14 day cooling off period

[Marmalade123456]

I recently signed up for Virgin Broadband. Your terms & conditions state:

“To cancel you have FOURTEEN days from the later of: (i) the day after the delivery of the equipment; (ii) the service start date; or (iii) the day you received this contract (that provides a link to the Terms and Conditions).

The service start date was 28 January 2023.

I gave written (hard copy) notification of Broadband cancellation around 6 February 2023.

I contacted Virgin via the Complaints Process (12 February 2023) as Virgin failed to respond to the above. I have tried to explain this to Virgin but the nameless people responding to my  complaint do not appear to understand.

I have now been told that I will have to pay a termination charge of £275.87, which is totally scandalous.

Note that I’m a loyal Virgin Mobile customer, and have always been happy with Virgin. So the above is deeply shocking to me.

[Anonymous]

Although loyalty is a good human virtue VM really don't care so long as regular payments keep coming in. 

Where did you post your cancellation to and did you do it by recorded delivery? 

[Marmalade123456]

I used the pro-forma at the end of the contract they emailed to me and sent to the address they stipulated:

Please send this form to:

Virgin Media Sales Operation Support, Winnall Down Farm, Alresford Road, Winchester,

SO21 1FP

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Yup that's on my contract too but I understand that it is now obsolete. Not your fault however. 

Raise a formal complaint and escalate through to Ombudsman Services as required. 

[Adri_G]

Hi Marmalade123456, thanks for reaching out our help forum.
We're sorry to hear of the issues faced with your new deal, we'd love to best help with this.

Could you please advise if you've sent this letter via post to cancel as tracked and signed so we can check the progress of your request?

Also, could you confirm the date it was posted out to us and do you have a copy of the letter or any proof it was mailed?

Lastly, could you please tell us if you've also heard back from the complaint case you've raised with our team in regard to this and if so, what was the advice / resolution offer?

Let us know more and we're eager to help. 

[Marmalade123456]

I used the pro-forma at the end of the contract Virgin emailed to me and sent to the address stipulated around 6 February.

The form stated:

Please send this form to:

Virgin Media Sales Operation Support, Winnall Down Farm, Alresford Road, Winchester, SO21 1FP

[Anonymous]

Just to be absolutely clear there is no obligation to use tracked postage in the contract, Ts and Cs, or in any Ofcom guidelines that I am aware of. It's just administratively handy.

See https://prod.ctassets.virginmedia.com/uploads/Terms_and_Conditions_TV_Fibre_and_Phone_POST_01_NOV_22... re cancellation.

Once again as things stand this is Virgin Media failing to act on your cancellation, failing to update their address on the contracts, apparently failing to forward post from an old address, failing to list the correct cancellation address on the relevant part of the website https://www.virginmedia.com/help/cancel-virgin-media (its hidden away in the Ts and Cs small print), and failure to make cancellation as easy as joining as per Ofcom guidelines.

[Adri_G]

Hey Marmalade123456, thanks for explaining more and sorry see this has happened.

I'd like to invite you to PM here so we can investigate things further and help out, I will shortly send you a message to share more.

Please, check the top right-hand side of our page to find a purple envelope.
Click on this and you'll see my message.