Horrendous Service & Inability to cancel without being charged twice & Non existing customer service

[Selina3]

Hello, 

Does anyone have the same issue when trying to cancel the expired contract?

The contract "Bigger Bundle" signed up through Topcashback (never got a cashback - £180, service provider/Virgin refused) was expiring on 4th July (stated in the contract); they sent one email only on 19th June informing that the cost of services would rise from £42.43 (increased from £39 in April) to £99! Just one email, no message, no phone call. I got hit with the £99 bill on 11th July 2024; Virgin, at the same time, changed their end contract date to 20th June 2024 and started charging £99 onwards. 

Attention, you cannot cancel the service till 30 days later! So you always need to pay a higher bill and even twice if Virgin would change the end contract date illegally by themselves.

I quickly cancelled the service on 15th July and set a date for 14th August. I already got billed twice by £99 on 12th July and 11th August, and the contract is still not finished!

How is this even legal? Richard Branson should be ashamed of himself for having an organisation like that!

Have to raise this to trading standards.

Best regards,

Selina

[goslow]

OFCOM requires providers to give notice 10 to 40 days before end of contract. VM tends towards the lower limit it would seem from your post.

You will be billed as per normal right up until your date of disconnection, including outgoing direct debits as per normal. Depending on when your billing period period is, and your direct debit date in relation to your disconnection date, you may end up with a credit or debit on your account at disconnection.

Shortly after you are disconnected, you should receive a final bill (pro rata up to your disconnection date). If your account is in debit, you pay VM and leave. If the account is in credit, VM should refund you (though not necessarily quickly). VM may also factor in charges for any unreturned equipment.

[Selina3]

Hi, thanks.

Why does the cancellation require 30 days after the contract has been finished to finally disconnect services? 

As I have read, that provider should do everything in its power to notify the user about finishing the contract, I have just been sent one email, and if you even want to cancel, you would still need to pay an extra charge after the contract expires.

In my case, I was stung twice by Virgin; how is this legal?

I might get another £99 bill by Virgin, I can't leave it this way.

[Derwentmailman]

If you were wishing to minimise the amount you paid to VM after your contract had finished you would have been within your rights to serve your 30-day notice on 4th June (30 days before the contract ran out on 4th July). I suspect that you may end up paying 2 full undiscounted bills before getting a partial month's refund because of the timing of this 30 day notice.

Giving notice of 30 days is a standard part of VM's T&C and probably many other providers as well. 

[goslow]

A 30 day notice period is fairly standard for all sorts of telecoms services. VM, and probably many other providers, will simply work their way down to the lowest level that the rules require of them (which it seems VM complied with by sending you an email in the 10 to 40 day window).

If the spirit of aims of the notification was being followed, providers would give the 40 day notification which would allow the customer 10 days to shop around and compare providers and still give the 30 days notice to leave at the very end of the minimum term (as per advice from Derwentmailman).

For your next broadband provider you could set your own electronic calendar reminder at 40 days before the end of your next minimum term contract and get a jump on renewing or leaving so as to avoid any undiscounted monthly payments.

If you have some doc's with your original minimum term date(s), you can duke it out with VM when they reply to your topic on here (usually within a few days).

[goldstonebha]

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@Selina3 wrote:

Richard Branson should be ashamed of himself for having an organisation like that!

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I don't think Branson has had a shareholding since 2013 when Liberty Global bought Virgin Media. The current company is Virgin Media O2, a joint venture of Liberty and Telefónica. 

[Derwentmailman]

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@goslow wrote:

A 30 day notice period is fairly standard for all sorts of telecoms services. VM, and probably many other providers, will simply work their way down to the lowest level that the rules require of them (which it seems VM complied with by sending you an email in the 10 to 40 day window).

If the spirit of aims of the notification was being followed, providers would give the 40 day notification which would allow the customer 10 days to shop around and compare providers and still give the 30 days notice to leave at the very end of the minimum term (as per advice from Derwentmailman).

For your next broadband provider you could set your own electronic calendar reminder at 40 days before the end of your next minimum term contract and get a jump on renewing or leaving so as to avoid any undiscounted monthly payments.

If you have some doc's with your original minimum term date(s), you can duke it out with VM when they reply to your topic on here (usually within a few days).

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As it turned out I got the notice from VM via email today so they were at the 29 day mark before my original contract ran out but I had set the contract renewal date in my diary many months before and spent a week or more pouring over the options available to me before I phoned them exactly 30 days before the end of the original contract.  I agree such end of contract notifications should be done at > whatever the minimum notice is.  TBH I don't know why they don't make it statutory 40 days for any service where 30 days notice is required.

@ the OP, do you have access to the old contract online?

[goslow]

That's the way to do it.

If you track back through the consultations before the end-of-contract notices became mandatory, it seems as if OFCOM was originally thinking of a much longer notice period (40 to 70 days) but it looks like the providers eventually beat OFCOM down to the current 10 to 40 days, and OFCOM gave in!

[Ashleigh_C]

Hi there @Selina3 

Thank you so much for your post and welcome to the community forums, it's great to have you here.

I am so sorry that you have faced this issue with your account and thank you to our community team for their help here so far. 

I am so sorry for any confusion regarding your deal. Your contract end date is on your contract which you can view at any time via your My Virgin Media profile, we also list your discount end dates on every monthly bill. We also do send a reminder email before the end of the deal. 

We do bill a month in advance so if your contract ends in July then the June bill would show the changed price. We do require 30 days for a cancellation which is also included in the terms and conditions of your contract which you can view here. 

Can I just confirm have you been able to speak to our teams to arrange either a new deal or a cancellation?