‘Why is Virgin Media charging me £200 to move house?’

This reader wants to remain with Virgin but is being charged because the firm can’t supply his new home. By Amelia Murray

Millions of Virgin Media users could be penalised with “early disconnection charges” if they move to an area the firm does not supply before their contract ends, it has emerged.

Consumer rights experts criticised the telecoms company, calling the charge “illogical and unfair”.

Virgin Media services are available to only 51pc of the country – and the repercussions of this patchy coverage became apparent to Martin Wolf, a Virgin Media customer of 10 years, when he told the firm he was moving house. He had signed his broadband contract in November last year.

In March Mr Wolf, 42, was told that the cost of his London leasehold would be increasing. He said he had been thinking about leaving London for a while but this news cemented the plan. He telephoned his broadband provider to give 30 days’ notice. He said he wanted Virgin Media to continue to supply him when he moved to Hampshire in June.

But Virgin Media does not offer broadband in that area and Mr Wolf was told he would have to pay £207 because he was midway through his contract.

If the company had been able to provide him with broadband after his move, the fee would have been waived and a new contract would have been started. Mr Wolf said he found the whole scenario “grossly unfair”.

“Virgin charges customers who move to an area it cannot supply but waives the fee for customers who continue with its services. This is despite the fact that both customers have breached their original contract. You don’t always know when or where you’re moving to. I resent the fact that my choice to remain a Virgin Media customer has already been made for me and I’m being punished for it.”

Martyn James of Resolver, a complaints resolution service, said Virgin Media’s early disconnection charge for customers it could no longer supply was a “classic example” of a business “failing to look outside its own rules”.

He said: “It’s ridiculous. Logic says that Virgin should be thanking the customer for 10 years of loyalty and apologising for no longer being able to provide the service. It’s not fair to charge him when it can’t give him the service it promised.”

Ofcom, the communications regulator, said it expected providers to be transparent and fair about early termination fees and to be sympathetic to customers moving house. It said it was in “active discussions with Virgin Media about the fairness of its policy”.

When approached by Telegraph Money about its treatment of customers it could no longer service, Virgin Media initially said it was not able to waive early disconnection fees and urged customers to “consider the length of contracts before entering into them”.

However, in cases known to this newspaper it has offered a discounted fee on several occasions. Virgin Media subsequently said: “While there is no automatic process to waive the fees, we review cases on an individual basis where a customer alerts us to a special circumstance, such as a disability.”

It advised customers to contact the customer care team if they believed they shouldn’t pay the fee. Virgin Media also said it offered £50 to customers who moved out of a property and referred the new occupants to its service.

‘It’s not fair to charge him when Virgin can’t give him the service it promised’