I signed up for an 18 month contract with Virgin Media in March 2022. In April 2023 I decided to move house and phoned up VM to see what my options were. I was told as per VMs terms and conditions I could move the existing account to my new home and continue on my existing 18 month contract. At this point I only had another 5 months left, so this is the option I went with - I thought I would stick with it to the end and then look around for a new deal in August.
Cut to August and my bill is going up from £28 to £56 so I message VM on WhatsApp to cancel my account. I'm told that if I want to cancel my contract I'm going to have to pay an early cancellation fee of £750 as I'm only on month 5 of a new 18 month contract. I try to explain that there's been a mistake via messenger, call and customer support emails but nobody is having any of it.
This is completely ridiculous and feels illegal. At no point did I ask to be put on a new contract, or have a new account made for me. I never verbally agreed nor did I sign anything, I've not been provided with any evidence that I agreed to a new contract, and there is no sane reason why I would have. What would be the point starting a new 18 month contract where the intro deal only lasted 5 months before doubling in price?
I got a DSAR but because they created a new account as well as a new contract this only contained data tied to the new contract, not the phone call I made before I moved homes. I have now made a new DSAR with the old account number, but I'm worried the phone call will have been deleted as they state a retention period of 180 days which has now passed.
VM have offered to move me onto another new 18 month contract at a reduced rate as a peace offering but it's not even as if they're providing me a good service. I pay for £256Mbps yet my girlfriend doesn't even have the ability to turn her camera on during zoom calls when she's home alone.
This is by far the worst experience I've had with any service provider. I don't understand how it is legal to move somebody onto a new contract without any proof of agreement. This was at best an innocent mistake and worst a sneaky way to trap a (at the time happy) customer, but the fact I've seen numerous other complaints on this forum of the exact same thing makes it look like an intentional tactic. I appreciate the reduced price offered but the service is so bad I'd rather just pay a bit more and move than be locked into 18 months of not being able to work from home because the wifi is so bad I can't even join zoom calls.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, this has been drawn out and stressful and I just want it to be over.
