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alex8891's avatar
alex8891
Joining in
4 months ago

Frustration with Virgin Media: Late Payment Charge and Lack of Response

Hi everyone,

I’m reaching out to share my frustrating experience with Virgin Media and see if anyone else has been in a similar situation or has advice on how to resolve this issue.

Here’s what happened:

  • I’ve had an active direct debit with Virgin Media throughout my contract, yet in December, they failed to take payment on the 18th as scheduled.
  • My bank, NatWest, confirmed that Virgin Media did not even attempt to collect the payment, despite the direct debit being active.
  • Virgin Media then added a late payment charge to my account.
  • To make matters worse, Virgin Media eventually took the regular payment and the late payment charge from my account without resolving the issue.

I contacted Virgin Media about this, and on 10th December 2024, I received an email acknowledging my complaint. They mentioned that a request had been raised to waive the late payment charge and said they’d notify me once it was approved.

However, since then:

  • I emailed them again on 10th January 2025 to follow up, pointing out that I had proof from my bank that this was Virgin Media’s fault.
  • As of today (18th January 2025), I’ve had no response to my emails.

I’ve also learned that I need to wait 8 weeks from my initial complaint before escalating this to the Communications Ombudsman, which is incredibly frustrating given that Virgin Media is completely ignoring me.

At this point, I’m demanding:

  1. A reversal of the late payment charge.
  2. Confirmation that my credit rating will not be affected.
  3. Compensation for the stress, time, and inconvenience caused by this mess.

I find it disgraceful that such a large company can treat its customers like this and fail to communicate or resolve a simple issue.

Has anyone else had similar problems with Virgin Media? How did you get them to resolve it?

Any advice on how to handle this would be much appreciated. I’m ready to escalate this as soon as the 8 weeks are up, but I’m hoping Virgin Media will act before it gets to that point.

incorrect bill
late payment fee
no reponse

2 Replies

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  • Tudor's avatar
    Tudor
    Very Insightful Person
    4 months ago

    "I emailed them again on 10th January 2025"

    I do not know who you emailed, but VM do NOT have an email address for customers to contact them.
    The correct way is to phone customer services because it can take two or three days for a VM staff member to get to your post.

    • alex8891's avatar
      alex8891
      Joining in
      4 months ago

      Thank you for your reply - I emailed a reply to the resolutions team. This was the team that contacted me via email and asked me to reply to the same email to follow up the complaint. 
      I will try to call them as well - I prefer to email as I then have a record of what they have responded as I’ve had companies lie over the phone before (then claim it’s not happened)