Impossible to contact Virgin media

[RichBloom]

I've been trying to contact Virgin Media for 6 weeks - spent about 7 hours in total. The pattern is... phone up; speak to someone helpful; they say they have to transfer me;  I'm then on hold endlessly. I've also had a complaint waiting over 28 days. If no one has been in touch by end of today, I'll be cancelling

[Daniel_Et]

Hi @RichBloom 👋 Thank you for your post and welcome to the Virgin Media Community 😀

We're sorry to hear about the poor experience you've had and that you're thinking of leaving us 😔

Can you please provide a brief outline of what your complaint is regarding?

We'll do our very best to help.

Regards,
Daniel

[Phil367]

I'm in the same situation. My contract is running out and i have decided to quit. Doing that has proved impossible. Early this month i twice phoned and waited so long each time that i ended up giving up. After the failed second attempt i decided to try to write to them at their Sunderland address. I sent the letter on the 4th October by Special Delivery informing them that i am quitting but still I have had no reply so today i attempted twice to contact them using online chat but on the second attempt gave up after being held in the "queue" for an hour despite a 7 minute estimate to be connected to someone.

I have tried to do things the right way but it is impossible. I have had to resort to cancelling my direct debit and signing up to this forum in the hope that someone will actually be able to get things moving.

[Logic800]

Same here. A forum team member said they would confirm my cancellation if I reminded them today. I did but still nothing.

[RichBloom]

Complaint was on 8 Sept - Ref. C-0809231226. 
I have the following documented in more detail if needed. I was called by a VM rep on 21/8/23 as my old contract was expiring - I agreed a new contract for £134/month and send an email from vmteam@virginmedia.co.uk. A couple of weeks later my account was debited £176 and this was shown as the default contract in my VM account. I tried to find out why but the following pattern emerged - I'd phone up; speak to someone helpful after about 20 minutes of waiting; they say they have to transfer me; I'm then on hold endlessly (up to 45 minutes until i gave up). Repeat many times. Someone did call back once but not on the number I'd asked them to and I missed it. I also got hold of a named VM person's email (they did not reply). After many, many hours of trying I gave up and decided to make a complaint - I noticed that you promised to reply with 28 days to the complaint. That was over 1 month ago and still no reply - in the meantime my account has again been debited a ridiculous amount.

[RichBloom]

I just missed a call from Virgin Media after waiting most of the day. Could someone from VM try and call again and if you don't succeed, please try again tomorrow.

[Logic800]

One can only deduce that this is deliberate mismanagement rather than accidental. I also raised a complaint to Ofcom, and sent a letter to VM.

[goslow]

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@Phil367 wrote:

<snip>I have tried to do things the right way but it is impossible. I have had to resort to cancelling my direct debit and signing up to this forum in the hope that someone will actually be able to get things moving.

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You won't necessarily get a reply/confirmation from VM. Some on here have reported an email confirmation, some have seen an 'order' appear within My Virgin Media for the cancellation, some have received a letter in the post confirming and some receive nothing at all.

Until you have fully completed the disconnection process with VM, cancelling your direct debit is not a good idea. There are numerous past topics where this has caused problems for the customer after VM launched its debt recovery processes (one part of the company that does work well).

Your cancellation countdown should begin 2 working days after you posted the letter (refer to section T3 below)

https://prod.ctassets.virginmedia.com/uploads/Terms_and_Conditions_TV_Fibre_and_Phone_FROM_01_MAY_20...

and will be backed by any tracking records you have in place.

VM's cancellation processes are a shambles which is why OFCOM is investigating VM on this aspect

You can share your unhappy cancellation experience with OFCOM.

They launched an investigation into VM on 13 July 2023 specifically into VM's cancellation and complaints processes.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/bulletins/enforcement-bulletin/open-cases/cw_01275

Case ref. no. and an email at the bottom of the above page or submit with same info via the contact form

https://ofcomforms.secure.force.com/formentry/SitesFormCCTMonitoring

Submitting information won't help your individual complaint but it will contribute to the OFCOM investigation and it sounds like your experience is directly relevant to the terms of reference of the investigation.

[Phil367]

With the cancellation of my own direct debit the last payment has only just been made. This is covering a period until near the end of this month at a point after my contract has expired and long after i have informed them by letter that i have no wish to continue using their services and asking them to make the appropriate arrangements.

Although i would have preferred to have gone a more conventional route if anything they would now owe me money as they haven't replied and organised the cancellation of my services as requested. The next direct debit is for a period starting 3 weeks after my letter to them informing them that i wasn't renewing my contract and a week after my contract has finished. There is no way i am letting them make another direct debit payment for a service i am no longer contracted to and which i have already informed them i have no wish to use anymore.

Thank you for the information regarding OFCOM. While i could do without the hassle of complaining it does feel like it's a necessary route now.

[Kain_W]

Apologies for the issues faced RichBloom,

So we can investigate the matter further I've dropped you a PM.

The message will appear within the envelope icon.

Regards,