Son moving home

[AB17]

Hi 

My son and daughter in law took out a virgin media broadband package few months back, my son spoke to a guy on the phone (he should have taken a note of his name) but didn't but if calls are recorded that should be found. My son explained on taking out the new 18 month contract that as his wife is heavily pregnant to the guy on the phone, that they were looking for a bigger home before baby is born and asked if services could be moved to new premises when they find one, and he was told yes that's fine, they went ahead with the deal. Since that phone call new premises have been found and they were only told the other day after buying the property and signing the paperwork,  that where they are moving too has no cabling for virgin media and they won't be able to move their equipment. On phoning up virgin media they were told that they are breaking the contract and they must now pay £240 to end the 18 month deal. Surely this is not their fault that new home and the street has no virgin media cabling, and this should have been explained on the original phonecall when this new deal was taken out , but( He Did not). I think this is shocking and they shouldn't be held responsible for this .

Can anyone advise please

I

[Andrew-G]

The standard contract contains early termination fees if the customer moves somewhere without access to VM, they have been examined by Ofcom, and allowed to stand.  So in normal circumstances where these are clearly stated they are legally valid and disagreeing with them is pointless. 

If your son asked "what if my new place can't get VM?" and was assured that he could cancel without penalty, the law is very clear at that does take precedence over the T&Cs, under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.  If no penalty was mentioned then it is less certain, but it can credibly be argued that VM can't rely on the standard T&Cs if their agent omitted crucial information that would have been obviously relevant at the point your son entered the contract.  Much of the T&Cs is small print, and is legally binding even if not elaborated at the point a contract is agreed, but the main points of a contract do have to be explained and agreed.  So if your son's recollection is correct, I think there's a good case.  

I'll flag this for staff to advise, and see if there's some amicable solution here.

If there isn't an acceptable solution, there's two ideas I have:

1) A domestic solution: Do you have an out-of-fixed-term ISP package that could be cancelled without penalty, and would you be willing to pay the VM subscription and use the service until that contract ends?

2) Your son raises a formal complaint with VM using the online form in My Virgin Media, that he wasn't notified of the early exit fees when they were a clear and material risk given the situation he described to the agent, and requesting that either they be waived, or VM issue a deadlock letter.  Sometimes a complaint to VM gets a good result, more commonly it is dealt with by an offshore Fob-Off Factory who'll send a letter announcing that the matter has been resolved when you might feel that the matter has not been resolved to your satisfaction.  But that doesn't matter, with a deadlock letter he can take the matter to CISAS, the industry arbitration scheme, who work much like the Energy Ombudsman, and they'll review the matter, seek any relevant voice recording from VM and decide on the outcome, but it will be down to him to make the case to CISAS why these penalties should not be applied - simply because he doesn't like them, or they are "not fair" will cut no mustard.

[Corey_C]

Thanks for your post and welcome to the Community Forums, AB17,

I would agree with Andrew-G, reply with regard it being on the T&Cs and that is what we go by. Also the third point of your son raising a complaint is certainly something we can help with and perhaps listen to the call if available. However, again as Andrew-G stated, it will depend on what was said.

Cheers,

Corey C

[AB17]

Thank you for the replies everyone, much appreciated..My son and I have always been customers of Virgin media and wouldn't go anywhere else, my son was a former employee of Virgin media. When he moved to first home he got his broadband installed  with no issues. Now having to sell flat due to baby being due in 7 days time and being in a 1 bedroom flat was not ideal. When buying new property and receiving his keys only on 22nd October, only a few days before finding out there is no cabling in the street for virgin media,and him needing Internet access for his work purposes was a major issue, and then being told he needs to pay £240 because he's broken his contract, it's money they don't have right now. He was in no doubt his service would have been moved from old address to new property and he would still have been a loyal customer of virgin. If there is any way virgin media could help him with this it would be greatly appreciated,and maybe could virgin consider cabling the properties in Allandale bonnybridge, as he knows he is now having to get another provider for broadband and it will not be no where near as good as virgin for speed,and know he will not be as happy for service he's being provided with and paying for

Any help would be appreciated 

Thank you  

[Kath_F]

Hi AB17, 

Thanks for coming back to us on this. 

In order to look in to things, we will need your son's account details and we'll also need to pass data protection with you to give you any account information. Just to set expectations though, it's unlikely we will be able to do anything. As a former employee, your son would know that we don't cover all the UK and therefore there are occasions where cancelling is the only option. 

I have sent you a private message regarding this. Just click on the little plum envelope at the top right hand side of the page to access your inbox.
Thanks,