Another failure to honour an offered & confirmed contract

[MrBlogg]

Monday last week (18/9) I called VM to renew my contract for 18mths at an agreed price since I was only 4 days away from the existing contract ending. I do this every time a contract comes to an end. All went smoothly and I was OK with the agreed price as it was similar (but not better) than the price offered by the likes of Sky, BT etc, and saves the hassle of moving. I've also been a customer of VM since the beginning and their predecessors Telewest & Eurobell.

On Friday night, at the end of my existing contract, I got a VM advert directed to me on my phone via my Facebook feed. It was a notification that my contract had ended and there was an offer to renew. Out of curiosity I clicked on the link and it said:- "If you renew today, we will give you an exclusive discount on your current package as a thanks for being with us. Your package will stay the same but you'll pay less".

I even have screenshots of that page and it did make a better offer for essentially the same package. At Just £30 for M350 broadband and Anytime Chatter telephone the offer was £11 cheaper than the one I'd signed up to with the retentions team just 4 days previously. Pre-contract documents were emailed to me and after a quick read I signed-up. Well why wouldn't i?! A few minutes later the order summary email arrived with an order reference number and an estimated activation date, which was for yesterday (19th).

I've checked my account today and it's still showing the higher price agreed last Monday so after a very long call to retentions it appears VM are not willing to honour the deal they THEY contacted me about. The rep that I spoke to suggested that I'd entered the details as a new customer and that the paperwork mentions the words "broadband installation" and therefore they won't honour it. At no point during the process to sign up to the better deal did I have to enter any personal or account details nor was there mention of it being for new customers only. On the contrary, it explicitly targetted me as an existing customer and filled in all of my details, including my account number.

In all the years being with VM I can probably count on one hand how many issues I've had with the service and contracts, which may be an extremely rare thing when I look around the Community Board, but this flat refusal to honour something that VM offered to ME really makes my blood boil and there seems to be nowhere to go other than accept the situation as a "system glitch" as the rep referred to it. Well I guess the gltich is still there because if I follow the same web link as before, it won't let me make any changes and says "Your order's on its way! Sorry! We're still processing your last order so can't accept any purchases at this time".

I'd love someone from VM to read this and respond with a clear and honest explanation of how this has happended and genuinely why they won't honour the deal. I can happily provide the order reference number for them to look into it.

Rant over!

[Travis_M]

Hi @MrBlogg 

Thanks for posting on our community forum and so sorry to hear about the mishap with the package

I cannot make any promises but I will drop you a private message now to collect some more information and investigate further to check on this, keep an eye on your inbox for a message from myself.

Regards

[J4ply]

No its just virgin media they did the same thing to me and many others but are constantly getting away it, there becoming a fraudster company.

I tried ringing up to cancel my contract but didn't answer or if they did got so far through the process and then hung up on me its disgusting behaviour.

[Micky50]

Hiya same thing exactly has happened to me , as far as I’m concerned I’ve got a new contract £48 so will cancel direct debit and just pay that , certainly not paying £117 which is on upcoming bill , they need to update system to new price that they offered and on my new contract!

Tried contacting them several times but get no where, I’ve emailed complaints dept but that might take 28for reply!!!

[Matthew_ML]

Hey MrBlogg, thank you for reaching out and I am so sorry to hear about this.

If you was sent a deal with a  via an email you would need to click this to accept it we have no manually way to add this on as these are sent directly to you.

When you did sign up and accept this normally sometimes this deal could start right away or within 30 days.

Did the email say the order went through and you got the contact summary sheet? 

I can also see my colleague has PM about you. Cheers 

[MrBlogg]

Thanks Travis_M, I've replied to your PM.

[MrBlogg]

Hi Matt,

As-per my initial comments the offer was made via a directed advert on my Facebook feed. I followed the link but never had to enter any details because the advert was directed at me so they clearly already had my account and contact details, scary as that may be! After agreeing to the deal an email then arrived straight away with the Contract Summary Sheet and Contract Information Sheet attachments. Shortly afterwards another email arrived with the Order Summary and Order Reference Number and an estimated activation date of 19th Sept, just 3 days after I agreed to the deal.

I've responded to your colleague's PM with the requested information.

Cheers,

MrB.

[MrBlogg]

Here's an update for those of you following or who have messaged me:-

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, VM are not going to honour the contract that THEY initiated and offered to me. The only explanation I've got is that "...the reason an order number (CH) is provided is as this is a new customer contract...You wouldn't receive this for an existing customer upgrade...".

Well I DID receive this as an existing customer (although I never mentioned anything about an upgrade), but it seems I have no say in the matter and just have to suck it up. All of the paperwork came from VM with my existing account details completed by them, so how would a new customer contract have such information? It simply wouldn't.

Just for the hell of it, attached are a couple of screen-grabs from my phone of the link I followed. Can anyone spot where it mentions anything about me signing up as a new customer? Maybe their interpretation of the words 'Renew Contract' shown in the images is vastly different from the rest of the world. Surely it's not that ambiguous, is it?

[MrBlogg · Accepted solution]

Here's what should be the final update from me on this...and it's a positive one...

After getting confirmation via phone and online support here that VM were not going to honour what they'd offered me, I resigned myself to that fact and was too busy with work and travel to find the time to take this further. Now imagine my surprise when, while working away and a week after my last post I got an email from VM with the following message:-

Thanks for placing your order with Virgin Media. We are pleased to confirm your request has now been fully actioned and your special bundle offer has been applied, saving you even more money than you thought on your Virgin Media services.

Yeah right, just an automated system message throwing a wobbly I thought. Nope, it was genuine because just a few hours later another email arrived with the subject:- "Thanks for making those changes to your Virgin Media package", and all of the contract paperwork.

A few days later I was back home and managed to check my account online and there it was, the new (better) deal in black & white.

I've no idea how or why this was done, whether it was simply the automated system sorting itself out or someone who read my comments on here taking it further, or whether it was a customer service rep from one of my phone calls, because I got no other emails, calls, texts or messages about this. Whatever the reason, I'm now a happy customer once again but really could have done without the hassle.

One final odd thing about the contracts, is that the one for £41/mth would have gone up to £72/mth after 18mths, but this one at £30/mth for the same features says it will only go up to £58/mth after the 18mths. Go figure!

[Kain_W]

Thanks for the update on the matter MrBlogg,

I'm glad the team were able to get this sorted however many apologies for the delays in doing so.

If you do have any future queries then be sure to pop back up to the team for further assistance.

Regards,