Is this a scam?

[horseyhorsey17]

In a weird situation with Virgin Media. Moved into my house last year (I own it), I don't have any accounts with Virgin Media and never have. Got a router from them through the post a month or so ago, addressed to the former owner. I contacted her, she was shocked as hadn't ordered a router and doesn't have a Virgin Media account. She collected it and said she'd deal with it. I've now had a bill sent to my house for an outstanding unpaid amount of £19.01 to Mr Aa Occupier - clearly a made up person. Rang Virgin Media and they were extremely unhelpful and said they can't delete the account because (obviously) I don't know the memorable name needed to access it, and I have to find the account owner and tell him to contact them. Obviously I can't do that. I don't see why it's my problem either - but the last thing I want is bailiffs banging on my door. I said this to them and they accepted that that will happen but said that they couldn't help. Eventually they said they'd send me (well, Mr Aa Occupier) a letter with the 'memorable name' needed to access Mr Aa Occupier's account so that I can close it. I'm still really concerned about all this. Anyone got the slightest clue what in fuck's name is going on here?

Something has gone amiss though whether it's a scam or a cock up is an open question. Not sure that involving the previous occupier once she said she wasn't a VM customer is helpful though I appreciate that's a 20/20 hindsight thing.

While they're dealing with a placeholder 'Mr Occupier' they're not going to get anywhere with, for example, the small claims court. An amount that's less than £20 isn't worth them bothering about but that might not stop them adding stuff on until it's £100+.

Personally I'd drop them a letter, keeping proof of posting, summarising events so far and telling them you cannot help them further.

Watch your post in case they do try to issue small claims stuff.

The other thing telecoms companies seem to do is sell their debts on, presumably at a fraction of the amount actually due, to companies that scrape a living off the fraction of fractions they actually recover. Just tell them, in the nicest possible way, that they can sodd off and when they get there sodd of some more.

This happened to me. Then they passed the debt to one of them companies. They rang me and i laughed and told them to piss off. Never heard anything again.