Virgin cancellation fees

[svalentine60]

Hi,

I have a potential problem that has shocked me to be honest. Have probably been naive. I've been with Virgin media for years. Over the last couple of years i have intermittent internet. To the point where it goes down up to 100 times a day or more. It has been unusable for a long time and we usually have to use our mobile internet by attaching our phones to our pc's. Anyway i've had tech after tech come out over the years but in the last few months it has become ridiculous with various visits. They tighten cables and stare at their little gadget for a bit and say they see nothing wrong even though we provide images, graphs etc from the router and online showing how many times we lose internet.

Finally yesterday after it had been off all day and yet again they said they'd send an engineer out i said not i wanted to leave. I wasn't going to continue paying £48 a month for a product I wasn't receiving. It is part of a package with a phone line and tv. However I haven't had a tv in months as i don't watch it.

Yesterday when i called them and said yet again the internet was down and said i wanted to leave and would be looking around and call them back. She was quite nice and apologetic and said after speaking to someone i would have to pay* a £60 cancellation fee. I didn't see that I should pay that if the fault was with them and if i had to leave because they weren't giving me the service i was paying for. She wouldn't budge though.

I signed up with Vodafone. A lot slower but fast enough at 63mb and i don't mind slower i just want consistent. However Vodafone must have contacted Virgin because when i called to cancel today they already knew. The mood was totally different. Very nasty. The price for leaving has suddenly jumped up to £160 plus the £60 cancellation fee. I protested that the day before I was told £60 and she said i can't cancel it unless you agree to the £160 + as you are breaking your contract. I've been told that even if i get a little internet now and again, i still have to pay. Only if i never have internet will they let me out of the contract without paying. The contract is up in September so at £48 per month that would mean I have 3 months left to pay as i only paid 2 weeks ago. so that would be £144. So not only are they making me pay every month i would have left to cancel they've also added extra on for some reason. i can't afford to pay this and Vodafone. I just wanted internet that didn't go down all the time. My question is, do they have a right to charge me this if I have had to cancel due to them not giving me the service I'm paying for and if they do is the amount they are charging me legal and reasonable?*

Many thanks for any advice and sorry for the ramble.

[R0b]

Hello

What you said to Virgin and how you said it can be the difference between you terminating the contract and being in breach for terminating early. You said you wanted to 'cancel' the service and if one was to take the literal meaning on that means you wanted out of your agreement. Had you explicitly said you are ending the contract because Virgin cannot provide the service that you were expecting, and your account records would show that you've had several engineers out over a couple of months, then that's pretty clear.

However, context is key and I would imagine despite saying you wanted to cancel, you would have explained the reason why you are cancelling. Just a tip whenever you are in a dispute, keep your correspondence to writing as proving something that has been written is much easier than verbal.

Anyway, I think this comes down to the facts of how often and how many times Virgin has been out to try and fix the problem. You've already mentioned your router showed the drop in connections and I'm sure when you called them Virgin would have also recorded this which is why engineers came out. I don't think it is reasonable for you to end the contract after one engineer, there would need to be multiple and over a prolonged period of time. Based on what you have said, it sounds like there's a reasonable argument to say you had a right to end it without penalty.

Also, there is the broadband compensation scheme where if the service was not resolved and fully fixed after two working days, you can get £8 per day. It might be worth working out how much compensation based on the loss of service and deduction from the monthly payments for the loss of use of broadband (if they haven't already deducted) that should be on a pro-rated basis.

Think your starting point is to make a formal complaint, setting out the background and the events that occurred leading up to you telling them you are leaving for poor service, and that their claim for £160 early termination plus £60 cancellation is unreasonable and in any event you terminated the contract and that was fully explained. Problem is, if they told you that there was a fee of £60 and you didn't reject that and say no you are paying nothing because it is being ended for poor service, might be implied you agreed to pay £60.

Moral of the story, keep your disputes/complaints in writing and follow the complaints process unless you already have done or you are confident that you can simply end the contract. The moment you start to taking things into your own hands without following the rules, that's when problems occur and you may have slipped up and got things wrong, however unfair you think it might be.

[svalentine60]

Thank you for the advice. I've had multiple visits over the last couple of years for the same problem but around 3 or 4 over the last 4 months. We ended up using our mobile phones to attach to pcs. I did say i wanted to cancel because i wasn't getting the service i was paying for. They said they could see had had various visits and phoned constantly re losing internet. Their arguement was that even if i only had internet for an hour a day that i was still liable to pay and said that only if i had zero internet ever could they cancel charges. So even though some days it drops out over 100 times sometimes for a few minutes and sometimes for a couple of hours i'm still liable. But also they're charging me more than if i'd stayed. For the months left they're charging more than if i'd stayed and payed each monthly payment. It was also the nastiness once vodafone contacted them. Very nice before that trying to get me to stay etc. It was once they realised i'd contacted another provider they became totally different.

[R0b]

Their arguement was that even if i only had internet for an hour a day that i was still liable to pay and said that only if i had zero internet ever could they cancel charges.

True, and so you should only pay for one hour's worth of internet per day if that was the case. Virgin agreed to provide a service of a certain level and if that service is not provided properly then you should have a right, after they have had a reasonable opportunity to resolve it but failed, to leave their service. You didn't sign up to an intermittent service and that's not what you should get.

Like I said, your starting point is to write a formal complaint and set out the background and reasons for terminating. It is possible that Virgin might try to mark your credit file for non-payment/breach of contract and at that point you will need to decide whether to challenge it in court and see where you end up. I've had issues in the past with Virgin and they seem (in my experience) to be intent on defending this right up to the wire and only then offer to settle when they know you don't back down and it will be more costly to defend than to settle. Obviously that should not be taken as gospel because it will depend on how strong they think their case is.

Why don't you have a stab at drafting something and post it up we can comment.

You should also look at making a subject access request for all data they hold about you including telephone calls. You can use that as evidence to back up any claim/defence against these charges they're trying to levy.

[svalentine60]

Thank you for that advice. They certainly did seem to immediately change to defence mode once vodafone had contacted them. I actually didn't expect vodafone to do that because Virgin is cable and Vodaphone is overhead wiring so they contacted them the day before I did. But i wanted to get internet set up to be delivered on a set date before I cancelled virgin or yet again I'd be without. Actually Virgin hasn't gone down since last night so have had a whole morning with internet for once. I will follow through on your advice. Thank you again.