@Natalie_L wrote:I am afraid your daughter should not have been advised the fee would be removed at the point of sale as this is not something we offer as a full contract term would apply.
If you daughter is planning to move and the home does not have our service available, the termination fees would be waived on the basis she can provide documentation showing that she live at the new address.
When the account is disconnected for the move, she will receive an email with all the information regarding this and full details on what to send over to have the fee waived.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Yes, I've got a question! Please, miss! Miss Natalie! Over here! Miss!
My question is why you just don't sort it out and waive the disconnection fee as your agent promised, rather than forcing the customer to use the clunky, poorly designed process for out-of-area moves? The same clunky, poorly designed process that'll probably mean the customer is out of pocket for weeks and waiting either on a refund of charges, or worse, a refund of the huge early termination fees.
The fact that the agent "should not have been advised" this way is utterly irrelevant, they DID advise that, the customer relied upon it, and it's now legally part of the contract. I've posted a link earlier to the actual text of the legislation, since that's evidently not enough I'll quote it verbatim here:
50 Information about the trader or service to be binding
(1)Every contract to supply a service is to be treated as including as a term of the contract anything that is said or written to the consumer, by or on behalf of the trader, about the trader or the service, if—
(a)it is taken into account by the consumer when deciding to enter into the contract, or
(b)it is taken into account by the consumer when making any decision about the service after entering into the contract.
Now, there's not much room for manoeuvre is there? Where "not much" means "none whatsoever". If the agent shouldn't have said that, that's VM's problem for employing offshore workers on a pittance and then not training them properly, but the company has chosen that as their preferred customer service model, the company can now suck it up and enjoy the consequences. As it often has to.
I suggest to Hm53, see if the forum staff are going to stop posting corporate waffle that doesn't address the issue, take some ownership and get this sorted. If they're not going to, then your daughter will have to pay whatever VM demand by way of termination fees (and monthly charges during their failure to cancel at first request), and claim that back using VM's comedy out-of-area moves process. Assuming they don't screw that up, then she'll get the money back in a couple of months, because VM never refund customers promptly for end of contract credits, but potentially she'll be giving VM an interest free loan for a month or two, at a time when she's got other expenses, and other priorities.
In that case, she raises a formal complaint. Step 1: Write to Virgin Media, Sunderland, SR43 4AA, ask for say £150 compensation plus the refund of any additional monthly payments from when she first contacted VM to cancel as per the contract she agreed. Likely this complaint will be fobbed off, that's all that VM's complaints team actually do, so step 2: When she gets the "resolution" letter she replies by rejecting it, asking for a deadlock letter, and Step 3, then escalating the matter to Ombudsman Services, seeking compensation as requested from VM, plus a further £70 for their poor handling of the complaint (and including the failure of staff in this forum to resolve). If the complaint is accepted by the Ombudsman, then Virgin Media get hit with adjudication case fees of around four hundred quid, that would be a well deserved slap if things get that far.
So back to you Natalie_L, on behalf of Virgin Media, how do you want this to end?
