New contract without my permission after house move

[AndreasO]

Hi,

I moved home in June and transferred across with Virgin. Shortly after moving I spoke to someone about getting a replacement tv box because previously we never used our old one and an engineer had taken it away. After speaking to their line manager they agreed to send me a replacement one and I asked a few times whether I would be subject to a charge. They confirmed several times I would only have to pay a £5 delivery fee. So I agreed and they sent a box out. One month later we receive a statement with £139.95 worth of charges on it for the TV box! I spoke to someone several times who said they will need to listen to the call and they will get back to me. Just as I was about to hang up, I mentioned that my contract end date was 5th August and I was thinking about leaving and what price could they offer me for a new contract. He divulged that my contract had only just started and that I have another 18mths left! I was gob smacked. I hadn't agreed to any contract and it appears when they tried to get me a new TV box sent out they decided to sign me up to a completely new contract at the same time without my permission. The contract is a higher amount than I had before and I never would have signed up to it. It's completely illegal. To cap it all off I now can't get through to Virgin media whatsoever because every time I ring up they say my services have been limited until I pay my outstanding bill and the line goes dead. I refuse to pay the bill of £257.52 because I never agreed to any of the charges and/or the new contract. However I have no way of resolving this by speaking to someone. 

I have never known such an incompetent company with such a low level of service and I am determined to take this as far as I can. Any advice on next steps on how I can get this resolved? Thanks in advance.

[goslow · Accepted solution]

Someone may move your topic from 'Community Natter' to 'Managing Your Account - Cable' as VM forum staff don't often reply here.

You can make your own request for the recordings of your call via a DSAR

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/dsar

but make that request quickly, if you need to, as the above link advises a 180 day retention period on call recordings.

Your next steps would be a formal complaint to VM (a required first step but probably unproductive) then a complaint to the ombudsman.

Keep an eye on your credit records as VM seems to be very efficient at logging credit defaults against customers who VM thinks owe money.

The matter of simple house/service moves which get turned into new contracts gets regular mentions on here. The sales culture at VM seems to result in these kinds of contractual 'anomalies' as described in topics on here. The fee for a simple move/transfer of services used to be £20 but looks as if it has become £35 from May this year. The replacement of your VM TV device is probably the aspect that has added a dose of VM 'confusion' into the process.

Start putting together a detailed timeline of everything that has happened (dates, times, calls, messages, texts etc.) which will act as a good base of evidence if you need to go to arbitration.

One of the VM forum team may pick up the topic, within a few days, and offer to help you.

[Reece_MH]

Hi AndreasO 👋

Thanks for posting, and a warm welcome to the Community Forums.

I'm very sorry to hear about this incredibly poor experience when moving home. I'd like to look into this further for you, and also assist in resolving the problems that have arisen.

Please look out for my message in the top-right, white envelope, or by tapping your profile picture, then the "Messages" tab.

Thanks,

[AndreasO]

That's really helpful, thank you for taking the time to explain and offer me advice. I really do appreciate it. I'm literally at my wits end with it all.

Someone from the VM Forum did contact me but they've gone quiet now. I also spoke to someone in the billing team and they saw notes on my account which clarified I shouldn't have had to pay any fees for the TV box, so that has been refunded.

Sadly the line got cut off after that so the issue of the new contract that I didn't agree to is still in place and I need it to be cancelled.

This has to be the worst experience I have ever endured with any company in my life. I strongly suspect the systems the customer service team have at their disposal doesn't allow the flexibility required to remedy issues like those I have been having. Therefore they have to get creative to initiate changes, which then has a knock on effect for customers. Either that or they simply don't know how to use the system properly and/or are unaware of the knock effect it has on customers. 

[goslow]

If you reply to the PM offered above by the VM forum team, they should try to help you but help via the forum is not an instant messaging type service so communication back and forward can take some time. My own past experience has been though that the forum is often a more reliable method to resolve VM issues than other channels of VM support.

[Joseph_B]

Hey @AndreasO,

Thank you for joining us inside that private message so that we could go about reviewing your issue, I am happy we were able to reach a resolution, if you do have anything further you need, please do come back to us here.

Joe