Leaving after more than 25 years

[telbea]

After more than 25 years with Virgin I have decided to leave after very bad treatment, too long to going into details but I had to involve the ombudsman who was unable to resolve the problems, so I am leaving, ending all virgin services including my O2/virgin mobile which I've had for well over 30 years, I am having absolutely nothing to do with virgin at all and will never return.

I posted my 30 day notice letter last week, 1st class recorded signed for service, Virgin received it on Tuesday last week (13th Aug). In my letter I requested a letter to confirm my services are ending with the end date and amendment of my bill. A week on, I have not received anything from Virgin, which I'm not too suprised about but does anyone think I should chase for confirmation or just leave it because I have the proof virgin received my letter? I have already booked my install with my new broadband supplier.

[John_GS]

Hi @telbea 

Thank for posting, welcome back to the community. Sorry to hear of this experience and that you are leaving us. We don't normally send out cancellation confirmation but I will send you a PM now to investigate this and advise accordingly.

[unisoft]

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@telbea wrote:

After more than 25 years with Virgin I have decided to leave after very bad treatment, too long to going into details but I had to involve the ombudsman who was unable to resolve the problems, so I am leaving, ending all virgin services including my O2/virgin mobile which I've had for well over 30 years, I am having absolutely nothing to do with virgin at all and will never return.

I posted my 30 day notice letter last week, 1st class recorded signed for service, Virgin received it on Tuesday last week (13th Aug). In my letter I requested a letter to confirm my services are ending with the end date and amendment of my bill. A week on, I have not received anything from Virgin, which I'm not too suprised about but does anyone think I should chase for confirmation or just leave it because I have the proof virgin received my letter? I have already booked my install with my new broadband supplier.

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On this simple, online form, please let the regulator OfCom know about your experience of cancelling. You would think you would get confirmation by email or letter. Ofcom have been investigating various complaints since 2023, but many customers have not reported because they did not know or thought it would take lots of time.

https://ofcomlive.my.salesforce-sites.com/formentry/SitesFormCCTMonitoring

[Matthew_ML]

My colleague has sent a DM to look into this, please do not worry.

[Geoff_H]

After almost 25 years I'm leaving VM too. After years of repeatedly having to haggle and threaten to leave to get a halfway decent price each time my contract came to an end, the competition has arrived in my area with 3x the speed for less than half the price I was paying and almost 1/3 of the out of contract price VM quoted in their recent reminder letter.

The competition's offer was too good to ignore.

So, I called VM, selected the "I want to leave" option in the IVR system and spoke to an agent who processed my request there and then. I received a cancellation acknowledgement email around an hour later.

My new 1Gbps service is installed and up and running with minimal fuss. As was already using my own router, the switchover was as simple as unplugging a cable and moving it to the new fibre interface.

After almost 25 years, I'm kinda sad to be leaving, but VM have shot themselves in the foot by treating their customers this way and - at least so far - ignoring the fact that the market has shifted and the competition is after their customers with a faster and cheaper offer.

[Kath_F]

Hi Geoff_H, 

Thanks for taking the time to let us know. We're really sorry to hear you've left us.

We always take on board the feedback we receive in the posts via the community so we can collect the information and use it to learn more about the areas we need to improve. We will certainly pass this information along to the relevant teams. 

Good luck with your new provider. 

Thanks, 

[Geoff_H]

Hello Kath_F

But the saga continues... My actual leaving date is 13 September.
On 4th September I was sent the following message:
"We have been trying to get in contact with you regarding your pending disconnection. We would love to discuss a fantastic offer with you that opens up a £19 broadband deal or up to £100 bill credit..."
Far too late to do any good. In any case, unless that was for 1Gbps service I wouldn't be interested anyway.

Then on 10th September I was sent a bill (dated 9th Sep) for £60.91 for service from 16 September to 15 October! I will have already left by then and so this bill is completely invalid and should never have been produced.

I tried calling customer services but when I selected "Account queries" on the IVR it informed me that I'd been sent a link to my mobile and promptly dropped the call. This happened twice. The third time I selected the "I want to leave" option and finally spoke to Emily, who assured me that the bill would be cancelled and that she had set the charges to zero. However, it still appears to be sitting in my account at the original amount.

I pay by DD, so I fear that on 24th Sept this will be still deducted from my bank account.

[archercj]

Geoff_H - I will be cancelling come the end of my contract in january for much the same reasons as you and many others. I am fully expecting the same issues you and others have faced. And like you there is a little sadness as the Gig1 broadband and TV package have been really good (and competitive)

When you paid, what you thought was your final bill, did you consider cancelling you direct debit?

[Geoff_H]

Hi archercj

I did consider cancelling the DD, but when I gave notice to leave - and when I finally spoke to Emily about the incorrect bill - I was told that there would in fact be a small refund due and not to cancel the DD until that had been received.

[unisoft]

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@Geoff_H wrote:

Hello Kath_F

But the saga continues... My actual leaving date is 13 September.
On 4th September I was sent the following message:
"We have been trying to get in contact with you regarding your pending disconnection. We would love to discuss a fantastic offer with you that opens up a £19 broadband deal or up to £100 bill credit..."
Far too late to do any good. In any case, unless that was for 1Gbps service I wouldn't be interested anyway.

Then on 10th September I was sent a bill (dated 9th Sep) for £60.91 for service from 16 September to 15 October! I will have already left by then and so this bill is completely invalid and should never have been produced.

I tried calling customer services but when I selected "Account queries" on the IVR it informed me that I'd been sent a link to my mobile and promptly dropped the call. This happened twice. The third time I selected the "I want to leave" option and finally spoke to Emily, who assured me that the bill would be cancelled and that she had set the charges to zero. However, it still appears to be sitting in my account at the original amount.

I pay by DD, so I fear that on 24th Sept this will be still deducted from my bank account.

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ignore that. It's just bait to make you feel like you lost a great deal, but it's highly likely it would be for M125 broadband. They did the same for me for £17 two days before cancellation when I was away and they hadn't bothered beforehand. On the last day I rang and got voicemail (confirmed later by VM when they tried it) and when I tried customer services they couldn't action it. Tell yourself you did the right thing and its their loss as VM defunded themselves in the end and have to be accountable in their Q3 financial figures around customer churn 🙂