Virgin harassing me with multiple debt collection agencies.

[rickwookie]

After Virgin had employed BPO to go after me for a debt that I am currently in dispute with them about, I put my case to BPO and they politely informed me that I wouldn’t be hearing from them again.

Imagine my surprise then when I today received an email from another debt collection agency, Oriel Collections, for the very same amount.

How many of these agencies are Virgin going to employ to harass me, rather than just resolving my outstanding complaint?

[Andrew-G]

Phone the Financial Ombudsman, see if any aspects of the matter are within their remit.  If they are, ask how to get the matter considered by FO, because if you can that'll bog the barstewards down in a regulatory adjudication process.

[rickwookie]

Good call Andrew. I may have to give that a go.

[Matthew_ML]

Hey rickwookie, thank you for reaching out and I am sorry to hear this.

I have looked into this and since this post I can see you've been in contact with the team, did they manage to get this resolved for you? Thanks 

[rickwookie]

No

[Matthew_ML]

Have you spoke to our collections team about this?

If you haven't I would reach out to them so they can look into this for you and get to the bottom of it.

They can be contacted on 0345 454 1111. Thanks 

[rickwookie]

I've wasted hours of my life already doing that. they advised me to raise an official complaint. I did that and got a useless bot response via email suggesting a "resolution" of:

What was I supposed to do with that?! It wasn't even a clickable link. My complaint was long and detailed, and clearly set out the chain of events that had led to Virgin Media failing to terminate my services properly.

There's absolutely no point just looking at your incorrect records and then stating "according to our records your account is still active and you owe us money". Yes, it's still active, but it shouldn't be, because I asked for it to be terminated. If I actually just paid the money that you claim is owed, all that would happen is my services would get "resumed" (not what I want, I don't even have the Hub any more because I sent it back last year) and yet more bills would then be generated, go unpaid, and we would be in a loop of bills - non-payment - debt recovery harassment.

What needs to happen is the debt cancelled, the overpayment (four months worth!) refunded, the account closed, and an apology issued for the months of hell I've endured at the hands of Virgin Media - at the very least!

[Vikki_M]

Hi rickwookie 

I am sorry you didn't receive a detailed response to your complaint.

I will send you a private message now so we can look into this further for you.

Please look out for the purple envelope in the top right of the page and pop me a reply when you can. 

[rickwookie]

After what appeared on the face of it to be a constructive dialogue with Vikki_M over a month ago now, the final message was on the 9th of March informing me that they’d get back to me by Tuesday 13th March with a final resolution.

Imagine my surprise then when they didn’t get back to me, and I’ve heard nothing since.

Just now received two emails from VM. First one was the “sorry that you’re leaving us” email, and the second was the “thank you fur returning your equipment” email.

Good that they’ve finally acknowledged I’m leaving, nearly 20 months on, and have acknowledged the equipment return from November.

Can I have a decision on getting the four months I was overcharged for back now?

[NG2]

You have to understand that it is part of the business model and part if the Virgin Media business model to obstruct people leaving, denoy when this has happened, raise false debts and then chase those not bullied into paying with debt collectors. There is completely no point engaging with the company on this. Write (1( to your MP to request regulatory action and (2) to Ofcom to get the scope of its current investigation into Virgin Media extended beyond the blocking of people leaving to its other appalling business practices.