Virgin Media Community

[Damon6969]

Hi,

I always deal with my father's virgin account for him due to his age. In March of 2021 l signed us both up to a 18 month deal with virgin that was maxit tv, 200mb, talk weekend.

My deal has now come to a end and l have taken another deal with them. Upon trying to sort out my father's I'm being told he is contracted in until January which l knew wasn't correct.

I have now logged in to his virgin account to check his contract and it shows the contact l signed him up to in March of 2021 for the above package but then it shows another contract in July of 2021 which upgraded his broadband from the agreed 200mb to M350 and tied him in until January next year. He has absolutely no knowledge of this upgrade.

As a result of this his TV package discount has now ended putting up his bill up massively but he can't leave because of the broadband tie in that he didn't request and has no knowledge of.

I have tried talking to customer services today but I'm getting know where with them, has anybody else had issue's like this. I can't for the life of me understand how it's happened and how they think a 74 year old man would require this sort of speed. And ironically l also carried out a speed test while at his house and it came back at 194mb.

[Andrew-G]

I'm sure forum staff will sort that out for you, and compensation for this very serious problem.  Note that the vulnerable customer circumstances compound a problem that's already very serious, you/he should be looking for over £400 compensation. 

But in addition, I'd encourage you to report this to Citizens Advice, and ask them to pass to Trading Standards for investigation and enforcement.  This isn't the first, second or third time we've heard about these sorts of phantom contracts, VM need to be held to account.

[Damon6969]

Andrew,

Is this a know issue and something virgin are doing if so how can this be legal. My father is adamant he's not signed up to anything new and to be honest l don't thing he would even know how to. I've also found a letter from them with a sim card in it as well 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

[Chris_W1]

HI Damon6969. thanks for the message. 
I am sorry to hear about the billing issues which you are having and will send you a private so that this can be looked into further. - Chris.  

[jem101]

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@Damon6969 wrote:

Andrew,

Is this a know issue and something virgin are doing if so how can this be legal. My father is adamant he's not signed up to anything new and to be honest l don't thing he would even know how to. I've also found a letter from them with a sim card in it as well 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

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Well, of course it isn’t legal in way shape or form, tell me, did your father contact VM in ANY way in the last couple of months, any complaints about service, billing issues? The letter with the SIM card does indicate that he had been signed up to one of their VOLT schemes - now it may be that VM’s customer services agents are ‘incentivised’, shall we say, to get customers signed up to said tariffs, and possibly (and really who can say), the oversight of CS agents may be a little lacking - whether deliberate or simply bad management, well, who can say?

In answer to your question, there have, indeed been more than a couple of posts on here, claiming that they have been ‘mysteriously’ signed up for a new contract, obviously on a higher price, without their knowledge or explicit permission. If he did indeed call VM then you may well have to request a Data Subject Access Request for a copy of the call (note that if VM can’t or won’t supply said record then legally it is assumed that it never happened) and in that case then the VM agent (and by extension Virgin Media themselves) are possibly guilty of fraud - which would be a criminal offence (see Fraud Act, 2006), let alone the blatant breech of their commitments under the OFCOM guidelines which they signed up to.

Now let’s see what the forum team members can do for you here, because the consequences of them not sorting it out quickly and with suitable restitution can be really quite expensive for VM!

[Damon6969]

Hi Jem,

Thanks for your reply, lve looked through my father's phone records and he was cold called by virgin the day the new contract was set up. Basically they upgraded his broadband from 200mb to 350mb and upgraded his sim card from 5gb to 15gb.

Some serious issues here. 

1- why are virgin cold calling vulnerable people my father is 74 years old and relies on me to sort out his financial affairs. 

2- why would they upgrade his broadband from 200mb to 350mb surely they can see his usage.

3- why upgrade a sim card from 5gb data to 15gb data when the sim card has never been used, virgin would know its not being used.

I myself have been with virgin for many many years and im absolutely shocked and appalled at how they can do this.

As a direct result of this his bills have gone from £65 to £95 a month for a contract that should have finished last month but now tied in until next year.

[goslow]

A similar recent story also reported here

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/Cold-Calling-vulnerable-customers-a...

with an older customer so yours is not an isolated case.

[Andrew-G]

As a direct result of this his bills have gone from £65 to £95 a month for a contract that should have finished last month but now tied in until next year.

Except that he's probably not tied in.  Sounds like he's a vulnerable customer and you're suspicious that it doesn't meet his needs, then there's the strong likelihood of mis-selling.  You should do what is necessary to create a subject access request for the call recording of that outbound call.  For data protection reasons you may have to sit with him to complete the web form.  

There are of course formal complaint and escalation routes that can have all this addressed, they but they're slow.  On the other hand where are the forum staff?  This is looking pretty grim, and I'd have thought a quick and very generous resolution would be the best way forward.  And I'd still report VM to Citizens Advice/Trading Standards.  

[Natalie_L]

Hi Damon6969,

Thanks for updating the thread. 

I can confirm your private message has been received and my colleague will respond to you as soon as possible. 

Thank you for your patience,

[Damon6969]

I have helped my father to do the subject access request today, but not holding out much hope, it says on the form that calls to the customer are only supplied for the last 180 days. Think I'm going to to go down the official complaints route with CISAS on the grounds of misselling if l don't get anywhere with Virgin.