Virgin Media Claim I have changed my services and have sent me a new bill for £106

[brandscill]

Hello,

Wondering if anyone can suggest what to do. I got a letter today with a new Virgin Media bill for £106, until this date I had been paying £29. I got the price rise email earlier in the year, phoned up and they said no problem we will keep you at £29 until end of your contract in December 2023.

I login to my account today, there isn't a single previous bill other than this one, I can't view my contract. It's like they've created an entirely new account for me.

I tried all the options on the billing phone section, never is there an option to speak to a human. I have now been in the queue to speak to someone in cancellations for over an hour. I have no desire to cancel but in less than 8 days they are taking £106 out of my account.

The bill is utter nonsense, it's showing that I have both Volt 350 and Broadband 350.

I am truly at a loss as what to do as I can't speak to anyone at Virgin Media.

[brandscill]

An update.

After an hour on hold I finally got through to Jenny in the billing team.

After some back and forth we both clocked what had happened.

Last November I moved to a new address, and in early May O2 realised my Virgin Media address no longer matched my O2 address as I forgot to update it. I then updated my O2 address to "Flat 2, 22". This still wasn't a match though. Virgin Media had my address as 22B, and they didn't know about Flat 2.

I spoke to O2 who told me their address matched the Royal Mail database, which is true, and Virgin Media must correct theirs.

So I spoke with Virgin Media who agreed that the address wasn't the same as the Royal Mail database and they would change it.

10th May I get an email from Virgin Media asking me to reply confirming the address. 

Then today happens, I get a letter for a new bill, the chat team who I spoke to kept claiming it was my "first bill". Indeed, checking the account number on the bill it differs entirely to previous bills.

Turns out, behind the scenes, they couldn't just "fix the address" so they processed it as a home move, without telling me. They closed down my old account without telling me, created a brand new account without telling me and then attempted to apply the same discount codes and failed entirely.

Jenny was unable to do anything about the old account, I've been told the easiest thing to do is to continue with the new account, but the billing department can't do anything to get the price back to where it was. It was then too late to speak with retentions so here we are. Her manager is, hopefully, going to speak with retentions tomorrow and rebuild the package for me.

There are so many unanswered questions for me here though

• How can Virgin close the old account without telling me?
• How can they open a brand new account without telling me?
• Why can't I see the new contract through My Virgin Media
• Why couldn't Jenny see the new contract?
• When does my new contract end, nobody can tell me
• Is any of this even legal?

I am truly gobsmacked this can happen. I even got charged £1.75 for not opting into e-billing, not that I had a choice since I knew nothing of this new contract.

What do you guys think I should do? At the moment I am thinking I wait to see if the problem is resolved, and then raise a formal complaint to investigate what happened.

[Roger_Gooner]

I don't accept that VM cannot update their addresses from the Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF), and the failure to do so led to a whole load of other problems.

[brandscill]

Not sure I follow?

Thats literally what has happened, and it’s now written in detail on my account. Not sure which part you don’t accept.

I agree it is ridiculous, but that’s the mess that’s been created. Clearly someone has messed up big time.

[Travis_M]

Hi @brandscill 

Thanks for posting on our community forum and sorry to hear about the issue with your bill.

I'm glad to hear the team on 150 / 0345 454 1111 are looking to have this resolved, I hope the team have this issue resolved for you and I cannot apologise enough for the inconvenience caused by the mishap with the bill. Keep us updated with how this goes

Regards

[brandscill]

Hi Travis_M,

Thanks for your message. I am hoping by the end of today I'll see the credit applied to my account to makes things right again. If for any reason this does not happen, would you be able to assist tomorrow?

Many thanks,

Brandon

[Travis_M]

Hi @brandscill 

Thanks for your response

Keep us updated with how contact with the team goes and we'll look to get this sorted for you if needs be.

Regards

[brandscill]

Hi @Travis_M

I phoned this evening for an update but not good news. The person didn’t seem to understand that a manager was meant to be dealing with the problem today and had promised to resolve. I asked to speak to a manager about the issue but whilst on hold it seems Virgin ended the call. I suspect a technical problem.

I have now spent well over three hours on calls speaking to people and on hold and this is not sorted. I took the operator in good faith yesterday when she said her manager would sort it today but it seems that was a mistake.

Please can you assist with this matter?

[Travis_M]

Hi @brandscill 

Thanks for your response and sorry to hear about the mishap with the call.

I'll drop you a private message now to collect some more information and investigate further, keep an eye on your inbox for a message from myself.

Regards

[brandscill]

Just to update this thread a little.

Travis, Natalie and Sabrina from the forum team have all been helping, and the good news is the issue is almost sorted.

They applied a one off credit to get the bill back down to the regular £29. Then an ongoing credit again to ensure the bills throughout the remainder of the contract are only £29.

I was also told next month would be free as a good will gesture for the problems caused.

The outstanding issue, yet to be resolved but I've been promised will be resolved by next Tuesday, is to have the contract end date amended to match the contract Virgin incorrectly cancelled without informing me.

Once this is done, hopefully everything is back on track.

The complaint I opened has had one completely nonsense response so far which shows they neither read nor understood the problem which is very frustrating, and since my response it's been radio silence. It's very frustrating the issue is only taken seriously by the team here and not even the complaints team seem to care about what's happened.