Invioces going to Spain /

[NickEG]

Dear all at Virgin , since 2019 when adopting an account from previous occupant, in order to save opening a new account and prevent equipment from being replaced /scrapped we have had a problem with access to the account  ,  partly because the previous owner of the account is still receiving  our invoices which as you can imagine is very inconvenient , but also ensure that any security checks are very difficult to complete ,  approx.  12 months after this transfer  we attempted to resolve this issue and was assured that this was the case , however it was not to be , presumably you can assist us  or do we just close the account , we would welcome  your  input

[Beth_G]

Hi NickEG,

Thanks very much for your post, welcome to the Community Forums.

The only way around this would be by cancelling the current account and then setting up a new account in your name, as we can no longer change names on accounts into someone else's.

The benefit of this would mean that you'd be entitled to new customer discounts too.

However I'm afraid that this is not something we are able to help with, as we cannot assist with cancellations or new sales from here. I would advise to ask the named account holder to speak with us on 0345 454 1111 / 150 and speak with our Retentions Team to disconnect the account. Once the account has been disconnected (we do have a 30 day disconnection notice) you'll then need to call us on 0800 183 1234 and speak with the Sales Team to set up a new account.

Let us know how you get on

[Incantations]

Can I take it that what you did was to change the direct debit details so that the money was coming out of your account rather than the original account holder’s, no? If so then, you have never adopted the account, it still belongs to the original person (now apparently in Spain), and only they have any control over it, you are simply paying for it on their behalf!

I suspect that it is unlikely that they will want to go through the effort of calling VM and cancelling the contract so that you can sign up as a new user. Hypothetically, what you could do is to simply cancel the direct debit and not pay any more. Yes VM will start all sorts of adding late payment fees etc. and eventually turn it over to a debt collection agency, but this will be against the named account holder, not you! I doubt they will get Interpol involved so eventually it’ll get written off. Either way not your problem!

In the meantime, you can sign up with VM or another provider in your own right, if with VM then they will say there is already a contract at that address, feign ignorance, they’ll send you a ‘Gone Away’ form, fill it in, return it - eventually it should all be OK