling of my situation by Virgin Media. I get promised call backs that never come, calls that get cut off.... I'm at the end of my tether here.

I had problems with VM and used Resolver as a mediator.
I found that they will not admit to making errors and will not back downYou will have to be very tenacious to take them on!.
I managed to get money they owed me back, but they never admitted making a mistake and claimed the money was a 'gesture of goodwill'.
I hope you have proof of cancellation date?Good luck, it is a lot of money to lose.

I’d go down the old fashioned route and send a letter signed for.

Cancel your direct debit

How did you inform them of the cancellation? Do you still have the proof of the date you did it?

That seems a huge amount for less than a year, how is it made up?

Ombudsman

Virgin Money fucked up my account so spectacularly that the financial ombudsman made them pay me £500 in compensation.

They have terrible terrible systems.

Write to the press? Anna Tims in the Guardian seems to have a good track record of getting companies to cough up.

Some suggestions

1. Have you cancelled your direct debit now?
2. Have you contacted them in writing by recorded delivery?
3. Have you tweeted them?

Ah yes good shout

Ofcom if you've exhausted VM standard complaints procedure.
Get your bank to initiate refund under the direct debit guarantee.

I have a complaint against Virgin Media with the Ombudsman currently so you have my sympathies.

The best communication I had with them was by signing up to the My Virgin Media Community Forum. You post a complaint on there and a representative will Direct Message you. You'll need to clear security but they were then able to make some progress with my complaint (Sadly this wasn't a satisfactory resolution - hence I requested a deadlock letter and then raised it with the Ombudsman) Their phone lines were never answered and the Online Chat took a couple of hours - often half an hour between responses - and then at 8pm stopped as they went off shift.

I'd have one more go at resolving it with them directly, maybe by sending a recorded letter, and then take it to Ofcom.

And put in the letter that you'll refer the matter to Ofcom if you don't get a satisfactory response in 10 working days.

Ofcom are excellent, I've used them to resolve a couple of issues for clients.

Have you been to the ombudsman?

Or go to one of the newspaper consumer problem people (preferably one at a decent paper). Things magically get resolved overnight when a journalist gets involved.

Thanks everyone, I think Ofcom and The Press are the ways to go now. Really appreciate your help.💐

Those suggesting the Ombudsman - with my recent complaint I was advised I needed to give them 8 weeks to resolve the issue or have a deadlock letter from Virgin Media first. (You can request a deadlock letter earlier than 8 weeks)

https://www.commsombudsman.org/our-process

My communication with Virgin Media went like this:

"The complaint reference is - C-XXXX
The complaint itself would need to be deadlocked in order to take the matter to third party adjudication. This would involve us sending either a letter or email confirming our final position on the complaint and our offer of resolution. If you choose to deadlock, no credits discussed will be applied to the account.

To clarify, our offer is £xx credit to your Virgin Media account. This is a goodwill gesture that covers your full package including phone, TV and broadband for a full month. The calculations for the cost of the landline for 10 days would be estimated at £xx

Please let us know if you wish to proceed with the deadlock letter and we will get this requested. "

They then said the deadlock letter would take 7 - 10 days, but it was emailed to me about 3 days later.

You have my sympathy, awful company to deal with. When I had problems with the service they were supplying to me they gave up trying to fix it. One of their representatives told me they weren't making enough money out of me to put any further effort into fixing it, so they'd take their chances with an ombudsman complaint. Another company added to my blacklist.

I'm sick of Virgin Greedia too.

SO expensive for what they offer.

Looking to change providers.

Virgin are wankers. I upgraded my phone during COVID ( same story, lots going on etc, confusing finances) after a few months I realised they had given me a new contract and we're basically charging me twice, keeping my old contract going simultaneously . Took forever and a near breakdown to sort out and I never got refunded. I'll never go near them again.

My complaint was escalated to the CEO and dealt with by people on this email address:
[email protected]
it was resolved pretty quickly after that.

You’ll be protected by the terms of the direct debit guarantee.

Speak to your bank and explain that you need to make an indemnity claim under the guarantee, make sure you’ve got details to hand of the date you cancelled and the dates/amounts of the payments which have been taken without your agreement and which need to be repaid.

The DD guarantee specifies that you are entitled to a full and immediate refund of those amounts. In practice, it’s sometimes a couple of days depending on the bank, but the bank will reimburse you the full amount and will then debit it from VM.

Obviously if they still believe you owe the money this will leave VM chasing you for it, but if you’re in a hurry for the funds back this is the quickest option, and the chances are that they’ll be much more keen to speak you you when you’ve got the cash back too!

I once asked to raise a complaint with Virgin Media and their customer service agent said they don’t have a complaints department 🤷🏻‍♀️ absolutely useless company.

So have they taken £2k since you cancelled?

You cancelled but they still collected money?
Have you got proof of that?

Isn't this covered by the direct debit guarantee? If so, I think you could talk to the bank about it....as long as you have proof of the cancellation.

I feel for you. I have never ever dealt with such a terrible company. I tell everybody at every opportunity to never sign up with them. I only escaped their clutches by moving house and even that was difficult.
If you are reading this. AVOID VIRGIN MEDIA.
OP please persevere and good luck.

The ombudsman suggestions above are the way to go. My own personal experience with them has been woeful - threatening me with fines for outstanding equipment I told them about when trying to do the right thing - and they had no record of until speaking to me!

It's a pity, I remember when they launched and they seemed to be a bit different, and more customer service focused and a breath of fresh air. Now they're awful. As streaming comes on and there are Mobile alternatives to broadband they're going to have to get better.

They make it extremely difficult to cancel.

I would go to the Ombudsman.

They will just give you the runaround if you try to resolve it yourself.

any of these help?

Primary Contact (the one people seem to get results generally)
Daniel Potts
Head of Complaints
Concord House M22 0EY
Wythenshawe, Manchester M22 OEY
[email protected]

Jeff Dodds
Managing Director, Consumer & Mobile Griffin House
161 Hammersmith Road, Hammersmith
London W6 8BS
[email protected]

Chief Executive
Lutz Schuler
Griffin House
161 Hammersmith Road, Hammersmith
London W6 8BS
[email protected]