Missold re waiver of early disconnection fee

[Hm53]

My daughter contacted VM via webchat following expiry of her previous 18 month contract. She was interested only in a monthly rolling contract as she would soon be moving in with her partner who already has broadband. VM constantly recommended an 18 month contract even though she reiterated this many times. 

She was advised to take out an 18 month contract on the assurance that the early disconnection fee would be waived when she cancelled in a few months time. The waiving of the fee was confirmed more than once by the Virgin representative and she has kept a screenshot of the webchat.

Now they are saying she has to pay £284 disconnection fee. They say that they can't supply to her new address anyway so once she submits proof of living at that address she will get it back.

As she is moving in with her partner it will be a while before she has anything proving her new address as everything is currently in his name etc. She is unlikely to have proof before the deadline they set.

My question is can she refuse to pay the disconnection charge on the basis that a contract was entered into via the original wedchat and VM are now breaking this contract. Is this a case of misselling?

• Grateful for any advice.

[jem101]

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@-tony- wrote:

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@Hm53 wrote:

Hi Nat

Thanks for your response. While my daughter is attempting to sort out some proof of new address in time it is not acceptable just to say she shouldn't have been told this. If she had been moving to an address that VM does supply you would be expecting her to pay the fee. On that basis she will be submitting a complaint.

Can someone advise best way to make a complaint about this as a contract was entered into on the basis of the conversation and this contract has been broken. My daughter has clear documentation. She may well be lucky to avoid the fee as VM don't supply to her new address but this is not the point. VM need to be accountable for tactics of outright lies and pressure selling.

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make any complaint in writing - afaik the online process is at best flawed or does not work - if @natalie gets back to the thread then maybe she will sort it as Andrew suggests or maybe she will ignore all thats been said as its not what she thinks she is paid for but she may then offer to raise the complaint

all the above is VM at its best - read worst and the reasons that both Andrew and I are no longer customers but try to help those who are

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If Natalie has any sense at all, she absolutely won't come back to this thread, for her own sake, as, since she is a bone-fide representative of VM, her words are, sort of (actually no, legally) equivalent to an official company statement. Now it can be arguably construed that Natalie's quote "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"* can easily be interpreted as an admission that something was legitimately offered but is now being reneged on - which is not in the spirit nor indeed the terms of the '2015 Consumer Rights Act'. So careful what you say, no?

* and this is a gentle hint to every single forum team member here, as unlikely as it seems, there are one or two of us on here who do understand 'the Law' better than you all do - now as VM employees who a 'reasonable person' might well construe as acting as a bone-fide agent of the company, and as such their statements and comments can be regarded as official company policy, let me ask a question; 

If, in the event of one of you making a comment which is legally dubious and causes the company to lose an adjudication/Court case; do you think that VM will;

a) acknowledge that you were not properly trained and 'take in on board' and absolutely back you up; or

b) discipline and/or sack you for causing the company to lose money and /or  'look bad'? Now admittedly in this case, the likelihood is that you would win any industrial tribunal case, on the grounds of insufficient training and be compensated, but the best advice I can offer is if in doubt say absolutely nothing, or at least make a bland, fairly meaningless comment**, which doesn't implicate you in any way.

** And I am pleased to see that some of you have managed to master this. I'm sure there is a degree of skill involved in being able to both satisfy the demands of your managers, ie number of posts per day etc.; whilst simultaneously not just doing generic 'copy and paste' responses! Although sometimes they really are a C&P response, aren't they?

No?