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SeanF1's avatar
SeanF1
Just joined
25 days ago

Refund not received

My name is Sean and my account number is [MOD EDIT: Removed]. I was a Customer of Virgin Media for over 15 years and when it came to them taking my money on chasing me for late payment their system and processes were impeccable. Now I have left Virgin Media (over 5 months ago) I am being past from pillar to post to get back the £42.42 they owe me. 

I was originally told by their Customer Service Team that I would receive my refund between 25th March and 4th April but I am still waiting to receive my my money. 

I called on 10.4.25 after not receiving my refund. I spoke with one of their Customer Service Team Representatives who told me the system stated that I was refunded by bank transfer on 24th March 2025. He also informed me that there is a system error which needs to be looked into and someone would call me back on 14th April to discuss. Nobody rang.

I called again on 02.05.25 after not receiving my money to be told that I will receive a cheque in the post within 14 days. The cheque never came.

So I called again on 21.05.25 only to be told that my money was refunded by bank transfer on 24th March 2025. I checked there and then while on the phone with their Customer Service Representative. And I had not received the money they owed me. I was told I needed to send proof that I had not received the money by Bank Transfer. And was advised to send an email with Refund Request Reference: [MOD EDIT: Removed] to mailbox: ([MOD EDIT: Removed])

I sent two emails to this mailbox. One of them with my Bank Statement attached. And to this day I have not even received an automated response. 

I called their Customer Service Team again to find out what was going on and they could not help me besides confirm that this mailbox exists but could not speak with anyone in the department that deals with the emails (which contain personal information of their customers) sent to this mailbox.

Obviously irate I escalated the call to a Manager because I now had no clue who had my account details and I was genuinely concerned. I stated that this is a very serious matter as it was clear that they were not dealing with customers sensitive data in accordance with Privacy Laws, and she was literally LAUGHING as I expressed my frustration and concerns. 

I was so appalled I decided to do everything in writing from that point forward. And my experience so far has been just as harrowing while being given the run around. The level of incompetence is unbelievable and when I read the awful Trust Pilot reviews with over 100K reviews and a 1.3 out of 5 score, I realise I am not alone.  

After several emails I was instructed to send my bank statements to their Missing Payments Team ([MOD EDIT: Removed])  which I first did on 07.07.25 and all Ive received from them is an automated email (See below) which states:

Hello,

Thanks for getting in touch about your missing payment.

We’ll do our best to get back to you in two working days to let you know if we've been able to find it.

If we can't find your payment, we'll be able to investigate further to work out what's gone wrong - we'll send you an email to let you know.

If you've got a question about your missing payment, you can reply to this email. Want to talk about something else? Head to virginmedia

Kind regards,

The Virgin Media team

 Although I have written to the Missing Payments Teams for an update several times, I am still waiting for a response from them. I have however received different emails from their Resolutions Team and Case management Team with the same template that doesn't offer any resolution whats so ever but if anything demonstrates their total incompetence, poor service and ineffective case management systems. See below:  

CORRESPONDENCE 1:

Email from: [MOD EDIT: Removed] on 07.07.25

Customer account number: [MOD EDIT: Removed]
Complaint reference: [MOD EDIT: Removed]

Hello Sean F,  

We’ve tried to get in touch so we can chat about how your complaint’s progressing, but we haven’t been able to reach you. So things don’t get delayed, we’ve gone ahead and proposed a resolution.

We’ve looked into it and here’s what we found:
Hi Sean thanks for your reply.

We appreciate this is frustrating. We would advise, as we can see there was a final bill amount of £-42.42 on the 18th February, this should have been refunded to you directly.

As you are disputing this, you'd need to contact [MOD EDIT: Removed] and they should be able to help resolve this matter for you.

We hope this helps.

Here’s a summary of the complaint outcome and what we propose as a resolution:

CORRESPONDENCE 2:

Email from: [MOD EDIT: Removed] on 08.07.25

Customer account number: [MOD EDIT: Removed]
Complaint reference: [MOD EDIT: Removed]

Hello Sean F,  

We have an update for you on how your complaint is progressing with us. We’ve tried to contact you to discuss in more detail, but we were unable to reach you. We didn’t want to delay things, so we’ve gone ahead and offered a proposed resolution.

We’ve looked into it and here’s what we found:
Thanks for coming back to us Sean and we're sorry to hear that this matter is still ongoing, with the complaint remaining open.

Here’s a summary of the complaint outcome and what we propose as a resolution:
Reviewing your account and our refund screen on your account, it would appear that on 24/03/25 a BACs payment was made to you via the value of £42.42. We understand that you have advised this was not received and have reached out to our refunds team, but have yet to receive a response. If you're able to send supporting documents to confirm that this payment has not been received, we will be able to forward this to our team, with the supporting document to see if we can find the whereabouts of the refund, or if do maintain that this was paid. When BACs are issued to customers, this would be sent to the same bank account in which payments were made to Virgin Media for this service and would need to remain active for the receiving of the refund to complete. Thanks.

CORRESPONDENCE 3:

 Email from [MOD EDIT: Removed] on 23.07.25

Customer account number:[MOD EDIT: Removed] 
Complaint reference: [MOD EDIT: Removed]

Hello Sean F,  

We’ve tried to get in touch so we can chat about how your complaint’s progressing, but we haven’t been able to reach you. So things don’t get delayed, we’ve gone ahead and proposed a resolution.

We’ve looked into it and here’s what we found:
Thank you for bringing your concern to our attention. We apologise for the inconvenience you’ve experienced regarding billing, and we’re committed to resolving it promptly. We understand how important this matter is to you.

We acknowledge that you’ve attached proof and are seeking a refund.

Here’s a summary of the complaint outcome and what we propose as a resolution:
Upon reviewing the attachment, we’d like to inform you that the account number shown on the statement differs from the Virgin Media account under which this complaint was raised. Due to security reasons, we are unable to retrieve any information related to the account referenced in the attachment.

Therefore, it is essential to raise the complaint under the correct account where the issue needs to be resolved. For further assistance, please visit: virginmedia/help

We have now addressed your concern and given you the appropriate resolution as per your request. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

I AM STILL WAITING TO HEAR BACK FROM THE MISSING PAYMENTS TEAM ABOUT THE MONEY THEY OWE ME

SO I NOW READY TO START POSTING EVERYTHING ALL OVER THE INTERNET AND THIS IS MY FIRST POST ON THE VIRGIN COMMUNITY MESSAGE BOARD. BEFORE I TAKE THIS MATTER UP WITH THE COMMUNICATIONS OMBUDSMAN.

4 Replies

  • That post certainly kept a forum Mod occupied (although one email address was missed). 

    Looking at the end of the post VM indicates that you are both seeming to be looking at different VM accounts. Have you had more than one VM account over the years (perhaps due to a break with VM or a transfer to a housemate) and if so could the refund have been posted to a bank account that you have used previously with VM? 

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • One element in this echoed my recent experience. I logged a complaint and received a holding reply which is normal practice. The next communication from VM was to close the complaint because they had failed to reach me when they called my landline! I was on holiday at the time.

    It would be easy to find fault with the individual member who was responsible but he will under pressure to meet performance targets and his action was almost certainly driven, in part, by a need to improve this metric. I recently had one conversation with a support team member who explained a complex and non-intuitive procedure to me over the phone. He solved my problem and I was properly grateful but I did ask him why this was not documented so I could read it and act on it at my leisure without batting through the support system to reach him. However, it was not his role to provide this on-line documentation and he had no good answer why it had not been done. In some ways, he suffered from a disfunctional system as much as a customer. I have other examples I could offer.

    Finally, Which magazine offers annual awards for bad customer service and Virgin Media has a won this award, a Shoddie, for the last three years. Nuff said.

    • bobdowdeswell's avatar
      bobdowdeswell
      Just browsing

      Sorry, my statement about how a complaint was dealt with was incomplete and should be entirely disregarded.  However, I stand by my further observations.

  • Hi SeanF1 

    Welcome to our forums, and sorry to hear you have been having ongoing issues when trying to chase a refund with our team. We can understand the frustration caused, and we want to do our best from here to investigate this for you. We are sending you 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.

    Thanks,