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Last
Update: 21 August 2011 - click on Readers Comments''
Are you thinking of
getting Broadband from
Virgin Media?
Then read on because these pages have been especially designed for
you. Did you know that if you sign up for Virgin Media’s standard 12
month Broadband contract, and through no fault of your own you have
to cancel that contract, then it could cost you over £190? If you
consider that fee to be extortionate and object to paying it then
you’ll be pursued by a Debt Collection Agency.
This story concerns
two players: Bob, that’s me writing this, and Steve my son. Steve is
a student at the University of Portsmouth and for
the first year of his course he stayed at the Halls of Residence.
For his second year he opted to stay in a shared student house. All
bills were shared and Steve arranged for Virgin Media to supply
their broadband connection. It was only after all arrangements were
made to live in the house that Steve found out that he had failed
part of his First Year and would have to re-sit one term starting in
September 2009. This of course meant that he could only stay at the
house for that one term.
After that term had
concluded he arranged with the Letting Agents to move out, paid up
all his bills, including Virgin Media Broadband and moved back home.
I called Virgin Media to explain the situation and to arrange for
the Broadband connection to be terminated. During this call I was
asked what Steve’s new address was. When I asked why they needed this
I was told that he was due a rebate on his bill; so I gave Virgin
Media his new address. I subsequently learnt that he was not due a
rebate and that this was just a ploy to hit him with a termination
of contract charge of £191.42.
Here we come to the
heart of the matter: who agrees that a charge of £191.42 is fair and
reasonable simply because Steve could no longer be a customer of
Virgin Media? This sum would pay my shopping bill for two weeks.
It’s £70 more than I pay Sky for a whole year’s Broadband
connection. It represents six weeks student grant money for Steve.
If it was say £20 I would have paid up, but £190..... All this just seemed plain wrong to me:
being charged for a service that you never received. It was just one of those
times in your life when you have to stand up for what you believe
in. So we stood up, and we are still standing. Still interested. Then read on…..
After receiving a
demand for payment from Virgin Media I wrote to Steven Wrench, Head
of Credit Management, Virgin Media Payments on the 1 March 2010
pointing out the above and……… never received a reply.
Enter the debt
recovery firm
Moorcroft Debt Recovery Limited. On 18 March 2010 I received a
polite letter from them, apart from the heading that is: Pre-Court
Division, asking for payment. I replied, pointing out the
above and asked three questions:
1. Contractual evidence showing
that Steve was made fully aware of the penalties relating to early
contract cancellation and that he agreed to them by signing such a
document.
2. An explanation by Virgin Media
as to why a student living in temporary accommodation for an
academic year of 9 months was sold a 12 month contact.
3. A detailed breakdown of the
costs allegedly incurred by Virgin Media amounting to the sum of
£192.42 for the disconnection of a broadband connection.
On the 27 March 2010 I received another
letter from Moorcroft (Pre-Court Division) which ignored the above
questions and again asked for payment. I wrote back asking for
answers to the three questions.
12 April 2010:
letter from Moorcroft
(Pre-court Division) big red letters this time ‘NOTICE OF POSSIBLE
LITIGATION’ which indicated that they may take Steve to court in
which the amount of money allegedly owed would increase to £281.42 –
and all for the disconnection of a Broadband line! My three
questions were not answered so I wrote back and posed the questions
again.
26 April 2010:
letter from Midas Legal
Services with ‘LITIGATION WARNING’ in large black letters this time.
They demanded payment of £191.42. I ignored it as I didn’t fancy
starting up another fruitless line of dialogue.
10 May 2010:
letter from Moorcroft. This
time from the ‘Home Collections Division’. This said several things:
someone may call at your house, pay-up, legal proceedings may begin.
My three questions were still not answered so I wrote back and posed
the questions again.
6 June 2010:
letter from Moorcroft
(Home
Collections Division) informing me that a representative had visited
my house but no discussion had taken place (?). Also included was
pay-up, legal proceedings etc.. My three questions were still not
answered so I wrote back and posed the questions again.
19 June 2010:
letter from Moorcroft
(Home Collections Division). Usual demands. My three questions were
still not answered so I wrote back and posed the questions again.
You can probably understand that I was
getting a bit fed up at this point so I phoned Consumer Direct for a
bit of advice. They suggested that I write to Virgin Media
Complaints. So I did, explaining the situation and the unfairness of
the charge. I also asked the same three questions:
1. Contractual evidence showing
that Steve was made fully aware of the penalties relating to early
contract cancellation and that he agreed to them by signing such a
document.
2. An explanation by Virgin Media
as to why a student living in temporary accommodation for an
academic year of 9 months was sold a 12 month contact.
3. A detailed breakdown of the
costs allegedly incurred by Virgin Media amounting to the sum of
£192.42 for the disconnection of a broadband connection.
5 July 2010:
letter from Virgin Media.
This basically stated that the contract with Virgin Media was set in
Ferro-Concrete and its terms would be applied without compassion,
flexibility or initiative.
So there you have it. Make of it what
you will. I hope this may have helped if you are considering
installing Virgin Media Broadband. Remember there are other
Broadband suppliers out there like
BT and
Sky. Personally, NotVirginMedia seems a
good starting point to me…
Updates to this epic (that's anything
after 11 July 2010) will be published
on the UPDATES page as and
when they occur so in the meantime if you have anything you’d like
published in READERS’ COMMENTS then please
Email me. Tell me whether you agree with my stance or not and let me
know of your experiences with Virgin Media Broadband - good or bad.
Thanks for reading this. Regards Bob &
Steve. |
