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Feel conned by Maxit TV.

AwkwardBroccoli
Dialled in

Hello, 

We used to have Full House TV (XL). We used to have the children's channels.

As my nephew is getting older, he's getting more into the TV and he's wanting to start sleeping over. I've just noticed that all of the children's channels are greyed out on my package.

I called in February 2022 to renegotiate our monthly fee as it seemed expensive.

I was told that we could keep the exact same package and that they would add a loyalty discount, taking the price down to £81 per month (we've been with Virgin since the early 90s, when it was Comcast, NTL or whatever). The agent confirmed nothing was changing but if we stayed for another eighteen months, we'd get the loyalty discount.

I received the e-mail confirming the changes on 15 February 2022 but didn't read it. I know that was naïve and foolish, but I just trusted the retentions agent.

I've looked at the e-mail again and it shows we were changed from Full House TV (XL) to Maxit TV on 15 February 2022, which means the loss is the children's channels.

I know I should have read the e-mail at the time, but the agent categorically told us the package was staying the same.

My nephew is going to start staying over plus, who am I kidding, I want to watch Adventure Time and some of the classics from my childhood. 

What can we do? I feel like we were misled.

Would they still have the call recordings from February?

I begrudge paying £4-5 per month extra when I was told there would be no change and the whole point of the call was to get a discount to retain my custom and to reduce the monthly cost, not to strip away services.

Thank you, Bastet of Bubastis
1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Hey @AwkwardBroccoli, thanks for the reply on the forums.

I do apologise about the whole situation that has occurred.
I will investigate this matter further for you and look in to what has happened.
I will send a private message - watch out for the purple envelope inviting you in.

Kind regards,
Ilyas.

Ilyas_Y
Forum Team

New around here? Check out the do's and don'ts, in our Community FAQs


See where this Helpful Answer was posted

11 REPLIES 11

Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

VM (and other companies) have to retain call recordings of sales and retention calls for a minimum of six months.  If they apply that then the recordings may have been deleted.  But that's a legal minimum.

Make a subject access request for all call recordings.  See if that turns up the evidence.  If VM have not provided the call recordings in 30 days, report that to the Information Commissioner's Office.

Tom_W1
Forum Team
Forum Team

Hi @AwkwardBroccoli thanks for your post, although I'm sorry to hear of your concerns raised here surrounding your package.

So from around that point in the year, we did take the decision to remove Kids Picks from being included as part of the package, going forwards. 

The name of the package changed (from Full House TV to Maxit TV), and when this happened the Kids Picks were no longer included, and this should have been explained to you - sincere apologies that this wasn't and I can appreciate your frustrations here.

However, this does mean you are now in line with all other customers with Virgin Media, where Kids Picks are now included as an add-on for £5 extra a month.

It does sound like that you don't use the Kids Picks regularly from your message (although may be doing more so going forwards), and the positive thing with Kids Picks being an add-on means you can add and take it away whenever and as freely as you like!
If you'd like to add this, please let us know and we can get this sorted for you.

Many thanks

Tom_W

Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

Virgin Media speak: "If you'd like to add this, please let us know and we can get this sorted for you."

Translation: "We told you you'd keep the same channels but omitted to tell you the material fact that no, in fact you wouldn't keep the same channels, and now you've worked this out, we'll happily charge you £5 a month (sixty quid a year) to deliver the content that our agent told you would be included.  We appreciate that you're not happy, and that this looks very much like a breach of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (2008) which specifically prohibit misleading omissions.  But we don't care, you go and speak to Citizens Advice if you don't like it."

Perhaps the forum staff would like to reconsider?

But how can they remove any channels at all when it was a retention deal with a new eighteen month contract?

Surely you can't reduce our package in any way for those eighteen months just like we can't leave.

Even worse that we weren't told about the change in package, or indeed that we were told specifically that nothing would be changing but the price.

I don't think VM has any legal defence to do this?

You should either add the children's channels back to make us whole or reduce our plan further since we agreed do a fixed price for the same services, which you then reduced. 

Thank you, Bastet of Bubastis

japitts
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

The counter-argument to all of this, is that if a particular aspect of your package was so important to you, there was a 14day cooling-off period to raise any issues. To raise an issue 8months on, VM would arguably be within their rights to question the reason for that delay.

If you can prove that the contract was accepted on the basis of these channels being included, then you'll be in a much better position.

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Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

@japitts wrote:

The counter-argument to all of this, is that if a particular aspect of your package was so important to you, there was a 14day cooling-off period to raise any issues. To raise an issue 8months on, VM would arguably be within their rights to question the reason for that delay.


I think you're assuming that the concept of a deemed contract applies here, as it does with contractual small print that isn't ever read out by the agent and normally not by the customer, but is deemed to be accepted by the customer having the opportunity to read it, and continuing to pay the bills.  I don't think that can be held to apply to a major contractual term (eg speed, bundle content, price, etc) simply because it wasn't discovered at the time - and the 14 day cooling off period isn't there for the purposes of "exploring the envelope", it's to allow consumers to reflect on the decision they made to enter a contract at all.

Consider if the customer had been told they agreed a 500 Mbps deal, and they accepted that without measuring it.  Then, for reasons that would not matter, they do a speed test after 8 months, and find that they are in fact on a 200 Mbps connection.  Are you really suggesting that the law says "Hahahahhaa!  Gotcha!  You didn't do the speed test in the first 14 days, you're stuffed now!  And we'll keep charging you the full price!  Hahahahaha!" ? 

Hey @AwkwardBroccoli, thanks for the reply on the forums.

I do apologise about the whole situation that has occurred.
I will investigate this matter further for you and look in to what has happened.
I will send a private message - watch out for the purple envelope inviting you in.

Kind regards,
Ilyas.

Ilyas_Y
Forum Team

New around here? Check out the do's and don'ts, in our Community FAQs


Hi there @AwkwardBroccoli.

Thanks for speaking with us today.
I'm glad we have taken the correct actions / steps in order to get the matter resolved.
As always - reach out to us if you have any other queries and we will assist 🙂

Kind regards,
Ilyas.

Ilyas_Y
Forum Team

New around here? Check out the do's and don'ts, in our Community FAQs


All sorted by @Ilyas_Y THANK YOU. 

Thank you, Bastet of Bubastis