Help Needed - Missold Package

[UserP]

Hi.

My Contract ended in early July, I had intended on leaving only to be informed that I had to wait 30 days, I believe I misunderstood what this meant in the contract, but fair enough.

While I'm waiting, a Virgin Retention agent contacted me and offered me a deal I simply could not refuse. I accepted and within a week I had an engineer out to the house with a new Gig1 router, within 3 hours of that the new package was up and running and I was enjoying some Sky F1.

I only watch TV at the weekends so I only noticed something was amiss when I tried to watch the next F1 race, which was around the time of the Crowdstrike fubar, and I couldn't get it to work. It kept asking me to either login or subscribe to a package. 

I looked at my account page which suggested that I'd been moved back to my old package, no email, no phone call, just moved back. So I contacted a Virgin help agent who spent an hour trying to sell my a new package and wouldn't provide any information, refused to answer any questions, just told me to wait for 5 working days.

A week later I tried again and and the help agent again tried to sell me a package, but eventually looked into my situation and told me that I was mis-sold a package, that it was for new customers only and when the system discovered this I was moved back. I have never in my life seen a new customer deal like the one I was sold on, but she would contact some admin team or other and see if they could make it right and give me what I was offered and that they'd be in touch within two days or so. 

A week later there is still no contact from anyone at Virgin, so I submit a complaint, several days later they send a message asking me to get in touch with them. I get in touch with them and they spend an hour trying to get me to buy a new package, they say nothing about my complaint, the issues surrounding it, the lack of communication etc etc. I ask why the agent is ignoring my questions and his response is to tell me he is filing a disconnection request for me.

Hopefully someone here can actually look into this. I don't like ruffling feathers and I'm honestly not sure how I would go about contacting Ofcom, but this kind of practise is surely unacceptable.

[UserP]

Yes, I accepted and received an offered deal/package. It was removed without warning/notification.

I've submitted the DSA, though my complaint that resulted in nothing but more sale pitches and a disconnection order is technically still active, do I just make a new complaint and include the shoddy handling of the previous one and then escalate the new one to Ombudsman?

I appreciate the help.

[Cardiffman282]

As Highway wisely advises, legally, you have VM by its testimonials here. All elements of contract formation are present and correct. You will continue to find VM customer services and complaints teams operating in a somewhat lower gear than the high octane F1 action that you are accustomed to. However you must persevere here. Grit your teeth, don your fireproof overalls and crash helmet, and plunge back in to another formal written complaint. Stick to your guns and don't accept any fob offs. This is all with a view to escalating to the Ombudsman. Also secure all of your call recordings via a data request. All links are below. The Ombudsman's chequered flag will most probably come before VM's white flag here. Best of luck and please keep us updated. 

[Matthew_ML]

Hey UserP, thank you for reaching out and I am sorry to hear this.

I can see you've spoke to the team since this post, did they help at all?

Also what was mis sold, does the paperwork not align to what is on your package? 

[UserP]

Actually I haven't spoken to anyone from Virgin since this post, I merely requested the DSA and submitted a new formal complaint as advised above.

Contract Information Sheet:100227916796

This is what I was offered, agreed to and received. Then without notification from Virgin, it was removed and I was passed back to the original package on a rolling contract. Virgin support staff either ignored my requests to clarify what was wrong or only eventually let slip that someone made a mistake and this package should not have been sold to me.

However, it was, and as has been pointed out to me above, Virgin ought to make this right instead of having your support team ignore my questions and just order a disconnection without my request for one to try and make me go away, or disconnect from support chats and make it someone elses problem.

[Ayisha_B]

I'm going to pop you a PM now and we can take a closer look.

Thanks

[spell]

UserP - it's just the VM waffle procedure starting up to get you fed up and go away - stick with it and remember YOU have taken charge here

[UserP]

I had some more contact with the complaints resolution team:

It took quite some time, they must have 1 agent trying to cope with multiple chats simultaneously, the chat kept disconnecting, which ofcourse means starting over with a new agent, but anyway, it appears that Virgin are going to honour the original deal after all.

According to them, the package I'm being given costs more, but they'll credit the account so I shouldn't be charged any more than what was originally proposed.

I'd like to thank you guys for the help, I really appreciate it. 

[Ayisha_B]

Thanks for updating the thread @UserP 

We're so happy there has been progress with the complaint and the deal is being honoured.

Once again our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused.

If we can help with anything else, do let us know.

[spell]

Just a small point to be wary of - a contract and subsequent bills must show the precise charge for the contracted package - beware of a scam where a higher than agreed charge is shown with a none contractual 'agreement ' that an appropriate reimbursement will be made. This is at best a poor business practice and at worst fraud.

Good luck with it