Forum Discussion

Feduppayou's avatar
Feduppayou
Tuning in
2 years ago

VM cannot bill correctly each month

Is anyone else in the situation where, having agreed a fixed monthly contract (18 month) with VM, they send me a bill each month but NEVER manage to present a correct bill for that agreed fixed mount ?

Also, because of the above problem, I took them off Direct Debit (they were taking too much) and pay on the manual payment page on the site.

So,around the 10th of each month, they send me a bill for £x. I dont pay until the end of the month, when, on the actual payment page, it auto-fills £y. It says that you can change that amount... but you cant !! So, they ask for £x, I can only pay the auto-filled amount of £y, and therefore, (they are keen to tell me that) I appear to UNDERpay, and can I make a subsequent correcting payment, which I wont ever do.

Its fascinating, and absorbs a great deal of my time, over that 18 months, currently over 10 hours of phone calls to them, (none ever returned), and seven complaints, its still wrong. They are the gift that keeps on aggravating.

 Whilst they have innumerable ways of  annoying, upsetting and ignoring (still, I suspect, inventing more ways as we speak) their "loyal" customer base, I wondered if they had forced this unnecessary and VM created torture on anyone else.

21 Replies

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

    What is happening with the bill , is it not reflecting the price which was promised when you took out the deal?

    Does it not match the price on your paperwork ?Cheers 

  • Matt - a couple of things we need to get straight. No offense intended.

    I am NOT reaching out, I dont feel the warm embrace of VM, and, you, if you read the above opening, will be about the fifteenth person who is sorry for me being in this VM-enforced situation. I was simply asking if other customers were suffering from this perversion that you have inflicted on me.

    Not bill, bill’s, plural

    NO-one, exactly no-one bothered to look at, solve, provide continuity, escalate, follow-up on, nor in any other way, provide, implement or deliver a permanent fix. Though my staying with you is not really enforced, I could leave at any time. After all this, just you try to impose an early release fee.!! Ten hours of phone-calls to you, through that ridiculous system, talking to someone who is several thousand miles away, deafening call-centre background noise (of other agents) who all sound like they're talking underwater. Listen to the tapes, I begged, pleaded, cajoled, swore probably, cried, threatened, and finally hoped that someone would care, anyone of those 14 people would do something, BUT NOBODY DID. They're very good at being sorry and promising something, but nothing changed. Intermingled in there, over that 18 months are seven complaints, SEVEN, all treated just the same. Next months bill was still not right.

    So, I wont be answering any more questions. If I haven't made myself clear about this situation over that length of time, its because you sent me DOO-LA-LY. I need no further help from you (as in VM), in fact you haven't helped, I, like you will take no further interest. You provide the service, I will pay the contracted price MANUALLY. (You cant be trusted with a Direct Debit). Then we don't have to talk to each other. (Actually WE dont talk, I do the talking, you do the ignoring) I will continue to manage this myself. I wont be calling you to make ad-hoc shortfall extra payments. I wont complain anymore. Not once have any of you seriously considered the long term impact of such a stupid problem, every month - lets deal with VM first, then we can ....,so stupid that you cant fix it. !!!! Hey, if you notice any further problems, unpaid bills, not fully paid bills, late paid bills, be sure to give me a call, I'm really helpful.  PPS that bit there about you calling me...thas one of me jokes, that is, although if theres one thing that seems to get you people out of bed,  its the threat of withholding money for your appalling (although presentation of bills is NOT a contracted service) service delivery. PPPS I haven't charged for your required level of care, checking your bill, inputting corrections, pointing out your mistakes, maintaining spreadsheet records, ensuring and tracking manual payments, providing continuity records and other housekeeping data, nor for repeating the same story every month to a new and slightly disinterested underwater agent and waited endlessly while HE checked what I was saying. I wonder if I could charge for fatuous promises. Talking to VM over this long period of time is draining, particularly when you know next month is going to be JUST THE SAME. Youve been fun as well, though not really challenging, and I must find (lucky you) a more worthwhile hobby.

     

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

      Hi Feduppayou 

      Our sincere apologies for the poor experience. 

      I would really like to help further so will pop you a PM now to confirm some details.

      Thanks

      • Feduppayou's avatar
        Feduppayou
        Tuning in

        You will be, if my memory and my maths serve me well, the sixteenth "agent" desperate to "help further". I don't believe it, I don't want it, too little, (as in zero effort from you so far), and definitely tooo late. Now that I've gone through this unnecessary, time consuming, hideously gross experience, I've come out the other side and wondered why I bothered. So, I no longer care...like yourselves have demonstrated so well. You continue to proudly action all of the very worst that you have been accused of, by the very people that ensure your survival.

        I'm telling you nothing new, you know what you are. You are unworthy of any more of my time or effort. Deliver the service, I will pay the contract price. Don't deliver, and I don't pay.  Do what you like with that statement. I've said this several times before, dunno why I'm repeating myself. I won't be going through any more security checks to talk to you, no more details,...NOTHING. PS..I will, however, be only too happy to supply written records, spreadsheets, dates, times, duration of calls, copies of the seven complaints, and your responses, the monthly and mish-mash confusion of what i should pay vs what your system demands etc etc etc. I don't have transcripts of our cosy conversations, but I guess i could submit a FOIA request or DSAR to complete my collection !!

  • I'm facing exactly the same problema. Now they have suspendes my service because the system (that they can't fix) still shows unpaid bills. Am awake since 5 AM really **bleep** thanks to you VM

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

      Hi jcrubioa127 👋.

      Thanks for reaching out to us, and welcome to the Community Forums. Apologies for the issues that you have with your billing, we would like to take a look at this further for you, by bringing you into a private message. Please look out for the envelope on the top right of your web browser or if you are using a mobile device, it will be located under your profile icon.
       

      Thanks.
       

      Sabrina

  • In the same boat here. Only way to resolve is to lodge a formal complaint, get a reference, try fix it for 8 weeks, if not resolved, then go to the ombudsman. That's the only way it gets escalated.

    I do feel bad for the call centre agents, because they really seem like they just dont have the tools to fix these issues. All they can do, at best, is issue a credit in the following month. But then, every month, you need to request the credit. Painful.

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

      Hi legosuit, thank you for your post.

      We're sorry to hear about the poor experience you've had and that you feel this way 😔

      I can see you spoke to the team around the same time you posted. Has a long-term resolution to the issue been provided?

      Please pop back to us at your earliest convenience.

      Regards,
      Daniel

      • legosuit's avatar
        legosuit
        Tuning in

        Afraid not. Happy to discuss this with whoever you think can have another look, but perhaps not on this thread (as I don't want to hijack the topic completely...)

    • Cazzle18's avatar
      Cazzle18
      On our wavelength

      I'm being threatened with services being disconnected but, they haven't processed last month's payment yet! This was 22nd July

  • unisoft's avatar
    unisoft
    Knows their stuff

    Feduppayou wrote:

    Is anyone else in the situation where, having agreed a fixed monthly contract (18 month) with VM, they send me a bill each month but NEVER manage to present a correct bill for that agreed fixed mount ?

    Also, because of the above problem, I took them off Direct Debit (they were taking too much) and pay on the manual payment page on the site.

    So,around the 10th of each month, they send me a bill for £x. I dont pay until the end of the month, when, on the actual payment page, it auto-fills £y. It says that you can change that amount... but you cant !! So, they ask for £x, I can only pay the auto-filled amount of £y, and therefore, (they are keen to tell me that) I appear to UNDERpay, and can I make a subsequent correcting payment, which I wont ever do.

    Its fascinating, and absorbs a great deal of my time, over that 18 months, currently over 10 hours of phone calls to them, (none ever returned), and seven complaints, its still wrong. They are the gift that keeps on aggravating.

     Whilst they have innumerable ways of  annoying, upsetting and ignoring (still, I suspect, inventing more ways as we speak) their "loyal" customer base, I wondered if they had forced this unnecessary and VM created torture on anyone else.


    On this simple, online form, please let the regulator OfCom know about your experience of inaccurate billing. Ofcom have been investigating various complaints since 2023, but many customers have not reported because they did not know or thought it would take lots of time.

    https://ofcomlive.my.salesforce-sites.com/formentry/SitesFormCCTMonitoring