Goodbye Virgin Media, and good riddance…
With my move to Brighton imminent, I decided before Christmas to sort out a few things that I’ve been putting off for a while. One of them was to cancel the contract with Virgin Media at my house in Cardiff. Having made the decision to ditch them, I then received a letter from said company announcing that their “broadband” service would go up in price in February 2013 by almost 10%. That’s on top of a similar rise earlier in 2012. A price hike of 20% in a year is nothing short of a rip-off. I wouldn’t mind if the service was decent, but the broadband is particularly poor; I’m supposed to have a 20MB service but I rarely get even a tenth of that. I assume Virgin Media simply doesn’t have enough bandwith to deliver what it promises. And that’s not counting when the connection falls over completely, which is far from uncommon…
In 2012 Virgin Media announced that I was getting a “free” upgrade to 20MB – previously I had the cheapo 10MB service – which sounded great. Then, just over a month later, the cost of my broadband package went up by about 10%. That’s a clear misrepresentation, and I should have cancelled my account right away then. But for some reason I didn’t.
I also get a cable TV package from Virgin Media (which I very rarely watch). Cancelling that will probably mean I spend just a bit more time reading or listening to music, which is a good thing. The woeful state of TV generlly, and the dire offerings available at Christmas in particular, make me confident that I can live quite happily without it. And I’ll save the license fee too. I also have a telephone land line which I hardly use either. So scrap it all, I thought.
Anyway, I picked up the phone and called Virgin Media on 8th December with the intention of cancelling my service. A very frustrating experience with automated responses followed. “You now have five options”, you know the sort of thing. After several sets of five options (none of which were to cancel my account), I got through to a vaguely humanoid life-form. Even that wasn’t the end of the story as instead of just following my request she asked dozens of irrelevant questions and tried to persuade me not to quit. In the end I got fed up and said “I’m not going to change my mind, please just cut the crap and cancel the account”. Finally I was told the account would close on 8th January and some packaging would be sent so I could return the box and modem to Virgin Media. Fair enough, I thought.
I was travelling before Christmas, but noticed when I got back that Virgin Media had made a number of attempt so phone me while I was away. Eventually they phoned when I was in. An operative told me he wanted to discuss “changes to my account” and asked for my password. I said there was nothing to discuss as I had cancelled it. He persisted. I put the phone down. When I got back from a Christmas break in Newcastle the same thing happened again, with the same response. Then again the same day. Then again. The third time it happened in the same morning, I’m afraid I lost my temper and told the Virgin Media representative to fuck off. That did the trick.
Yesterday I received a bill from Virgin Media including a charge for the period 8th January to 7th February 2013, being the month after my account was supposed to be cancelled. I picked up the phone and called Virgin Media, assuming that somehow the instruction to close the account had been lost. In fact it hadn’t. The person I spoke to said “yes, your account is to be closed on 8th January”. “Then why have you billed me for the following month?”, I asked. “That’s our standard practice.” was the reply.
Standard practice? Sounds to me like theft! Assuming it would be very difficult to get money back once Virgin Media had purloined it, I immediately cancelled my Direct Debit to stop them taking the funds from my bank account. If they send me a correct bill for what I actually owe, I’ll pay it of course. But I’m never having anything to do with Virgin Media ever again.
P.S. I won’t have internet at home for a while from 8th January, so probably won’t be doing much blogging at weekends. On the other hand, I will have a lot of other things to be getting on with as I gradually relocate to Brighton by the sea…
P.P.S. Just received an email from Virgin Media with the following header…
…which is of course exactly what I did.
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January 5, 2013 at 10:25 am
I cannot agree more. When “UK Online” was bought out and closed by Sky, I had to fill that gap of great service and I tried Virgin Media. Needless to say that I spent a month diagnosing and trying to fix bandwidth and connection problems and that’s with the 50 Mbps service. I ended up cancelling before the grace period ran out.
Have a good look at “BE Online”. They’re owned by O2. The provide ADSL2+ service over a phone line and ironically, it completely out-performs Virgin Media’s overloaded fibre optic network. I paid for 24 Mbps (maximum you can get over a phone line) with 2 Mbps upload. Being 1.5 km away from the local exchange, I got 16 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload. That connection *never* cut out and *never* slowed down. It was tremendously effective and their customer service was just as good.
January 5, 2013 at 10:38 am
We’ve been happy with the Virgin Media internet service we’ve got here in Cardiff (60MBPs – though I doubt we actually get that – I think most companies give a maximum possible rather than what you’ll get). Having said that, I know of a number of other people who have problems. Most have been on the pier bandwidth connections, so I wonder whether Virgin Media focus on the fastest connections at the expense of the slower ones…
If you’re after the internet at home, I’ve been meaning to try one of the 3g Mifi (or maybe MyFi, or perhaps MyFy) from 3. I used one a while ago and was impressed – at least compared with my Orange mobile boradband which can be flaky at timew. It acts as a mini wireless router, so there’s no dongle leads to cope with and no problems with OS incompatibility. Though I’m sure, as with all such things, some people have had their fair share of issues with them.
January 5, 2013 at 11:00 am
Check with your bank that cancelling the direct debit does actually mean they can’t take the money. Direct debits are not standing orders; the small print is different and you might be in for an unpleasant surprise.
I have a friend who had a great deal of trouble cancelling a satellite TV subscription. They continued to bill him and then sent him threatening letters. Fortunately he was a lawyer and knew the true position exactly and at the point where he lost patience he simply scrawled “PISS OFF” across their last letter and mailed it back to them.
January 5, 2013 at 11:22 am
I’d echo Anton’s warning. Virginmedia controls the direct debit. Given the *extremely* dodgy tricks they employ (a year ago, whilst trying to re-negotiate my contact, I caught them lying to me, blatantly – the guilty went to the trouble of covering their tracks, pretending to be another operator and/or deleting call logs, and this happened not once but twice), you might find that they hoodwink your bank into paying, and then the onus is on you to execute the so-called direct debit guarantee.
January 5, 2013 at 11:58 am
In fact their attempted DD has indeed failed.
Virgin Media have informed me that they expect me to pay for the full month of Jan-Feb and when I’m disconnected the bill will be modified and an appropriate refund made. Like hell. I’ve heard what trouble it is getting refunds out of these arseholes. Why not just send me a correct bill in the first place?
January 5, 2013 at 2:29 pm
I echo your comments on Virgin Media, our set top box failed three times, and each time it’s taken the best part of an hour to speak to a humanoid whose interpersonal skills resemble that of a lettuce. I use my 3 phone as a Wifi tethering access point so I can take it anywhere with me. It’s only £25/month for the phone contract with unlimited minutes/texts/tethering (and I frequently use over 50GB/month), which is much cheaper than the Virgin deal, and the speed is usually about 10Mb/s or so, often faster than Virgin too!
January 5, 2013 at 3:32 pm
You’ll miss the new series of Sherlock!
January 5, 2013 at 6:19 pm
There’s another advantage….
January 5, 2013 at 4:03 pm
I’d forgotten about the nonsense with the Virginmedia set-top boxes. I lost faith in a number of celebrities after they took Branson’s shilling to promote these monstrosities. We pay a monthly fee to use a Tivo, which is only marginally fast than receiving the signal by semaphore – staggeringly slow, with illogical menus, and no volume control I’m no fan of Sky, but at least their boxes don’t run on clockwork.
January 5, 2013 at 5:56 pm
Maybe try ofcom
http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/tell-us/telecoms/billing/
and get on an ADR (alternative dispute resolution scheme)
January 8, 2013 at 8:40 pm
Despite your problems, Virgin will always be responsible for one fond memory, one of the all-time great headlines. When Richard Branson first sold stock, said headline read “Virgin goes public”.
January 9, 2013 at 10:52 am
The extra month is probably the cancellation fee? I had the same thing with my ISP – they said BT has a standard (not cheap) termination charge they have to pass on. Probably Virgin does the same thing as BT then? I agree its a rip-off.
January 9, 2013 at 11:02 am
Because they announced that they were increasing their charges I am entitled to a free cancellation; they changed the contract so the law gives me that right. They have admitted as such, so if that’s what they’re trying to do I won’t pay.
May 13, 2013 at 12:06 pm
I’m still waiting for my refund two months after cancelling! I’ve already phoned up and get same old cover story!
May 17, 2013 at 5:40 pm
I desperately want virgin media out of my life forever! I have 11 months left on the contract and I would rather scoop my own eyeballs out with rusty spoons than stay with them for that long. Does the cancelling contract due to price hikes apply to me or am I tied to the dilemma of paying the cancellation fees?