After 14 years of being a VM customer I was dismayed by continual increases in the cost of my VM package. The general letter which went out to all customers in March detailing how future prices would increase by RPI +3.9% was the final straw, and in line with the advice given in the letter regarding cancellation without any fees, I decided that it was time to call time on VM.
On Friday 31st March I contacted Virgin by phone to instruct them to bring my contract to an end at the end of April, when I would have served the 30 day notice period . I was on the phone for almost 1 hour and spoke to 4 different people who were all only interested in trying to persuade me to stay with Virgin. This was extremely frustrating and stressful, not helped by the fact that the telephone line was very poor, and at times the grasp of English was quite poor. Eventually I managed to get the message across that I was not prepared to stay with Virgin. I was informed to maintain my Direct Debit so that any refunds could be repaid if necessary, and also to ensure that my new supplier (Sky) made arrangements to retain my phone number. Sky had already assured me that this would be done.
On Saturday 1st April VM emailed me to confirm that there were changes to my package, and that my TiVo monthly fee- Maxit TV and all my Broadband had been removed with all changes taking effect from 30th April. There was no mention of the phone charges which I assumed to be because Sky had not at this point made contact to transfer my number.
My bill went out as normal on 3rd April at the full price taking me up to the end of the contract. The email also detailed a credit to come and strangely went on to say that my new monthly bundle would be £27 !!
This prompted yet another stressful and lengthy telephone call only to be informed that this was a case of the cancellation not yet being on the system but I would not receive any further bills.
On 16th April I received a further email informing me that a bill of £103 had been prepared which would be taken on 2nd May! This prompted yet another telephone call on 17th April, not least because I was unable to read any of my bills on the My Virgin Media account page. On this occasion I was fortunate to get through to the UK call centre and spoke to Kat in the Cancellation Dept who informed me that this amount would not be taken, and then Siv on the retention team informed me that the disconnection order had gone through and that disconnection would take place on 30th April.
On Friday 28th April yet another email arrived from VM stating that my new package included Mix TV - Additional TV box. Also Maxit TV, WiFi Booster Credit and all Telephone charges had been removed. !! My new monthly bundle was going to cost £71.60 and the next bill would be £163.30 including CR£33.04 with a further one-off charge of £124.74 for installation or activation. This would all be generated on 11th May and taken out of my account on 2nd June.
Today the total of £103 has been taken from my account despite assurances from 3 different Virgin employees that this was not going to happen, prompting lengthy and stressful call number 4!!! Eventually I got put through to someone called Ricky who informed me that there had been a mistake and my account had not been closed. After a somewhat heated discussion he said that he had arranged for £123 to be paid back into my account but it could take 45 days to appear!! He also instructed me to dispose of all the Virgin equipment.
So when Virgin want to rob me of £103 or more they can do it instantaneously but it could take 45 days to rectify the error!! Obviously I was not happy with this and asked to be transferred to complaints when I had to explain everything once again to Rohan who was not very helpful and I asked to speak to a manager. I then got put through to Krishna who was quite pompous but did agree to send us an email detailing everything that had been discussed and confirming repayment details. To date we have not received that email although the complaints dept have left a voicemail on my mobile asking me to ring on 150 if there is anything we need help with. A bit rich considering that the manager of the complaints department, Krishna, was supposed to be dealing with it personally and also I can hardly ring on 150 when my phone is now connected to Sky !!
Having been lied to so many times by Virgin my wife and I have very little confidence that a) the account has finally been closed, b) proper financial recompense will take place and c) no more money will be stolen from our account. With this in mind my wife has been to our bank to explain our predicament. They pointed out that there was no requirement to keep the direct debit open as Virgin have our bank details to pay back any money outstanding. The bank have arranged an indemnity direct debit and reimbursed the £103 taken today as this was unauthorised they have cancelled the direct debit.
This whole sorry episode has ruined any chance of me returning to Virgin in the future but having done further investigating on the Net sadly it seems to be a regular occurrence with Virgin which frankly smacks of fraud and leaves a nasty taste.
