Cancellation question and a bit of a rant.....

[howzatt]

My "discounted contract" ends 21st December. Am I able to give my 30 days notice on 21st November so I can leave on Dec 21st without any early cancellation fees?

As I again find myself in the position of cancelling with Virgin, it seems to still be an over-convoluted and made difficult process. There is no information on my contract or on the main website, especially where cancellation fees exist but no figures are given. I'd like to be able to just click "cancel" on "my virgin media" but Virgin force me to either write a letter or ring them (so I presume they can attempt to butter me up with some better deal).

I have been a virgin customer on and off throughout the years, the last time this eventuality occurred I ended up being offered a fantastic deal from retentions, however the billing department became so confused with the number of discounts on my account all ending at different dates I ended up being billed different amounts month after month after month, it was all wrong, never sorted out and so I left. I do not want to be offered a retentions deal and then billing goes and renegs on it to suit themselves like last time.

All the above and the very fact Virgin think its totally acceptable to double my £22 a month broadband only contract to £44 makes me feel treated badly as a customer and I'd just rather leave.

[Andrew-G]

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@newapollo wrote:

Hi @Andrew-G 

Just a heads up regarding the proposed one touch switching.  Sadly it's looking likely to be delayed going by a report in ispreview, something we've both probably been expecting.

broadband-isps-unlikely-to-meet-ofcom-uks-switching-deadline.html 

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Unfortunate, but unsurprising.  I suspect wilful heel dragging by industry, because all of the conceptual work has been done for Openreach switching, and the same concepts apply here.  Ofcom are notoriously clueless about everything and never hold the industry's feet to the flames over anything, so won't have given the project strong enough governance, transparency and penalties for delay and failure.  Devising some not-for-profit company is a popular way of ensuring failure without blame (eg the derided Green Deal), and the technical challenges of linking systems are wildly over played - I was linking dissimilar computer systems with an afternoon's work forty years ago - admittedly the testing and finalisation took a lot longer, but I've done systems design, coding and testing, I've worked n large regulated corporates running horribly complex Oracle or SAP CRMs, and the claim of complexity causing delays here are a smokescreen.  If a company wants to do something for commercial reasons they'll do it, if need be in a shipwreck hurry.  In this case most of the big players (especially those with poor customer service and or who make it hard to leave) really don't want this to happen.

[howzatt]

Interesting stuff. It seems pretty obvious its something the industry doesn't want, i mean then they'd have to compel existing customers to stay with competitive rates like the mobile companies do when its so easy to switch providers. Especially when they can "bait the hook" with up to 20 months at a lower fixed price in hopes customers won't notice it ending and they get to keep a customer paying double what they were. 

Whatever happened to companies rewarding existing customers? Its the same with mobile contracts, no loyalty rewards at all, contract ends, WAM!, so you inevitably look elsewhere and then jump ship. Thankfully the systems in place for getting PAC codes is a lot easier than changing home broadband supplier!