Trying to leave Virgin Media. Help!

Looking for advice on how to leave Virgin Media.

I have been with them for 7 years. My contract is up on the 23rd December 2020. I phoned them on the 21st November telling them that I wanted to leave.

Since calling them last month I have heard nothing apart from an email with the usual bill summary. No comfirmations that I'm closing the contract at end of term.

I've tried calling again to get confirmation via email or letter but can either never get through when I call or I'm on hold for ages waiting to speak to someone. Then I get cut off. I've emailed their complaints department asking for help as I don't want to be charged a "late leaving" fee. I received what I suspect is an auto-bot response email.

Would appreciate any advice on what to do next.

Thanks

Adam

In reply to a post by aromadome:

Looking for advice on how to leave Virgin Media.

I have been with them for 7 years. My contract is up on the 23rd December 2020. I phoned them on the 21st November telling them that I wanted to leave.

Since calling them last month I have heard nothing apart from an email with the usual bill summary. No comfirmations that I'm closing the contract at end of term.

I've tried calling again to get confirmation via email or letter but can either never get through when I call or I'm on hold for ages waiting to speak to someone. Then I get cut off. I've emailed their complaints department asking for help as I don't want to be charged a "late leaving" fee. I received what I suspect is an auto-bot response email.

Would appreciate any advice on what to do next.

Thanks

Adam

Have you tried their Community Support (Forum) ? https://community.virginmedia.com/

Send a recorded letter informing them that you served notice on the 21st and consider your end date to be the 23rd December, and that the letter is just confirmation as you hadn't received any other correspondence. Include details of any follow-up email that you sent as well. Disconnect the cable modem on that date.

If you keep getting charged then just dispute the Direct Debit charges (don't cancel the DD agreement yet) with your bank each time it happens, they will soon get in touch with you.

I used this method to cancel service for a relative when the original phone call wasn't processed (on a follow-up call the agent said they could see the previous call to cancel but couldn't explain why it hadn't been actioned, and that all they could do would be to take another notice of 30 days to cancel). On this occasion the DD had been cancelled and late payment fees had started to be applied to the account. The letter firmly but politely said that I had no intention of paying any outstanding balance on the account, and the problem went away.

Edited by jpm (Mon 07-Dec-20 10:05:35)

Formal letter is definitely the way to go, served on the company's registered office. Like Sky these firms insist in contact by phone as a term of contract, then make it impossible to do so, or when you do get through it's to a salesdroid anxious to sell you an even bigger package than the one you want to leave. Horrible people.

Thanks for your advice and the link.

Virgin actually phoned me today although their number (retentions) popped up on my mobile as "Potential Fraud"
which didn't inspire much confidence! Looks like they've been blacklisted by some phone companies..or it's a dirty tricks campaign by a competitor. Who knows?!

They've offered to reduce their fee but not by enough to make me bite so I'll update once I've heard back from their complaints department.

What an awful company to deal with.

Cheers

Adam

Not directly relevant to your query, though possibly useful advice for others...

If you want to leave VM (or any other utility) and aren't migrating just tell them that you're moving abroad. You whistle past the "but Sir we can offer you a special deal" process and cancel without hassle that way

I've used that or "I'm moving in with someone else and they already have a service". I have used various excuses when cancelling stuff to avoid the "but have you considered this special offer".

I rang them recently as even though I am not with them the address they have for the property I live in (several converted flats) is incorrect. It's not widely wrong, but the flats are numbered but they have them as lettered.

Unless I wanted to sign up with them (which I didn't) they weren't interested.

FWIW the address is fine with Royal Mail.

Yes should have thought up something to make it easier for myself!

Interestingly their retention line called and it flashes up as "POTENTIAL FRAUD" on my mobile phone! I haven't put that number in my phone so looks like it's been flagged as suspiciious by a phone number database somewhere?

Doesn't look good for Virgin Media if customers are flagging that number as fraudulent.

Anyway so far my new three 5g broadband is very fast and reliable (once you change the DNS servers..) and I haven't turned into a chinese bot. Yet.

In reply to a post by aromadome:

Doesn't look good for Virgin Media if customers are flagging that number as fraudulent.

.

02 retention does the same.