Email contract renewal offer has not been actioned

[RandoUser]

Sorry for how long this will be, I'm going to dump as much information as I can think of regarding my case here. Please let me know if you need any specifics relating to my account, pre-contract/order numbers etc.

My current contract expires in May and I received some emails from Virgin with renewal offers.

On 05/03 I followed the link in an email to the Virgin website and accepted the offer to renew my contract for another 18 months. I received the Contract Information and Contract Summary sheets before accepting and then received an order summary email which provided an Estimated activation date of 08/03.

On 08/03 I received an email from the Websales team 'Re: Sign Up Online' which stated:

"We are pleased to confirm your request has now been fully actioned and your special bundle offer of <input offer e.g. 2 for £20> has been applied, saving you even more money than you thought on your Virgin Media services."

And another email stating "Thanks for making those changes" and attached an eContract (Service change receipt) showing that my current contract has been updated to replace Maxit TV with Mega TV, and nothing else. Same price, still ends in May...Oh, and I'm apparently being charged £1.67 for making these changes which I never requested.

I've been on the web chat earlier today talking to agents who were more interested in trying to renegotiate a new contact with me, even though they can't offer the same prices as the one I already accepted, because they saw the word 'renewal'.

Eventually, an agent informed me that it would be "15 working days to affect" since I ordered online before the web chat mysteriously threw an error when I asked to be transferred to the complaints department (as there was no mention of it taking 15 days when I placed the order).

I fail to see how this could be the case since I've already had my account changed (incorrectly) by the websales team as a result of ordering online and it didn't take 15 days. Also, the order has been "fully actioned" so why would it open up again? I don't have any pending orders in my account.

Furthermore, I can see in this forum that other customers who've accepted the online renewal offers have been told 15 days and nothing has been fixed for them in that time frame:

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/New-Contract-Woes/td-p/5495798

Apologies for the wall of text. Can you please advise how my issue(s) can be resolved? And perhaps flag to the relevant parties that your online contract renewal self-service is not working as intended.

P.S. Here are further examples of customers using the online renewal service only for it do nothing, this issue has apparently been ongoing since October:

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/Contract-Renewal/m-p/5419319

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/Contract-renewal-not-actioned-cont/...

[Martin_N]

Hi RandoUser,

Thank you for your post and welcome to the community. 

I'm very sorry to hear about the issue you've had with your renewal. 

I am more than happy to take a look into this. I will private message you now to look into this. 

^Martin

[RandoUser]

Here's another (recent) example of a customer using the online process to renew after being sent an email only for nothing to be done:

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/Renewed-package-online/td-p/5496780

Why are Virgin continuing to send these emails & use this online renewal system when it apparently fails so often?

[RandoUser]

Can I get a response on this please?

I received private messages from Martin_N 2 weeks ago (13th March) asking a bunch of questions. Was told they would get back to me when they had more information and haven't heard anything since.

[RandoUser]

Here's more examples of this exact same issue that I can see from a quick look on this forum:

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/Virgin-Offered-a-great-deal-on-earl...

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/Contract-renewal-deal-not-activated...

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/Contract-Renewal-Issue/td-p/5502074

Virgin's online renewal system either does not work or fails frequently. The situation does not resolve itself within 14 or 15 days.

Why are Virgin continuing to send out emails about renewal offers (I'm even still receving these, despite having previously ordered through it) which lead customers to this broken system?

Why are Virgin customer services continuing to advise people that this will be resolved in xx amount of days? The only thing that will be accomplished by waiting is that their discounts will expire and they'll receive a larger than expected bill...

[David_Bn]

Thanks for reaching out to us @RandoUser, and I'm sorry to hear that this is still ongoing.

I'll seek to contact my colleague to see if an update can be issued to you via the conversation you're in with them.

Thanks,

David_Bn

[RandoUser]

 I replied to this on 01/04 but for some reason that disappeared (because I edited my reply a couple times?)

I've had no further communication about this from the forums team. It's a month later...

In the meantime I've raised a complaint: C-290324942

I actually raised this on 29/03 and in nearly 2 weeks I've had 3 replies all saying the same thing. "We can't find your renewal contract but you made a change on 08/03" followed by paragraphs of copy & paste about managing your account online (that works so well) and how you can refer your complaint on (I've asked for a deadlock email twice now).

I've provided the 'resolutions team' with evidence of my renewal which they requested on 01/04 but apparently whoever asked for that made a mistake since the actual intent is to continue ignoring said evidence and wasting my time...same as every other "customer service" agent I've spoken to at Virgin Media.

[RandoUser]

Thankfully, I only have another week to go before I'm 30 days out from my contract end date (18/05) so I can put in my notice and get free of this utter farce.

Can I put in my notice earlier than 30 days, to take effect on 18/05? Based on this experience I've got 0 trust that if I wait until the day itself that whoever I speak to about it will actually be able to achieve something as simple as putting through a cancellation in a competent and timely manner...

[RandoUser]

Another of my replies has gone missing from this thread? Are you deleting them because they have a complaint reference number in them?

[Carley_S]

Sorry to hear that this was not resolved for you @RandoUser 

It's a 30 day disconnection notice that we would advise. If you wish to give notice sooner than 30 days beforehand the account would be subject to early disconnection fees as at the time of giving notice the account may still be in contract.

If you put any personal or account sensitive information within a public post, your post maybe edited/removed by the moderators to protect your information. 

I can see that you already have a private message thread open with the team. Should you need to, you can respond back to the with any further queries or concerns you have on the same issue raised.