Agreed deal not honoured

[Lucy3105]

Hi everyone,

Sorry its a bit of a read but Im after a little bit of advice and maybe some help. We have had fibre and landline with Virgin for about a year and as our Sky TV contract was up we decided to see what we could get with Virgin for the complete package.

I chatted through webchat with a sales person about an upgrade. At first it was way too much but I told them our budget and they gave us what we thought was a good price for the complete Volt package - TV with everything (Movies, sports etc), 1gb fibre, landline, three boxes and an unlimited o2 sim. I asked again if the price was for everything and was told yes, so we agreed. That was 6 days ago. My o2 sim arrived a couple of days ago and the engineer came and fitted the boxes today. Nice. Or so I thought.

I went to my new o2 account to check a few bits and saw that I would have to pay o2 £25 on the 22nd of this month. Strange I thought, I was told it was all in but maybe that gets charged to Virgin. So I started digging. I contacted Virgin support and spent 4 hours being sent from one person to the next, each saying that it didn't matter what the sales person said, the price they gave me didn't include the o2 sim so i would have to pay another £25 a month. I even have screenshots from the sales person confirming the price I would pay and that it included the £25 for o2 but this did not make any difference to anyone I chatted online to. I didn't even really want the sim, it was just in the package.

Now I don't want to have take this further as my fibre and landline experience has been pretty good but I will, as far as i need too, as I agreed to the package based on a price within in my budget. Now it is not in my budget. I just want the package I was offered for the price I was offered. If I just cancel I will end up with holes in my walls from the cabling done today and staples around my doors and skirting boards along with all these unused cables. I have already cancelled my sky. I'm also a bit annoyed the sales person told me my first bill would be between my old and new price. Again I have a screen shot of this. In fact its going to be double that it seems. Just in time for Christmas....

I am going to get my husband to speak in person to customer services tomorrow but judging by a few comments I've seen here, I'm not hopeful. Can anyone give advice or help?

Thanks in advance

[Andrew-G]

This is a stock reply, and of itself that will tell you something about VM's approach to sales:

These "didn't get the deal I agreed" situations happen from time to time.  However, your legal rights are crystal clear - information provided by a company verbally or written is binding if the consumer relies upon it when entering a contract (Consumer Rights Act 2015), so VM have to honour whatever was promised, whether they like it or not.  

I'll flag for forum staff can pick this up and hopefully get it sorted - by which I mean that you get exactly the deal you were promised, not some less attractive compromise.  That would be the cheapest and quickest resolution for both parties, and the best way of trying to recover some goodwill in a bad situation.  If they can't get it sorted in that complete manner, you need to search, read and follow the Virgin Media Complaints Code of Practice.  Don't start a complaint until you've seen if the forum staff can get this sorted, because I believe they can't get involved once it has become a formal complaint. 

If you do need to raise a formal complaint (using the online form in My Virgin Media), reject the contract they're trying to impose, and demanding that as per your legal rights the company honour what was promised, and requesting a deadlock letter so that if the company can't honour its agreement you will escalate to the industry arbitration scheme CISAS.  In the meanwhile, don't do anything daft like stopping your direct debit, that'll be recorded as a credit default, and opens up whole new realms of difficulty for you.  Don't worry if VM contact you claiming that they couldn't get hold of you, so will close the complaint if they don't hear to the contrary, if they lose it, reject it, or offer an inadequate resolution, this doesn't stop you being able to take the matter further.

If VM still won't honour the agreed terms despite the complaint, then you follow the process and escalate to CISAS, explaining the background and request that VM be required to give you the promised deal, fully backdated, and add on a request for compensation for the hassle.  

[John_GS]

Hi Lucy3105

Thanks for posting and welcome to the community. 

I'll send a PM now to assist further.

Kind regards,

[Lucy3105]

Well after about half a dozen messages and screenshots sent, it seems its all sorted thanks to John. I will get confirmation Monday its all sorted. I got nowhere in 5 hours of constant chat to four different people using the webchat yesterday. Seriously if you have any issues give  the team here a chance to help. If I have any issues in the future I'm coming here first!