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Contract cancellation

helenarthur
Tuning in

How do we go about cancelling my mother’s account - she has been in a care home for over a year and her house was cleared and sold almost a year ago. My sister has POA, but hasn’t been able to cancel the contract. So frustrating!

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

If somebody with PoA has contacted VM to cancel a contract, then legally that's the same as if the account holder has asked to cancel.  Ofcom require as part of their Fairness Commitments that "Customers can sign up to, change and leave their services quickly and smoothly. Providers ensure that customers who are leaving do not face additional barriers or hassle compared to those who are signing up to new services".  In practice, VM have a long and shabby history of deliberately making cancellation as slow and difficult as they possibly can. 

So if VM have either put barriers in her way, or simply failed to process the cancellation request, then the company will have to backdate the cancellation to the first attempt to cancel, refund any payments taken, and pay a sizeable compensation payment for failing to meet the needs of a vulnerable customer.

Forum staff can hopefully recognise a serious failing when they see one, and may be able to ensure this gets sorted out effectively and promptly and/or a formal complaint is raised, but you need to bear in mind that if your sister holds the PoA, then VM staff can't deal with you directly.

If this looks to be stuck, or the company propose an inadequate resolution, then your sister needs to raise a formal complaint (I suggest by recorded post, not the rarely-working web form, or useless telephone customer service).  Expect that to be poorly handled, or a derisory settlement offered, in which case she has to reply to any resolution offer, rejecting it and asking for a deadlock letter.  With the deadlock letter she can ask the industry complaints adjudicator CISAS to investigate and impose a settlement on VM.  CISAS work like other schemes like the Energy Ombudsman, and their impartial dispute adjudicators will investigate, propose a resolution and if you accept that, then it becomes binding on VM.

See where this Helpful Answer was posted

4 REPLIES 4

Katie_WT
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

Morning @helenarthur 

Welcome to our community and thank you so much for your first post - we are sorry to understand that you have been struggling to cancel your mothers account since she has moved. 

We'll be more than happy to take a closer look into this for you - we'll just need to pop you a private message so we can take some details securely. Look out for the little purple envelope in the top right of the page and pop us a reply when you have a moment. 

Thank you 

Katie - Forum Team


Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

If somebody with PoA has contacted VM to cancel a contract, then legally that's the same as if the account holder has asked to cancel.  Ofcom require as part of their Fairness Commitments that "Customers can sign up to, change and leave their services quickly and smoothly. Providers ensure that customers who are leaving do not face additional barriers or hassle compared to those who are signing up to new services".  In practice, VM have a long and shabby history of deliberately making cancellation as slow and difficult as they possibly can. 

So if VM have either put barriers in her way, or simply failed to process the cancellation request, then the company will have to backdate the cancellation to the first attempt to cancel, refund any payments taken, and pay a sizeable compensation payment for failing to meet the needs of a vulnerable customer.

Forum staff can hopefully recognise a serious failing when they see one, and may be able to ensure this gets sorted out effectively and promptly and/or a formal complaint is raised, but you need to bear in mind that if your sister holds the PoA, then VM staff can't deal with you directly.

If this looks to be stuck, or the company propose an inadequate resolution, then your sister needs to raise a formal complaint (I suggest by recorded post, not the rarely-working web form, or useless telephone customer service).  Expect that to be poorly handled, or a derisory settlement offered, in which case she has to reply to any resolution offer, rejecting it and asking for a deadlock letter.  With the deadlock letter she can ask the industry complaints adjudicator CISAS to investigate and impose a settlement on VM.  CISAS work like other schemes like the Energy Ombudsman, and their impartial dispute adjudicators will investigate, propose a resolution and if you accept that, then it becomes binding on VM.

Thanks! I’ll pass your message on to my sister.

No problem @helenarthur please do let us know how the cancellation goes once your sister has been able to reach out. 

 

Thanks again.