Complaints and resolutions have not responded for nearly a month

I can understand your frustration. I've been with Virgin before they were even called Virgin and the support gets worse and worse every year. 

It's that time again where we go through the usual dance of contract renewal (where they put the price up to something obscene, then you threaten to leave until they call back with a better deal). 

This year they have an automated new offer package to keep you with them, minus the faff of getting in touch. Great I thought!, It ties me in for 24 months (with the second year going up a few quid) but at least I won't need to speak to them. Wrong.

Signed up yesterday and today they sent a bill for almost double what I have been paying, and what I have agreed to. 

Not for the first time I've just wasted 30 mins talking to 'Marlyn' (this time) who appeared to ignore any of the information I had already provided and offer me a more expensive deal than what I had already agreed.

Rather than deal with my query I just got sent a link to log a complaint (which I've done before and did absolutely nothing). Are these agents real or some kind of AI beyond the initial bots you think you've bypassed?

I've asked to close my account this time as I can't be dealing with them anymore. It's a pity there are currently no decent rival companies in my street yet but I'm going to switch to a slower provider, until one beginning with Y finally moves in. 

If it is any consolation (probably not much!) this kind of issue does crop up on here quite regularly.

It won't be the technician who has changed what you were expecting it will be the agent(s) who sold you the package in the first place. The technician will simply have installed what was on the order most likely.

Your description is crystal clear and you have been sold something that you did not want and were not expecting. My suggestion would be ...

Wait until you get a reply from a VM person on here (usually takes a few days and VM staff members have a title under their name including Forum Team, Moderator or Community Manager). They have a Virgin Media logo next to their name.

They may ask you to confirm account details via a private message (PM) to prove your identity. You should only provide personal/account info, via PM, to a VM forum team member.

If a VM person on here does not help, you have made past official complaints and been fobbed off by VM and the delays have caused your 14 day cooling off period to expire.

You can escalate your complain to the ombudsman, if you need to, via the process below

https://www.commsombudsman.org/our-process

If you need to collect some evidence of what you agreed when you initially bought the package you should submit a data subject access request (DSAR) to get evidence of calls, chat etc.

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

Hopefully the VM people on here can resolve this for you.

Hi Sharpe1​ 

In your post you state that you took out a "social essential contract on a rolling monthly contract for the cost of £20 a month".

That sounds like you were wanting to sign up for VM's Social Tarif broadband ( https://www.virginmedia.com/broadband/low-income-families) taking out the Essential Broadband Plus with Flex plan.  This plan costs £20 per month and provides a 50Mbps broadband connection  with a Flex stream box for TV over the internet on a 30 day rolling contract. It doesn't include a landline.

To be eligible for that plan with VM then you need to be claiming either Pension Credit, Universal Credit, Income Support, Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, or Income-based Employment Support Allowance. 

If you aren't claiming any of those benefits then you won't be eligble for that plan.

VM do however offer a Flex TV package . You get TV on a rolling 30-day contract, when you take a broadband deal with Flex. The Flex TV costs an additional £5 a month on top of the cost of your broadband subscription, however the broadband subscription is for a minimum period of 2 years.

That's correct i signed for a social contract