Please help me with my billing issue - you need a brew first! Customer Success Manager - please read!

[HelpPlz]

Hello, we renewed our contract on 20th November (VM sales contacted me), effective from 22nd November when the new 360 remotes got delivered. Our original contract was due to end 30th Dec. 

Today our first bill was generated as part of our new contract and it does not match the contract summary VM sent to me with the new contract, illustrating the payment for December billing cycle would be £113.67 for December then £89.50 per month. Instead today’s December bill is £145.40 instead of £113.67 which you shared as part of the contract email.

I've contacted billing today and I was asked to forward my contract email to the billing manager (done).

When I looked at the bill this evening I can see it shows a 'changes to bundle' charge of £55 which I was never made aware of, essentially the VM agent who contacted us to renew our contract, never at any point, mentioned there would be 'bundle change charges' for renewing the contract a few weeks early, I even asked why would the contract would not start from 31st Dec and they didn't seem to understand what I was saying? (or they did know i.e deception). They did say due to the billing cycle the 1st bill would be more than £89.50, so I asked 'how much?' and they worked it out to £113.67 for Dec and emailed that price over alongside the contract for agreement. 

I’ve checked in the package changes section of this 1st bill generated in my account and I can see two items are ‘duplicated’ and contribute to the total charges (kids pick and sky sports and cinema collection). They’re both part of the new package but should they be listed once?

The bill for this month is £145.40 but in the contract summary it states £113.67 for Dec month and £89.50 each month after (which is what we agreed and per our new contract)

You're very welcome to playback the voice recordings from the 20th November for those interactions and it can easily be validated. I can also share the VM contract email stating £113.67 for Dec which the VM agent couldn’t seem to locate today?

We want to keep our new contract but feel we have been deceived by the agent who handled the renewal, not disclosing these bundle change fee's. If I knew there would be a bundle change charge, I would simply have waited until the end of Dec.

The bundle that I'm now on is essentially the same package I was on before, only I've been moved to TV 360 - which broke our boxes for 1 week! (fixed today following an engineer visit and replacement of both boxes). Is there a one off credit for this loss of service for 1 week?

So in summary we’re being charged to move to a new 'wording' of a bundle but all of the services are the same as before, only more expensive i.e Mega TV (or what was Ultimate), 1GB BB, Anytime phone, 2 TV boxes, sky cinema & sports, netflix std etc.

I could request a GDPR SAR and it can be shared with the UK public via national news (Voice recordings and ALL data you have both current and historical). If we also pointed to this forum it would probably hit prime time TV in respect of ‘customer service’ @VM.

What I haven’t mentioned also above is the fact that when we reported the TV issue on 6th December and rang back later that evening with the error code, the agent advised an engineer would visit on Saturday 9th December. As I didn’t receive a text (as we have done in the past advising the appointment was in place), nor anything showing up in the app, late on Friday 9:50pm I called to ‘double check’ so we didn’t wait in all Saturday afternoon (12pm-4pm) and ‘surprise surprise’ there was no appointment booked! (Please replay the voice recording from the Weds)

I was then informed 2nd line technical support don’t work weekends so it would be Monday earliest before they continue investigating and it might take until Friday 15th December to resolve (5 working days), which was incorrect anyway as we opened the ticket on 6th Dec.

THEN, 2nd line support rang me on Saturday at 5pm (you can't write this stuff), even though the agent advised they don’t work weekends. The agent on the Friday evening at no point apologised for her colleague who blatantly ‘lied’ telling us an engineer was coming on the Saturday and never did. They then told us 2nd line support don’t work weekends, which they do… To be honest I question whether they know what they're doing.

Luckily the person who did call on the Saturday wasn’t a liar, tried to upgrade, failed and booked the engineer. I saw the appointment in the app within the hour and the engineer who turned up did a great job. Problem sorted but horrific process to get to this point (and all part of a renewal).

So back to the point of this post (beyond the abysmal customer service as part of a renewal), could someone please help me with my billing query regarding our Dec bill, it doesn’t align with the £113.67 quoted for Dec billing period per email VM sent with contract attached. 

If we can get this resolved promptly then fingers crossed the next bill will be as per contract (£89.50) and no more contact needed. In fairness the lady on the billing team I spoke too today tried to help but seemed to indicate the £145.40 appears to be correct BUT it doesn't match what VM sent me together with our contract!

I REALLY feel sorry for elderly or vulnerable people as this is stressful enough for myself in my 40’s who deals with contracts, escalations, complaints on a regular basis, I can imagine some people lose hair, even have mental health impact due to these interactions with VM. This process should be so much better, especially for existing customers and renewal.

Anyhow, life goes on, so if anyone cares about what they do and can help me get this sorted, please contact me. I should be spending my time with my kids and working, oppose to the 6+ hours now I've spent in call queues and on the phone with VM agents to renew our contract with the same services we had before, albeit 360 TV which initially broke both v6 boxes for 1 week (and still no mention of a credit for loss of service).

[Akua_A]

Hi @HelpPlz 

Welcome back to our community forums and sorry to hear of the issues you have had with us. We can understand the frustration caused and want to do our best to help. To best investigate the billing issue, I have sent a private message. Please keep an eye out for an envelope at the top right corner of your Forum page. Let me know if you have any issues locating this. In regards to compensation for the loss of service, you can find out if you are eligible for compensation here https://virg.in/autocomp 

Thanks,

[Akua_A]

No problem at all @HelpPlz 

Glad to have been able to help:) Please do not hesitate to contact us again if you need any further help.

Thanks,

[FF22]

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