Refund of credit on a closed account

[Jonathan_Dublin]

Hi,

I'm leaving Virgin after 2 years and honestly the worst internet and customer service I've ever received from a provider. Unreliable service, repeatedly denied by customer service, huge difficult getting an engineer to inspect the property, told there was a very obvious fault, months before an engineer was available to fix the fault, repeated cancellation of the engineer's visit, and no compensation for any of this. I've spent hours in chats and on the phone during these past two years and countless days with intermittent internet service.

So I'm absolutely thrilled to be leaving Virgin now, only to be told that I'm making a full payment just before my contract terminates and will receive a refund by cheque. (The process of cancelling my contract was 1-2 hours of being on hold, confirming personal details, getting moved to WhatsApp, getting repeated offers of 'great deals' to stay with Virgin, another really awful experience that feels like it was designed to make it more difficult to leave.)

This refund will be issued by cheque 35 days after my contract terminates, by which point I will have moved out of the property with no ability to reliably get this cheque (as I'm moving country). I've been told by customer service that the cheque cannot be redirected to another address or refund issued by bank transfer. So Virgin have perfectly set me up to fail to receive the cheque, attempt to contact them, and eventually give up on doing so after being left on hold in perpetuity - so I never cash the cheque, never get the refund, and they make an extra £35 off me.

Given that I can perfectly foresee that I won't be in the property, can you provide a solution that allows me to actually get this cheque given my situation?

Thanks.

[Aodonnell1987]

Cancel the final direct debit so they don't take it out. And when the contract expires call them up and settle any outstanding balance.

They say 35 days after the account is closed but its actually 35 days AFTER you return the equipment.  Which will take them 2 or 3 weeks to send out the returns labels.

I closed my account in 2021 with them and it took almost 4 months to get the refund.

[Vikki_M]

Hi @Jonathan_Dublin

Thank you for your post and welcome to our community.

I am very sorry to hear you are leaving us. 

I will send you a private message so we can discuss the billing securely.

Please look out for the purple envelope at the top right of the page and pop me a reply when you can.

[Jonathan_Dublin]

To be clear - I got absolutely nowhere after bouncing private messages back and forth with the customer support team over the last couple of weeks. Just ultimately got told exactly what I knew already (that they will send me a cheque for a refund after I've left the country, having knowingly requested payment from me past my contract end date). So obviously designed to screw people over.

The absolute worst internet service provider and customer service I have ever received - What a colossal waste of time.

[Travis_M]

Hi @Jonathan_Dublin

My apologies for the inconvenience and sorry to hear you feel this way, we can only send the cheque to a UK address after the disconnection and there's no alternative around this if moving abroad.

A final bill would be taken and the cheque sent out 35 days after disconnection.

Regards

[Jonathan_Dublin]

Isn’t the whole point of customer service to try and find a way to work around issues that people have an extenuating circumstances?

Example: charge me for the partial month. Remove the refund from my bill. So I never need to get it in the first place. 

[Travis_M]

Hi @Jonathan_Dublin

Our billing system is automated and we can't manually change when you're billed to and from, it would be calculated from your bill start date to your disconnection date and the cheque would be sent automatically after the disconnection has taken place.

I do appreciate you're unhappy with this but unfortunately this is the usual process.

My apologies for the inconvenience

Regards

[Aodonnell1987]

Don't pay the final month if you are only part using it, cancel the direct debit!

Call them after the account is closed to settle the outstanding weeks rather than waiting months for them to refund you. There is nothing in the T&C that says you need to overpay and wait for a refund. 

[Serena_C]

Hi @Aodonnell1987

Thank you for your comment.

We would advise against cancelling your Direct Debit. Cancelling payment will result in arrears on your account, which could potentially affect your credit score.

Kind regards,

Serena

[Jonathan_Dublin]

Wow - You really are just the worst.