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Left virgin media for youfibre, yet I am getting harrassed for £40 for not returning a router!!!

Silentstorm
Tuning in

And the reason for not returning the router? THEY COLLECTED IT!!!

All I get when I call up is foreigners who 'pass the message on' and yet nothing is done.

Virgin actually owe me a credit which I have yet to see in my bank account.

I hate to say it, but you have better luck with talktalk.

Avoid this awfull company at all costs!!

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

This needs to be sorted out, and that probably includes amendment to your credit history data.  If VM are chasing for payment, then it will likely have been reported to the credit reference agencies as an overdue payment against a credit agreement, and that will follow you around for six years, visible to future lenders, credit card providers, consumer services companies, potentially employers, and come up in mortgage or rental applications.  Check your credit file with Experian (free) and see what comes up - as VM's systems are entirely automated, I'd expect that there's an overdue payment showing.  You can't just ignore this, nor even pay the £40 and hope it goes away - and if it's overdue on VM's books they'll be adding extra for "late payment".

The outcome you need here is (1) VM to accept they've had their equipment back and confirm that in writing to you, (2) stopping chasing you for a supposed debt that you don't owe, (3) correction of any entries on your credit history relating to this, and (4) compensation for the hassle caused by the inconvenience and poor handling when you contacted them - I'd suggest £50.

Hopefully the forum staff will seize this before you need to get heavy, and they can achieve all of these outcomes (and don't be fobbed off with a derisory fifteen quid compo offer - these things are hugely stressful, the error is entirely VM's, they owe you).

If you don't get all four things via the forum staff, then there's a simple although slow and bureaucratic way of forcing the company to do the right thing.  You raise a formal written complaint with VM explaining the problem, asking for those same four outcomes, or an immediate deadlock if they won't resolve the matter on those terms.  Either they settle, or you get the deadlock letter and you take the matter to CISAS.  If you need to take the matter to CISAS, make the poor complaint handling a further element, and ask for an extra £50 compensation for that. 

See where this Helpful Answer was posted

10 REPLIES 10

Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

This needs to be sorted out, and that probably includes amendment to your credit history data.  If VM are chasing for payment, then it will likely have been reported to the credit reference agencies as an overdue payment against a credit agreement, and that will follow you around for six years, visible to future lenders, credit card providers, consumer services companies, potentially employers, and come up in mortgage or rental applications.  Check your credit file with Experian (free) and see what comes up - as VM's systems are entirely automated, I'd expect that there's an overdue payment showing.  You can't just ignore this, nor even pay the £40 and hope it goes away - and if it's overdue on VM's books they'll be adding extra for "late payment".

The outcome you need here is (1) VM to accept they've had their equipment back and confirm that in writing to you, (2) stopping chasing you for a supposed debt that you don't owe, (3) correction of any entries on your credit history relating to this, and (4) compensation for the hassle caused by the inconvenience and poor handling when you contacted them - I'd suggest £50.

Hopefully the forum staff will seize this before you need to get heavy, and they can achieve all of these outcomes (and don't be fobbed off with a derisory fifteen quid compo offer - these things are hugely stressful, the error is entirely VM's, they owe you).

If you don't get all four things via the forum staff, then there's a simple although slow and bureaucratic way of forcing the company to do the right thing.  You raise a formal written complaint with VM explaining the problem, asking for those same four outcomes, or an immediate deadlock if they won't resolve the matter on those terms.  Either they settle, or you get the deadlock letter and you take the matter to CISAS.  If you need to take the matter to CISAS, make the poor complaint handling a further element, and ask for an extra £50 compensation for that. 

Kath_F
Forum Team
Forum Team

Hi Silentstorm, 

Thanks for your post and welcome back to the Community. We're really sorry to hear you've left us and are now having trouble with the reminders for returning equipment. 

We can certainly take some details from you to get the charge removed and also look at if there is any refund on the account for you but in order to do that I will need to confirm some information with you. 

I have sent you a private message regarding this and will investigate further once I receive your reply. Just click on the little plum envelope at the top right-hand side of the page to access your inbox.

Thanks, 

Kath_F
Forum Team

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As you can tell I am so angry and frustrated at VM. The fact that they will do the above is shocking and reinforces my belief that I will never return to or recommend this company to anyone. This should have been sorted out on the first call. I don't have any hopes of £50 compensation, they still owe me fees from back from when I first joined when the rep came around and signed me up and promised that one of the fees would be cancelled out and refunded back to me. Never saw a penny, and then covid and lockdowns hit.
What made me smile is they sent out a bag with a plastic spanner and some metal thing (looks like a cap?). No returns address on it and the plastic bag would in no way protect the router... my collect plus shop flings parcels into a metal cage, so its likely that the router would have gotten damaged and i'd probably end up getting charged for that as well.
Fortunately Kath_F has messaged me regarding this, and hopefully she can sort it all out.

Thank you Kath_F I will look now 🙂

Still chasing... but hopefully the end is in sight. They seem to have lost a router that was overheating and caused my smoke alarm to start bleeping. I was told to dispose of it as it would be a danger to send it to another customer. I kept it with the intention of sending it to trading standards or a similar body. With covid and lockdowns I never got around to sending it. Virgin Media collected it anyway. That was over a year and a half ago and in all that time, nobody bothered to check in regarding the status of it.

Thanks for coming back to us @Silentstorm, I can see that you are in a private message conversation with my colleague, it would be best to carry on with the private message to get this investigated further.

Regards,

Steven_L

Thank you, but it was in reply to Andrew above and to keep everyone updated on the latest.

Apparently the hub might have gone to a different department for testing and thus hasnt been updated on my account. Kath is organising that to be changed and I should see an update in the coming days. I have asked her to keep me informed and also requested information about the best way to file a formal complaint with regards to receiving compensation as mentioned in Andrew's earlier post.

Paulina_Z
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

Hi @Silentstorm,

Thank you for coming back to us and for letting us know. I'm sure that Kath will reach back out to you as soon as she can with this issue and help investigate this further.

Keep us updated on how you're getting on.

Thank you.

Paulina_Z
Forum Team

New around here? Check out the do's and don'ts, in our Community FAQs


Yes of course. That is what I am doing and intend on continuing to do.