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Why is Virgin Media stealing from us! How do i raise a complaint?

shakeela
Tuning in

Virgin Media made this mistake last contract and its happening all over again and im not happy at all!

We took out a M100 broadband package with no Oomph sim and i was sent the order summary via email today at 12:12pm 10th june 2022 i have attached an order summary image as attachment for proof with a total monthly charge of £22 as per contract summary! And you at Virgin Media have changed this yourself to m200 broadband with a 5G Oomph sim adding up to £62.25! This is unacceptable! You cant just change contract yourself i have the contract order summary of what we signed up for, you created a new contract yourself the exact same day after we agreed to £22 4 hours later suddenly changed!

I need to urgently speak to someone about this as this is serious and borderline illegal!

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4 REPLIES 4

japitts
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@shakeela wrote:

Virgin Media made this mistake last contract and its happening all over again and im not happy at all!

[snip]

I need to urgently speak to someone about this 


In this case you will need to call in, the staff team on here are online only.

If you don't mind waiting a couple of days for them to respond, this is the sort of issue they can usually resolve. But it won't be tonight.

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Ive already called in about it and the only thing that happens is i am transferred from one team to another just to wait an hour on hold to be transferred again. Useless and no resolution.

Your legal rights are clear - information provided by a company verbally or written is binding if the consumer relies upon it when entering a contract (Consumer Rights Act 2015), so VM have to honour whatever was promised, whether they like it or not.  What you describe seems to be a common problem with VM, and reflects poor staff, poor processes, and poor training.  

Hopefully the forum staff can pick this up and get it sorted, and I'll flag it for their attention.  What you want is the deal you were offered and agreed, and I'd suggest a modest goodwill gesture (in my view around £40 or so).  The forum staff are helpful and UK based, with a good track record of sorting out problems caused by other parts of VM's operation.  If forum staff can sort it out quickly that would be the cheapest and quickest resolution for both parties, easiest for you, and the best way of trying to recover some goodwill in a bad situation.  If they can't get it sorted in that complete manner, you need to search, read and follow the Virgin Media Complaints Code of Practice.  Don't start a complaint until you've seen if the forum staff can get this sorted, because I believe they can't get involved once it has become a formal complaint.   

If you do need to raise a formal complaint (I suggest in writing, by recorded post or via the online form in My Virgin Media), reject the contract they're trying to impose, and demanding that as per your legal rights the company honour what was promised, and pointing out that if the company can't honour its agreement you will escalate to the industry arbitration scheme CISAS as soon as permitted by the rules.  In the meanwhile, don't do anything daft like stopping your direct debit, that'll be recorded as a credit default, and opens up whole new realms of difficulty for you.  Don't worry if VM contact you claiming that they couldn't get hold of you, so will close the complaint if they don't hear to the contrary, nor if you get a "resolution" letter that appears to have been drafted by an idiot who hasn't read your complaint, these don't stop you being able to take the matter further.

If VM still won't honour the contract despite the complaint, or say they're going to close the complaint, then you reply to the resolution, rejecting it and asking for a deadlock letter, with that you then contact CISAS.  Explain the background and request that VM be required to give you the promised deal, fully backdated, and add on a request for compensation for the hassle, and for the poor complaint handling.  Not only does escalation to CISAS cost VM money (free to you, costs of several hundred quid are ALWAYS paid by the company) but it gets your case investigated and impartially heard by expert dispute resolution staff.  From published data, the majority of complaints escalated to CISAS, either the company immediately concedes, compromises, or loses at the end of arbitration.

You may want to complain to Ofcom about VM's poor processes that resulted in the company agreeing one deal, and failing to record that properly on their customer accounting systems.  Ofcom won't get directly involved, but do monitor complaints, so this is about pressuring them to sort their crap processes and staff out - this step can be done now, and has no effect on the ability of forum staff to resolve the matter.

Hi shakeela,

Thanks for posting - sorry to hear of the confusion over the new contract. I've done a system check today and please do not worry about anything firstly.

I'll PM you now to go through it.

Best,

John_GS
Forum Team


Need a helpful hand to show you how to make a payment? Check out our guide - How to pay my Virgin Media bill