Out of contract and changing to new VM service without phone

[adawnbird]

This is getting quite complicated made even worse by very incompetent online agents.

My mother in law is out of contract and she has decided to sign up for the essential broadband plus tv service for which she qualifies.  This means we need to port her phone number to another provider that we have already arranged.

When she finally got through to someone who could help her, they were incredibly brusk and basically said if she wanted the service they had to cancel her current package now, immediately!  Then they would sign her up for new service and she would have to wait 3-5 days for the new box to arrive.

There was no answer when she asked if she could transition from one service to the new one when she had the box and her phone let set up.  They said that could not happen, but why?

My mother in law is 91 years old, lives alone and relies on her tv, phone and internet heavily, she can not be without these services but the agent simply said when you are ready, come back and left!

She has put in a complaint but that could take 28 days!

Is there anyone here from Virgin who can point us in the right direction to get this matter resolved in a fair way, thank you

[newapollo · Accepted solution]

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@adawnbird wrote:

This is getting quite complicated made even worse by very incompetent online agents.

My mother in law is out of contract and she has decided to sign up for the essential broadband plus tv service for which she qualifies.  This means we need to port her phone number to another provider that we have already arranged.

When she finally got through to someone who could help her, they were incredibly brusk and basically said if she wanted the service they had to cancel her current package now, immediately!  Then they would sign her up for new service and she would have to wait 3-5 days for the new box to arrive.

There was no answer when she asked if she could transition from one service to the new one when she had the box and her phone let set up.  They said that could not happen, but why?

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Hi @adawnbird 

It's best to transfer her phone to a new provider first if she wants to retain her current landline number because VM  need to cancel the current contract before they can move her to the the essential broadband plus tv service. As part of that process they have to disconnect the phone line which means her phone number would be placed into a 'pool' of phone numbers and thus she would lose that number. Therefore I advise moving the phone over and once that completes she should apply for the Essential package.

As to having to cancel her current package immediately, that appears to be correct, according to the following from the 

https://www.virginmedia.com/broadband/low-income-families  page

"What if I’m already in a contract with Virgin Media?

If you’re already in a contract with us, we’ll swap you over to one of our Essential broadband packages straight away and you won’t have to pay any fees or extra charges. Go to live chat for more details."

[adawnbird]

Thank you for the reply and information.  We have started the process of porting to another provider, so as soon as that is done, will virgin automatically cancel the whole package or just the phone part?

To be honest a lot of things are not very clear and if she was still in contract would they wait for her to receive her new box before switching?   Interestingly if she wanted to just cancel the whole package she would have to give 30 days notice even if she was out of contract!   But not it seems if she wants to go to a lesser package, then they just want to stop everything immediately.

If switching to another provider could be hassle free she would do that, but I think this is more than enough for her to deal with!

Thanks again for your response.

[Roger_Gooner]

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@adawnbird wrote:

Thank you for the reply and information.  We have started the process of porting to another provider, so as soon as that is done, will virgin automatically cancel the whole package or just the phone part?

To be honest a lot of things are not very clear and if she was still in contract would they wait for her to receive her new box before switching?   Interestingly if she wanted to just cancel the whole package she would have to give 30 days notice even if she was out of contract!   But not it seems if she wants to go to a lesser package, then they just want to stop everything immediately.

If switching to another provider could be hassle free she would do that, but I think this is more than enough for her to deal with!

Thanks again for your response.

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Nobody is out of contract, she is on a rolling 30-day contract which requires a 30-day notice period. However, subscribers to Essential broadband have that notice period waived (which enables them to get onto the Essential contract immediately).