Oomph bundle has changed early on

[ConD31]

Hello All,

My contract with Virgin Media was supposed to be the "Big Oomph Bundle" which we had paid for and had a contract sent for and everything as normal.

However, just before the SECOND month of our contract, I received an email stating that we were "no longer eligible for the "oomph bundle" dropping from the m350 speeds to m200, at a price drop of £40.99 to £38, which admittedly, I had missed the email until recent when I began to notice the change (I still had 350 speeds for a while after the stated date on the email which is why I never thought to check).

To add to this, we never received the promised SIM on the order (which to be honest, I'm not fussed about anyway).

I spoke to someone on chat today to try and figure out what's happened and why it's changed and provided a copy of my original contract, to which the chat agent's responses made it seem like they were going to apply the m350 speeds again and up the price to £41.50, still not the original price, but at least I'll get the speeds I was after.. 

So after some confusion and assumption to the responses I did ask for an email with either a payment breakdown or a copy of the contract, which I was then sent a copy of the contract that I had been moved down to, the m200 package at £38, which is where I was just completely confused.

Is there anything I can do at all to actually receive the contract/package I originally agreed to rather than being forced into this lower package at a super similar pricing point..?

Would love some advice!

[Andrew-G · Accepted solution]

Is there anything I can do at all to actually receive the contract/package I originally agreed to rather than being forced into this lower package at a super similar pricing point..?

These "didn't get the deal I agreed" situations happen from time to time.  However, your legal rights are crystal clear - information provided by a company verbally or written is binding if the consumer relies upon it when entering a contract (Consumer Rights Act 2015), so VM have to honour whatever was both offered and accepted, whether they like it or not. 

Hopefully the forum staff can pick this up and get it sorted, and I'll flag this for their attention.  By "sorted" I mean that you get exactly the deal you were promised, not some less attractive compromise.  That would be the cheapest and quickest resolution for both parties, and the best way of trying to recover some goodwill in a bad situation.  If they can't get it sorted in that complete manner, you need to search, read and follow the Virgin Media Consumer Complaints Code of Practice.  Don't start a complaint until you've seen if the forum staff can get this sorted, because I believe they can't get involved once it has become a formal complaint. 

If you still do need to raise a formal complaint (use the online form in My Virgin Media or do it by donkey post, recorded delivery), reject the contract they're trying to impose, and demanding that as per your legal rights the company honour what was promised, and if the company refuses to honour its agreement you request an immediate "deadlock letter" for the purposes of escalation to the industry arbitration scheme CISAS.  In the meanwhile, don't do anything daft like stopping your direct debit, that'll be recorded as a credit default, and opens up whole new realms of difficulty for you.  Don't worry if VM contact you claiming that they couldn't get hold of you, so will close the complaint if they don't hear to the contrary, fob you off, or ignore it this doesn't stop you being able to take the matter further, although without a deadlock letter you have to allow eight weeks from the date of your complaint before approaching CISAS.

[ConD31]

Hello Andrew,

Thank you so much for your response, this has definitely given me some slight peace of mind and a direction to head on this.

I will await a response from a forum staff member and move from there.

I meant to "Kudo's" your response but mistakenly pressed the helpful answer option (it's already been a long day.. lol). This won't take away the attention to this getting seen to will it, seeing as it now shows as "solved"?

Kind Regards,

[Tom_F]

Hi ConD31, thanks for your post.

Very sorry to hear there's been some issues & confusion around the deal you were offered. 

I'll be happy to take a look into it and see what we can do to help - just get back to me via PM (look out for the purple envelope) and we'll take it from there.

Tom 

[Jodi_S]

Hi ConD31

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you. Really pleased to hear that your package issues have now been resolved, but disappointed that you're now experiencing issues with your broadband speeds.

Upon checking you're account this morning, we can see that you are experiencing short term connectivity issues, this will cause intermittent or performance issues with your services, these issues normally resolved quite quickly, however we do ask you monitor this for 7days.

As you reported this to me on Thursday, I will check back in next Wednesday morning for you, and if the issue is persisting we may need to get an engineer to attend.

Kind regards Jodi. 

[Jodi_S]

Good morning ConD31,

Just checking in to see if anything has changed with your broadband issues over the last 7 days. 

Please can you let me know, as we advised if the problem persist, we will check your account again and get a technician booked of necessary. 

Kind regards Jodi. 

[ConD31]

Hi Jodi,

Apologies for the late response!

The issues seem to be resolved on wireless and straight wired from router to device.

The issue is presenting itself when connecting my PC through powerline adapter (which I always have and always received the correct speeds until now).

I've tried all manner of network resets, changed to CAT7 cabling and also factory reset my powerline adapters and the router.

To be honest, it's strange, because I receive around 30Mbps speed test on my PC with the adapters, and then around 70Mbps on my work laptop through it, so it's hard to say that's where the issue lies, but it has to be somewhat in that part of the connection path.

Kind Regards,

[Paul_DN]

Hi ConD31,

Thanks for reaching back out to us, I have had a good look our end and cannot see any issues at all, you advised you are using a powerline adaptor, is this something you purchased yourself?

As part of your package you are entitled to our Intelligent WIFI which comes with our pods, this would make sure you have a connection throughout the property and you can still connect it to your PC with a Ethernet cable, you can find out more around our Intelligent WIFI and our Pods here.

If you would like to try these, I will be happy to get these ordered, so I can invite you into a private chat, I will send a invite shortly, please click on the purple envelope when received?

Regards

Paul.