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Virgin Media won't honour the deal I was offered

mike_
Fibre optic

I called retentions who offered the following for £64/month:

Gig1
Maxit TV inc Sky Sports and Cinema Collection; Sky Sports HD Pack; Kids Pick; Sky Entertainment and Cinema Ultra
Netflix Standard
2x V6 Boxes
Talk More Anytime

It was offered on the condition that I took out an O2 contract but it was made clear to me that I could take any O2 contract and was told they can be had for as little as £3 per month. I asked notes be put on my account so I can phone back and get the deal once I had my O2 SIM.

Within an hour or so I had signed up with O2 for a SIM only deal.

I called back and was told this deal was not possible and it was only possible with £25 per month O2 SIM directly from Virgin Media. After much arguing this person spoke to their manager and agreed the deal was possible. So I accepted it.

Later they called me back and said they can't process the deal due to an overdue balance on my account. I'd already cleared this but it wasn't yet showing on their system. They said they would call me back the next day to finish setting this up but never did.

I called the retentions team again and was told there were no notes on my account about this deal. After pressing them about this they seemed to find them but then tried to offer me the deal at £90 per month (I don't recall the precise amount).

Obviously I refused and emailed the Executive Team a complaint describing everything up until this point.

About a week later I got a call from the Executive Team who, in the opening of the conversation, made it clear Virgin Media would not honour this deal. I was told it was not possible because it was a new customer deal.

The agent said I did not have a contract for these services with Virgin Media, but we already had a verbal agreement in place which is a contract.

After much back and forth the call ended with the agent agreeing to listen to my previous calls, and he agreed to call me back the next day.

He never called back. I sent the Executive Team multiple reminders to call my back over the next week or so but nobody ever called me back.

I then received an email from Virgin Media with "an update on [my] complaint":

"Cable -> Billing/Charges -> Other

We’ve looked into it and here’s what we found:

Here's what we offer as a resolution:
Customer Experience ->Agent or Technician Professionalism - Internal feedback provided

 

We hope this works for you."

I was outraged. This was far from an acceptable resolution to my complaint. So I called the number in the email and finally spoke to somebody who seemed helpful.

Quite quickly he was able to figure out how to offer me the deal at the price I was quoted. Yes, the same deal the Executive Team told me was impossible to honour. That's three agents who have now offered me the impossible deal, and I have emails with the pre-contract PDFs that clearly show the impossible deal and the impossible price.

Unfortunately so much time had passed there was another overdue balance on my account so I agreed to sort that out and he agreed to call me back the day after I said I would pay to finish setting it up. He said he would email himself "the codes" that would allow him to quickly set up the deal again later.

Guess what? He never called back.

So I called the number again. This person couldn't offer me the deal, he offered it at £74. Another call came through and I thought it might be the previous agent calling me back so I ended this call and accepted the new call but it wasn't Virgin Media.

So I emailed the complaints team and asked them to get the agent to call me back but they said it's impossible to request a call back.

I just want this sorting out and Virgin Media to honour the deal they offered. I accepted this deal and by not honouring it you are breaching my consumer rights. This matter is a few weeks away from being referred to CISAS.

One of the reasons for overdue amounts on my bill is I'm paying a huge amount for my services as I'm out of contract and am trying to get a cheaper deal that is manageable.

9 REPLIES 9

mike_
Fibre optic

Can't edit my post. Wanted to add that as a result of these shenanigans I'm stuck with an O2 contract I don't need. I only took it out to get the deal.

Hello mike_

 

It's really disappointing to hear of the issues regarding your package, changes and the issues this has caused. 

 

We can see you have received correspondence from us recently, did this cover the issue's raised? Were you able to speak to the contracts team as advised by the Executive Team? They can be contacted on 150 from a Virgin Media landline or 0345 454 1111 option 1, option 4 then option 4 this will get you through to the contracts team who will be able to look into this further for you.

 

Were they able to offer you a deal without the Volt benefits? Have you contacted O2 in regards to the SIM to see if the tariff can be changed or canceleld?

 

Rob

Hi it was the contracts team that started this debacle. I can't see any correspendence from the Executive Team that advised me to get back in touch with them. Surely it's the Executive Team that have the power to sort this out? I've already spent 4 or 5 hours on the phone to Virgin Media about this now, I really don't have the energy to keep calling and jumping through the same hoops every time only for somebody to either tell me it's not possible, or tell me it is but then never complete the deal.

What are "Volt benefits"? Why would I want another deal? I want the deal I was offered.

Again, as advised previously we aren't able to make changes to packages or deals via the forums mike_, you would need to contact the team using one of the methods offered previously. 

 

We also have these contact methods available https://virg.in/contactvm or you can send your query to 07533016422 and we’ll text you back. We’re here 8am-11pm Monday to Friday, 8am-8pm on Saturday and Sunday. 

 

Rob

Is it possible for you to see who I spoke to on 26th October, the person who emailed "the codes" to himself and promised to call me back, and ask them to call me?

Hi there were two calls where that happened, one on 2nd October and one on 26th October. The one I'm referring to is the 26th.

Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

In your shoes I'd speak to Citizens Advice.  If you were offered and at that time agreed a deal, that's legally binding, all this "can't offer you that contract" stuff is merely lies and incompetence to avoid honouring a legally made contract, and is unfortunately very common with VM.  The O2 deal depends on what was said on the various calls, and it is complicated because when it comes to selling stuff, VM and O2 are one united company, as soon as things go wrong they're busy insisting they are separate companies and you'll have to speak to the other one.  A typical Virgin Meda Omnishambles, in other words.

I'd start reading up on CISAS guidance, because there's a good chance you'll need to escalate the matter to them, but there is a process and you need to follow that process.

Let me send you a Private Message to get this looked into further for you and try to get this resolved 🙂

 

Thanks

 

Rob