Virgin vows no exit fee . . . then charges £250
Ms M.R. writes: I was a Virgin Media customer for about 20 years, until I moved to an area not covered by it. As my contract was coming to an end, I called the company. The customer adviser said they could not offer a rolling contract covering the months until the move, but advised if I signed up for an 18month contract, I would be released without exit fees as Virgin could not provide any service in my new area. I signed, but when we moved, Virgin charged a £250 exit fee. RUBBING salt in the wound, when you protested against the exit fee, Virgin revealed that you could have had a rolling contract after all. Nevertheless, you paid the £250 penalty over the phone – only to discover the next day that Virgin had collected the same £250 from your bank account by using the direct debit you had put in place to cover routine bills. And things got worse. You complained about the double charge and Virgin sent you a £250 refund cheque, but the cheque was in your maiden name and you have been married for years. Virgin demanded proof of your married name, which you supplied, but when you contacted me many weeks later, you were still waiting for your £250 refund.
I asked staff at Virgin Media headquarters to look into what you had told me and the bad advice you were given. If you could have had a rolling contract to cover the months up to your move, why would you ever have agreed to an 18-month contract with stiff penalty fees if you quit?
Virgin Media told me: ‘Ms R agreed to a new 18-month contract and, as was made clear to her at the time, an early disconnection fee may be applied if she ended her contract early.’ But
Virgin said it no longer had a recording of the phone conversation with you. It had sent you a copy of the new contract, but of course this would not prove what the adviser had or had not told you over the phone.
As for the £250 fee that was collected twice, Virgin has refunded £250 and added £50 as ‘a gesture of goodwill’.
But it does leave me wondering how Virgin can hold you to an agreement made over the phone, without knowing what its own adviser said to convince you to agree, since Virgin itself has erased the recording. Not a happy outcome.