Virgin Media Community

[md999b]

My contract ends on 7th June. New customers always get the best deals and I can't afford to renew at hugely increased prices, so I want to cancel from the day my contract expires and move over to Sky for a while. A simple enough request, right?

Apparently not. I can't give advance notice, for some utterly inexplicable reason. The contract can only be cancelled with exactly 30 days notice and if I give notice now I'd have to pay an early termination charge.

I mean, what? This means there is only ONE day I can give notice of cancellation on without ending up owing Virgin money. May 7th, apparently. If I cancel earlier than that then I'll have to pay them an early connection charge, and if I cancel after May 7th the 30 day notice period means my services will be extended beyond the end of the contract. At full price, of course.

What a con. How is that even legal? I like Virgin, but they're doing a cracking job of making sure I never want to use them ever again.

[japitts]

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@md999b wrote:

What a con. How is that even legal?

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It's in the T&Cs of the contract you agreed to, and I think you'll struggle to find (m)any telecoms operators that don't work in a similar way.

You might find that, if you do your homework on alternative providers, and negotiate well with VM, that you can get a reduced price in exchange for an 18-month recontract and avoid the whole problem.

Whether you want to do that or not is upto you - but it won't alter the legal T&Cs that you have agreed to, and you would agree to again if you "renew".

[md999b]

I must've missed that bit, or more likely this scenario was not specifically outlined.

For example, on the Virgin website it says "You can cancel your agreement at any time by giving 30 days' notice", which sounds entirely reasonable. 30 days notice - no problem. But that doesn't make clear that you have to ring EXACTLY 30 days before the end of your agreement and no other date is acceptable, which is the reality of the situation. "At any time", indeed. If I can't ring on May 7th, and only on May 7th, then I end up owing Virgin extra money. What a happy coincidence for them.

It's a sharp practice either way. There's no reason for this policy to exist other than to trap customers into paying extra money.

[japitts]

It's quite correct that you can give disconnection notice at any time. But if that disconnection results in a breach of your minimum term, then early-termination-fees will be the result.

https://www.virginmedia.com/legal/fibre-optic-services-terms-conditions 

If you want to disconnect exactly on the end of your minimum term, then you will need to give notice exactly 30days prior.

As previously mentioned, if the main driver here is cost - then you might find that, by approaching a negotiation with VM well-prepared, you could get a solution that saves a lot of grief.

[jem101]

I think that the issue here is the wording, I’m sure it used to say ‘a minimum of 30 days notice’ but the word minimum has now been removed. I don’t think that @md999b is disputing that they need to see and pay out the full 18 month contract, but why can’t they arrange a cancellation now to take effect in say 40 or 45 days time?

No reason at all, after all if you absolutely had to cancel exactly on a particular day in question, then what happens if that date also happens to be Christmas Day or the call centres are particularly busy, or they play the usual trick of cutting you off a couple of times until you miss the deadline and they sting you for another months exorbitant charges?

A far more cynical person than I might well think that this is a deliberate ploy to add extra obstacles in the way of cancelling - something that absolutely won’t fly with CISAS and OFCOM, although more likely it’s just a really badly worded website (incompetence) or poorly trained call centre staff (also incompetence).

Still let’s see what the forum staff @Forum_Team make of it.

Of course maybe this is indeed VM’s new policy, shortly to be replaced by the only way of cancelling is in person, outside a pub in the Shetland Islands, armed with at least 20 different pieces of ID!

In which case, then I’m sure we can give the usual advice about taking a complaint to CISAS and registering similar with OFCOM!

[Natalie_L]

Hi md999b

Welcome to the Community and thank you for posting. 

I am very sorry to hear you wish to disconnect your service as we would not want to see you go. 

Although we are unable to apply a new customer deal, our team will always do what they can to offer the best existing customer deal available at that time. Have you spoken to an adviser to discuss this?

With the termination period, I am afraid it would need to be scheduled 30 days prior to the date you wish for the services to disconnect. Doing this earlier would result in a fee being applied, our apologies for any frustration caused. 

If you wish to proceed with the request, we would advised calling the team on 150 or 0345 454 1111 on the 7th May. If you experience any issues at all, please get back in touch with us here and we will do all we can to assist. 

Thank you, 

[-tony-]

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@Natalie_L wrote:

Hi md999b

Welcome to the Community and thank you for posting. 

I am very sorry to hear you wish to disconnect your service as we would not want to see you go. 

Although we are unable to apply a new customer deal, our team will always do what they can to offer the best existing customer deal available at that time. Have you spoken to an adviser to discuss this?

With the termination period, I am afraid it would need to be scheduled 30 days prior to the date you wish for the services to disconnect. Doing this earlier would result in a fee being applied, our apologies for any frustration caused. 

If you wish to proceed with the request, we would advised calling the team on 150 or 0345 454 1111 on the 7th May. If you experience any issues at all, please get back in touch with us here and we will do all we can to assist. 

Thank you, 

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i am not sure thats correct - i thought more than 30 days notice could be given - as said above things may have changed @BenMcr - can i drag you in - you may have a clearer insight

[jem101]

@-tony- indeed, that's how I recall it used to be. 

So hypothetically, if I were to say, use the write to us option to cancel? Perfectly valid according to VM's own Ts&Cs, do I have to hope that the letter arrives exactly on the day in question, or just take VM's word that sorry it arrived a day too early, so extra charges for you?

Cue another round of @Andrew-G patiently explaining how to take a case to CISAS - incidentally I do hope CISAS have taken on more staff, they'll be needing them!

[Natalie_L]

Hi all,

Thanks for posting.

I do believe I may have muddled the matter up somewhat and I do apologise.

We request a minimum of 30 days notice to disconnect a service, and any future disconnections can be processed a maximum of 60 days in advance. as long as the disconnection date falls within this 30 day window and not before the end of your contract you should be fine and not incur any disconnection fees.

@md999b, I would like to chat via a private message so that I may be able to view the account and the charges proposed by our team. To do this, I will pop you over a private message now and this will be available via the purple envelope on the top right of this page. 

Speak soon, 

[md999b]

Yes, this is exactly it. I don't mind giving 30 days notice to cancel, that's completely fair and of course I will see out my contract. But the idea that it's somehow impossible to give more than 30 days notice, is absurd and really, it's totally unreasonable.

If I want to cancel my car Insurance policy, for example,  from renewal I can do that right now. Doesn't matter that it's six weeks away or what have you. I used to work for an Insurance company and we were able to take advance notifications to cancel policies at renewal. That was back in 1998, using the world's worst computer system.

And here we are in 2022, and somehow Virgin are unable to do this. Why can't they do this? When the upshot of their inability to take and implement basic instructions is that they make extra money out of the customer, then I think most people would view that with cynicism. It's not a good look for the company at all and it's really frustrating from the customer's viewpoint.