How do I stop Virgin Media#s marketing machine?

10 years ago I stopped being an NTL customer. Mainly due to tryly awful customer service.

I was paying £120 per month for TV/Phone and BB and they refused to replace the TV STB when it had smoke coming out of it and it melted the viewing card.

Anyways when Richard Branson rebadged the company I stated to get marketing letters from Virgin Media addressed to me.

I asked them to stop as I have no interest in going back due to the way they burnt every last bridge they could with me as a customer when I left.

Instead of that they changed my name to "The Occupier" and since then I have been recieving more and more and more direct mail.

I "return to sender" all of it as I refuse to clutter my bin up with it, I have asked them several times to stop this as I have no interest in going back to cable.

This week did it for me, 4 marketing letters all A4 on stiff cardboard and when I got downstairs this morning there were 2 in my letter box jamming open the letterbox and letting a huge cold draught in.

I am a member of the MPS and they say that if I have been a previous customer then they cannot help as I need to contact Virgin Media directly.

So today I try again as all my letters seem to fall on deaf ears in the marketing department.

The only number I can find is for new customers so I try that, I am told by the guy in the call center that you cannot stop the direct mail from them. He then also goes on to tell me that he spent a 2 day course and he knows the whole of the data protection act and that they can do what they like with my address.

Nice to see that VM is still good old NTL in a different coat, good greif!

So how do I stop this awful waste of resources as I have no intention of going back to cable and yet they seem to think they can do as they wish even when I ask them directly to stop repeatedly.

You can get Royal Mail to stop delivering unaddressed mail, but it seems that looking that items with "The Occupier" as the receipent are classed as addressed.

Chances are too that VM don't have you on their mailing database, but the opposite - they DON'T have you on their database hence why they keep contacting you.

It's a pain I know, but I'm not sure if there much you can do.

since leaving virgin i recieve these every week, the bin does the trick

In reply to a post by pete_thomson:

You can get Royal Mail to stop delivering unaddressed mail, but it seems that looking that items with "The Occupier" as the receipent are classed as addressed.

Chances are too that VM don't have you on their mailing database, but the opposite - they DON'T have you on their database hence why they keep contacting you.

It's a pain I know, but I'm not sure if there much you can do.

I get marketing mail even tho I am a customer. Just have to live with it I guess.

If it really annoys you jut write return to sender on every one and stick it back in the mailbox when you pass it. It probably won't stop the junk but at least it will make it more annoying for RM and VM and won't fill your recycling bin.

The sad thing is that if you have paper bills, they actually want to charge you for them.

Some months I was getting a paper bill (that I had to pay £1.25 I believe for), and also getting 3, sometimes 4 marketing items from them.

Do they have a complaints address? Start sending them heavy things (such as bricks) without stamps.

You can clear out your garden AND have a wicked smile on your face as you go.

I wouldn't let it get to me. Just recycle it.

There is a big loophole in MPS (mail preference service) in that you can't list your address except with your name included. The only way to stop The Occupier paper spam is to apply to Royal Mail to stop all un-named mail. They make a large slice of their income from delivering all this rubbish, now that email has taken over so much of their business, and they will stop it on request but you will lose some useful stuff such as council and anti-crime leaflets as well.

Even named junk can be hard to stop. Direct Holidays bombarded us with thick brochures etc for two years despite many requests. Eventually I kept the covers with dates, copied them recorded delivery to the Company Secretary and advised there would be a £25 disposal charge for each item delivered after that date, and by sending such items they would be deemed to agree to such charge.

A very nice legal person wrote back to say they did not think the courts would agree to such a charge, and I replied to say we would certainly find out. This did the trick (it turned out that they had us listed twice, one with mis-spelling) but what a lot of hassle and ill will to the company concerned.

In reply to a post by Malwaremike:

The only way to stop The Occupier paper spam is to apply to Royal Mail to stop all un-named mail.

Rather annoyingly, RM see mail with "The Occupier" on it as named mail.

I'd be tempted to return it as "no-one of this name lives here"

Both myself and my wife think that is a great idea about giving them fair warning and then charging them a disposal charge.

We are tring to reduce the amount of paper we recieve, partially from an enviromental view but there is so much of it that we recieve that a whole bin bag of shredded paper is produced every month and I have to deal with it all, especially as our council refuses to take shredded paper in the recycling bin and so it has to go to the local dump.

Even return to sender doesn't work, I think the marketing departments seem to have this notion that bombarding me with mail makes me more likely to take their products up, when it is the reverse.

In reply to a post by undecidedadrian:

Even return to sender doesn't work

It does solve the monthly disposal problem if you happen to go past a post box.

Really you shouldn't be recieving ex-customer emails after that length of time. I know that Sky have a 12 month policy. From then you're treated as a new customer.

An ex-flatmate had a far more therapeutic freepost abuse method than bricks, simply "cross breeding" the junk mail. I.e. if VM and Sky are both sending you junk you send VM the Sky junk and vice versa, with a nice little post-it-note saying "I thought this might be of interest to you. It isn't? I'm sorry, stop sending me stuff I don't want and I'll stop sending it to you"

Edited by deleted (Tue 22-Feb-11 16:02:07)

That only works if pre-paid envelopes are included. The VM and Sky bumpf that we get doesn't have pre-paid envelopes.

Sounds like what AOL used to do by bombarding people with disks.

You could always fill up your local post box with it (the non addressed leafllets of course), the local posties might get so fed up of clearing it out that they'll just dump the VM stuff.

Well VM are still continuing to sending me this stuff and it taking more and more of my time up just wading through all the junk getting it disposed or returned to sender that I am sending them a letter to their legal department.

Letter reads:

I have contacted your company on several occasions over the years to stop receiving addressed marketing to the above address.

Initially my name was removed and replaced with �The Occupier� I assume it was done so you could continue sending this unwanted material and still stay within the data protection act.

I once again contacted your company on the 12th February 2011 and was told it could take up to 4 weeks to have this address removed from your data bases.

Today I have yet again received unwanted marketing material more than 4 weeks after I asked for this to be stopped.

Therefore I am now giving you notice in writing that after the 1st April 2011 that any more such communications from your company shall be subject to a £10 handling fee for their disposal. This fee is for my time and materials used in the disposal of the said marketing materials.

If you continue sending marketing materials to the above address you will have deemed to have agree to these conditions.



Lets see if a couple of invoices hitting them changes their mind, probably won't but lets see if I can get a couple of CCJ's against them.

I honestly don't know whether to admire you or suggest that you need to be sectioned

I really can't criticise because I too can get wound up over things that are frankly pretty trivial. I well remember my wife telling me that burning down the local pizza parlour with 4 sacks full of their damned menus which they delivered daily was going too far. At least it stopped the menus though...

I am not a rabid enviromentalist but I do try and reduce my consumption wherever possible,

The problem is that I used to work for an enviromental testing laboratory and glossy flyers like VM send out have a huge amount of waste associated with them, I know I saw the figures day in day out.

Not just with the paper being made but the inks used have a large amount of heavy metals in them and a printing works will discharge a lot of waste ink and the heavy metals all go into the sewers and given how often VM mail me it turns into a small enviromental disater.

Scale up how many they must be sending out and the impact to the enviroment is huge.

I suppose if I suggest an enviromental levy on fliyers to the government do you think they would take the idea on.

In reply to a post by undecidedadrian:

I am not a rabid enviromentalist but I do try and reduce my consumption wherever possible,

The problem is that I used to work for an enviromental testing laboratory and glossy flyers like VM send out have a huge amount of waste associated with them, I know I saw the figures day in day out.

Not just with the paper being made but the inks used have a large amount of heavy metals in them and a printing works will discharge a lot of waste ink and the heavy metals all go into the sewers and given how often VM mail me it turns into a small enviromental disater.

Scale up how many they must be sending out and the impact to the enviroment is huge.

I suppose if I suggest an enviromental levy on fliyers to the government do you think they would take the idea on.

I agree.

I get flyers through my door daily from all sorts of companies, the most common is local takeaways, I think I have had 3 dominoes menus in the past week as an example. The waste must be horrific for all this junk mail.

If you want a lesson in how pointless it is expecting the government (any government) to take on board anything not backed by big business or a huge popular campaign write to your MP.

The problem with any levy on fliers is how the hell do you enforce it? My rant about the Pizza flyers was only partially true - I also get the damned thing for chippies, curry houses, and umpteen ethnic speciality outlets - I'd say the average is close to one a day. They all come from tint outlets and are printed by tiny print shops so how do you collect the levy?

In reply to a post by kwikbreaks:

If you want a lesson in how pointless it is expecting the government (any government) to take on board anything not backed by big business or a huge popular campaign write to your MP.

The problem with any levy on fliers is how the hell do you enforce it? My rant about the Pizza flyers was only partially true - I also get the damned thing for chippies, curry houses, and umpteen ethnic speciality outlets - I'd say the average is close to one a day. They all come from tint outlets and are printed by tiny print shops so how do you collect the levy?

assuming they use royal mail my ideas would be.

1 - have royal mail enforce a quota limit, eg. one flyer per year. if company tries to send 2nd flyer then royal mail themselves deny the service, Obviously this could be worked around by using another company to deliver or even deliver themselves.
2 - work on the basis people can report excessive flyers to an authority who then imposes a fine, if fine not paid within 30days the company trading rights are suspended. For repeat offense repeat the fine by 10x nultiple each time as a detterent.
3 - your levy idea, I think the only possible way to enforce this is have any delivery companies ie. royal mail to apply this on any charges they charge the business and then royal mail pass the levy on. This levy would need to be quite high to be an effective detterent.

no chance from this government tho as they very pro business. Also I think unlikely from a labour government, only someone like the green party would probably do anything about it.

In reply to a post by undecidedadrian:

Not just with the paper being made but the inks used have a large amount of heavy metals in them and a printing works will discharge a lot of waste ink and the heavy metals all go into the sewers and given how often VM mail me it turns into a small enviromental disater.

You demonstrably have the same level of knowledge of the print and paper industries as the 'experts' that stopped importation of eucalyptus pulp from South America.

Wasting the most expensive ingredient (ink) in printed material is a pretty daft thing to do - just think of it?

Heavy Metals????? a tiny factor compared with the chemicals discharged when making 'vegan' plastic shoes.

I am a retired printer and was, like most printers, re-cycling before it became fashionable.

Just in case you are interested the planting of eucalyptus was encouraged by paper and celophane manufacturers to help prevent soil erosion and also to give subsistence farmers a cash crop to alleviate their poverty.

It amazes me that people with good arguments, that I agree with, bring everything they say into question by ill researched cheap shots with 'everybody knows' fabrications.

If you really think that printers discharge into sewers you are using data from the 50s and 60s. The fines in the UK for such CRIMES are quite high.....

Unfortunately you do not understand how the water industry works and how the trade effulent system works.

It is not a crime to discharge these materials into a sewer but you will have to pay for the privaledge for it and strict monitoring of what is going into the sewer and being charged according to the effluent.

I have seen samples of inks taken from the sewers, as well as many plating works and any other number of industries discharging straight into the sewers.

And when you have seen coloured sewer samples with miligrams per litre of cadnium etc in it, it shows how wasteful our society is.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

assuming they use royal mail my ideas would be.

They are hand delivered. I suppose I could set a bear trap but then I wouldn't get my eBay tat delivered

In reply to a post by pete_thomson:

In reply to a post by Malwaremike:

The only way to stop The Occupier paper spam is to apply to Royal Mail to stop all un-named mail.

Rather annoyingly, RM see mail with "The Occupier" on it as named mail.

I'd be tempted to return it as "no-one of this name lives here"

Do what I do send them back marked:
No Theo C Cupier here! - that stops the beggers.

In reply to a post by undecidedadrian:

Unfortunately you do not understand how the water industry works and how the trade effulent system works.
And when you have seen coloured sewer samples with miligrams per litre of cadnium etc in it, it shows how wasteful our society is.

Please don't undermine an argument against waste, which I wholy agree with by making statements that are unconnected and alienating one of your few supporters....... ME.

I do understand how the print industry works, having been involved in it for most of my life and being the fourth generation of my family to have such involvement.

The waste generated by Virgin with their leaflets, flyers and mailshots is annoying. It is wasteful and damages the planet. With that I agree totally.

Can you try to see the real problem? It may be far too straight forward and non-conspiracy theory for your taste, BUT, Virgin makes a profit from their advertising by getting new customers or they wouldn't advertise in this way.

To stop the waste, it has to be made non-profitable for Virgin to generate all those damn leaflets, most of which aren't even compostable and are difficult to recycle due to the use of glossy stock and full colour litho.

If you for one second realise that you are never in a million years going to get Virgin to stop trying to sell their product to you, you may realise that some alternative has to be found that is acceptable to Virgin.

Your time would be better spent working on the problem of advertising in a Capitalist society rather than quoting data about an industry of which you know nothing.

Before reading your posts I had doubts about the waste caused by plating - having seen this put forward by someone who spouts misinformation about print, I will reserve my opinion until I see confirmable data.

Please realise that you do more damage to the cause for more re-use and re-cycling than the worst lobbyist for 'Polution Incorporated'.

I had the same problem with virgin sent the letter informing them that I would be charging them £15 ponds. They stopped.

I have also done it with other companies once took one to court wich settled outside of the small claims as soon as they got the paper work.


Quite funny infact they said they could not beleive i had sent them court paper over afew pieces of paper, I pointe dout I was not i was talking them to court over an unpaid bill.

In reply to a post by Cobra001:

I had the same problem with virgin sent the letter informing them that I would be charging them £15 ponds. They stopped.

I have also done it with other companies once took one to court wich settled outside of the small claims as soon as they got the paper work.


Quite funny infact they said they could not beleive i had sent them court paper over afew pieces of paper, I pointe dout I was not i was talking them to court over an unpaid bill.

yeah that tactic is effective, friend of mine did the same as well.

In reply to a post by Malwaremike:

..................
Even named junk can be hard to stop. Direct Holidays bombarded us with thick brochures etc for two years despite many requests. Eventually I kept the covers with dates, copied them recorded delivery to the Company Secretary and advised there would be a £25 disposal charge for each item delivered after that date, and by sending such items they would be deemed to agree to such charge.

A very nice legal person wrote back to say they did not think the courts would agree to such a charge, and I replied to say we would certainly find out. This did the trick (it turned out that they had us listed twice, one with mis-spelling) but what a lot of hassle and ill will to the company concerned.

As I wrote on Feb 20. Lots of hassle I'm afraid, but if we all took this line we could stop this torrent of wasteful garbage.