Forum Discussion

BaleKaneSon1's avatar
BaleKaneSon1
On our wavelength
2 years ago

TNT Sports incorrect charge

HI, 

I signed up for TNT sports directly within the stream box a couple of days ago. The price was advertised at £5 per month and structured as below 

£18 TNT sports 

- £13 Discount 

£5 Total per month 

when I looked at my virgin media - I actually discovered that the price being charged was £16.20. I am having no luck with customer services to get this rectified. Can anyone help please from VM staff 

15 Replies

  • Abertawe184's avatar
    Abertawe184
    On our wavelength

    Hi,

    When I took the £10pm offer last year, the correct amount was shown on the bill, so check your statement when it's due.

    • LdnVMPain's avatar
      LdnVMPain
      Just browsing

      This has not happened here, sadly.  I signed up to pay £5 a month for TNT 14 days ago.  Today I saw that my bill included a charge of over £25 for TNT - i.e. more than five times the amount I signed up to pay in a month has been billed within 14 days of signing up!  I raised a formal written complaint and called the number they told me to call.  VM complaints team are refusing to investigate if I do not have a screenshot, and the person I spoke to said VM will refuse as a matter of policy to honour the £5 deal and even seemed to suggest that any written record of my having signed up to a £5/month deal could have been made up so they will not accept it.  Another poster has said in a forum post that even with a screenshot showing the £5 offer VM have not honoured it.  

      https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Stream-from-Virgin-Media/TNT-sport-price-query/td-p/5508825

      https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/TNT-Sports-incorrect-charge/td-p/5508429

      It was exceedingly difficult for me even to get them to offer me a refund of an amount I did not agee to pay when I accepted the offer on screen.  If what happened to me is indicative of VM's general approach, I suppose bills might be being issued to customers with sums several times higher than customers thought they were signing up to when they accepted the offer on the screen using Stream, but people might not spot it or might struggle to get a refund.

      • Matthew_ML's avatar
        Matthew_ML
        Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team

        Hey LdnVMPain, thank you for reaching out and a warm welcome to the community I am so sorry to hear this.

        I have taken a look and I can see you've spoke to someone since this post, did they manage to help?

        Also where was this deal that TNT sports was £5?

  • Hi BaleKaneSon1 

    Thanks for posting and welcome back to the community,

    Apologies for the confusion but it is like Abertawe184 said, it should sort itself when the bill created.

    I'll send you a PM though to assist further.

    • LdnVMPain's avatar
      LdnVMPain
      Just browsing

      I have had the same issue but have been treated appallingly.  

      I signed up to TNT via Stream for £5 a month for 18 months on the evening of 9 April.  On the same evening I sent messages to friends and family telling them about the deal (by WhatsApp and iMessage). When I subsequently read an email from VM saying that I would be charged £16.20 I was really surprised.  I Googled the issue and read on the VM forum that the right amount will be charged on the next bill.  I also sent an email to VM Complaints raising the issue and asking for the £5 agreement to be honoured.  

      Two weeks after signing up for £5/month I just today looked at my bill and saw that I have already been charged over £25 for TNT - i.e. after just two weeks VM are charging me 5 times what I agreed to pay for one month of TNT.  

      I also heard back from VM Complaints by email saying that unless I had a screenshot of the £5 offer they could not investigate.  

      I then read other posts saying that even with a screenshot the £5 agreement is not being honoured with other customers. See picture below. 

      So, I called the telephone number in the VM Complaints email and spoke to a man who was at times, unfortunately, very combative, argumentative and kept on interrupting.  He put me on hold for a long time as if hoping I would go away.  He said that as I had no proof in writing in the form of a screenshot from my TV the £5 deal would not be honoured.  I said I had contemporaneous messages in writing - in response to that he said that those messages could be made up.  In effect the suggestion was that I am lying or falsifying documents.  He also said that as I had received an email from VM Complaints I cannot get the £5 offer because of VM's "policies" regardless of what VM offered and what I accepted and regardless of how contracts (offer and acceptance) work - it is VM's "policy".

      As well as VM not honouring a £5/month deal I know I signed up to,  in the space of 2 weeks I have been charged £25 which is 5 times what I signed up to pay in a month.  I did not agree to that.  So I asked for that to be refunded.

      The man on the telephone initially refused even to refund me the £25 I have been charged.  

      I asked him if he or VM had a screenshot of me agreeing to pay the amount I have been billed.  He said no, but he said that as there was a subsequent email saying £16.20 that is what I had to pay per month.  I pointed out that (1) I had contemporaneous messages (which he said could be made up) and subsequent emails to VM saying £5 but VM will not - without a screenshot - accept that contemporaneous or subsequent writing to prove the amount agreed, (2) paradoxically, VM is relying on a subsequent email - without a screenshot - to charge me £25, and (3) I simply did not agree to pay £16.20 or £25 in the space of two weeks - I agreed to £5 a month for 18 months - so there is no way I should have to pay the £25 I am being charged for TNT.  

      Ultimately after speaking to his manager he said the £25 can be refunded.  I said that if they accept that I did not agree to pay £16.20 a month, they must accept that I agreed to £5 a month and that I want the £5 honoured.  He said he won't do that.  I asked who I can speak to for it to be honoured.  He said nobody.

      What is going on VM!?  

      As a customer experience this has been awful especially being told I would not be believed without a screenshot, that my written notes/ messages could be fabricated, and that I have to pay £16.20 a month or £25 after two weeks because a subsequence email from VM said so even though that is not what I agreed.  I am in effect being treated as if I have fraudulently made up emails, yet VM can charge a sum I did not agree to pay.  

      How many customers are being over-charged for what they did not agree to, and not being given what they did agree to yet have not realised this yet?  This seems like a con to me, yet I am the one being told I could have made up written messages and being told that I am not to be believed unless I took a photograph of my TV screen when I accepted VM's offer.

      As soon as there is another provider on my street, I am going to leave VM as the customer service has been awful and stressful - in effect is suggesting that I am making things up and falsifying written documents.  Nobody wants to pay somebody for their day to be ruined like that.  And I would just like VM to honour what they offered me and I agreed to.

      Here is the screenshot from another chat which shows what I saw, even though the other user says that VM will not honour the deal even with this screenshot:

       

  • I recently signed up also and read it as £5 a month if you signed up to a 18 month contract otherwise its £16.20 which includes the 10% discount for stream users if paying by a month by month basis. 

    • Matthew_ML's avatar
      Matthew_ML
      Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team

      Hey Craigb1980, thank you for reaching out and I am sorry to hear this.

      Where did you read this? 

      Did you get this as confirmation when you signed up to TNT sports? 

    • BaleKaneSon1's avatar
      BaleKaneSon1
      On our wavelength

      @craig. Nothing on stream is an 18 month contract - everything is for a minimum of one month - but the price is guaranteed for 18 months. The issue is I was offered this and have been charged £16.20 - have you checked your account to see what you have been charged ??

  • BaleKaneSon1's avatar
    BaleKaneSon1
    On our wavelength

    Exactly the same issue for as me Steve. No one listen or cares at Virgin media - worse customer service I have ever had. I have also made a complaint but no response - how can a company offer something for £5 a month and charge £16.20

    • BaleKaneSon1's avatar
      BaleKaneSon1
      On our wavelength

      Will someone of the forum actually take responsibility for this as a complaint please. It’s unfair stating a price is £5 than charging £16.20. I wish I had taken a screen shot from the stream box of the price 

    • LdnVMPain's avatar
      LdnVMPain
      Just browsing

      A £25 charge appeared on my bill 2 weeks after signing up to pay £5 a month for 18 months. Check your bill carefully.  I was very difficult to get the man on the telephone even to agree to take off that £25 charge.

  • Check your bills carefully.  I was charged £25 within two weeks even though the offer I accepted on the screen was £5 a month for 18 months.  It was very very difficult to get the offer of a refund.

    • David_Bn's avatar
      David_Bn
      Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team

      Thanks for reaching out to us LdnVMPain, and a very warm welcome to our Community Forums!

      Sorry to hear of the difficulty faced when trying to get the charges for this service amended.

      Do please feel free to come back to us if there's anything further that needs to be done to remedy this for you

      Thanks

      David_Bn

      • LdnVMPain's avatar
        LdnVMPain
        Just browsing

        Something further does need to be done, yes, (rather than posting polite but generic responses to posts) and the charges have not been amended to reflect what was offered and agreed.  

        It also appears a lot of people are not getting anywhere with VM - when they thought they were signing up to pay £5 a month for 18 months instead they are being charged by VM at least three times that and, from the sound of various posts, VM is doing nothing to put that right:

        See, in addition to this thread:

        https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/TNT-Sports-incorrect-charge/td-p/5508429

        https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Stream-from-Virgin-Media/TNT-sport-price-query/td-p/5508825

        To be clear, in terms of what needs to be done: (1) the £5 deal that several people signed up to needs to be honoured, and/or (2) all of the people complaining about formal complaints not being taken up either by VM customer services or by VM complaints need to be refunded the amounts that they are presumably being charged over the agreed price of £5.  

        It was very difficult for me to get the person I ultimately spoke to to offer me a refund of a sum of money I had not agreed to pay, and I am getting nowhere when I ask for VM to honour the deal at the price they offered and I accepted.  Instead it is being suggested that I might have made up having agreed to a £5 offer, or that I might have made up a contemporaneous written record of having done so. It is really insulting.

        So, there is a lot to be done, and VM needs to be proactive about putting it right.

        Simply inviting people posting on the forum to come back to VM if there is anything further VM needs to do is not good enough.  Although I appreciate that your message is at least polite.  (Are you, though, an AI bot?)

  • Hi all,

    Thanks for making us aware of this issue which we’ve been working to fix.

    During a recent Champions League football match, we promoted an offer for TNT Sports at £5 a month for Stream customers. Unfortunately, we have identified an issue where customers were incorrectly overcharged for their TNT Sports subscription through Stream.

    We’ll be sending a text message out shortly to inform all affected customers, and any credits will be applied to ensure all is corrected and customers do not need to take any further action.

    We’re sorry that this has occurred, and we appreciate your patience on this matter.