Virgin muppets

madrhino

I cancelled my Virgin media broadband and phone. The 30 days notice period ends today (18th). I have just received an ebill charging me for services from 19th July to 18th August, the money doesn't go out until 9th August. I have sent them an email telling them to send me an mmended bill just for any calls etc. I have made up until today. If they don't I am thinking of cancelling my direct debit so that they can't take the money. I have an email from them stating that my services end on the 18th as evidence. Also I don't owe them any money as they owe me about £5 from a mistake that they made, and my calls add up to about £1, so they owe me money.
Any advice? Any flaws in my logic? I know they can threaten me with debt collectors etc. but I do have evidence that my services end today.

They may just write back and correct their mistake.

This latest episode is just confirming that I am doing the right thing by leaving Virgin.

I remember when I quite liked Virgin.

ktpie

Our experience of cancelling with Virgin was not good.

My husband stopped the direct debit as soon as he cancelled the broadband and phone. We then got a bill like yours with the legitimate items on it (phone etc used up until we had cancelled) plus a charge for future services.
Phoned up to complain and got told that yes it was incorrect and given a different figure to pay, I asked for a new bill itemising the charges before I paid this but they can't generate a bill on any other day of the month than your bill date so they said I would have to wait until the next month for the bill.

They then started calling me on an automated thing where your phone rings then you get put on hold for ages before finally an operator answers with the words "You owe us .. much, can you pay now?". To be fair they were reasonable when I explained and took me off the automated call list.

So the next bill date came along and yet again the bill was wrong. They said the disconnection hadn't gone through properly, reckoned they had sorted it and came up with a new figure, I then paid the charges I knew were correct (ie the phone calls) but refused to pay the rest until I had a correct bill. One woman said "You might as well just pay the outstanding balance and if you get the bill and it is wrong we will pay you back", yeah right I'm sure that would be so easy to do! So I was put back on the automated call thing, very annoying, and had to wait another month for the next bill.

This of course when we got it was wrong, but this time when I rang up I spoke to a more useful man who said the disconnection had been stuck in the system and he sorted it out and said that we now owed them nothing, great!
So that afternoon I got another automated call but after that operator went off and spoke to the right department he came back and said we didn't owe them anything.

We did the next day get a snotty letter saying that they would have to disconnect us as we had had an outstanding balance for so long but they must have sent that out before and fingers crossed we haven't heard anything else from them.

We were glad we had cancelled our direct debit when we did. The operators are actually fairly reasonable when you talk to them although some of them seem more competent than others. Some of the ones on the automated thing mentioned debt collectors and credit rating etc but crumbled on that when I pointed out that I had yet to receive a correct bill, so how could I have failed to pay it?

Good luck with the cancellation and hope our experience helps you in some way. I would say stick with it and don't pay until you have a correct bill as the disconnection may not have actually gone through, like it didn't with us. Hopefully it won't be as long and drawn out as ours was!

madrhino

Thanks for the reply. I think I will cancel the direct debit as I don't trust that they won't take the money, even if they say they won't. Virgin used to be quite good at sorting out complaints, but now I seem to always be told different things by different people. I am not worried as I have an email from them which mentions my disconnection date. So they can't deny that I cancelled.

They are just really rather annoying me at the moment.

Did the automated thing call your landline number? as I now have a different number, so they won't be able to do that on my old number.

ktpie

Yes it was ringing my landline number, it was the number we had had with them so I guess that is how they knew it.

I agree with the different things from different people thing, you have to talk to a lot of people before you get someone who actually does sort things out for you.
They didn't ever argue about whether we had cancelled, they had it in their info but it just hadn't gone through their system.

Hope you get it sorted.

PNPSUKNET

madrhino wrote: »

I cancelled my Virgin media broadband and phone. The 30 days notice period ends today (18th). I have just received an ebill charging me for services from 19th July to 18th August, the money doesn't go out until 9th August. I have sent them an email telling them to send me an mmended bill just for any calls etc. I have made up until today. If they don't I am thinking of cancelling my direct debit so that they can't take the money. I have an email from them stating that my services end on the 18th as evidence. Also I don't owe them any money as they owe me about £5 from a mistake that they made, and my calls add up to about £1, so they owe me money.
Any advice? Any flaws in my logic? I know they can threaten me with debt collectors etc. but I do have evidence that my services end today.

They may just write back and correct their mistake.

This latest episode is just confirming that I am doing the right thing by leaving Virgin.

I remember when I quite liked Virgin.

I have cancelled with virgin and had a similar problem, I wouldnt cancel the dd as this will cause harm to your credit file for the sake of £30. virgin once you have disconnected will produce a new bill and refund any over payment.

ktpie

PNPSUKNET wrote: »

I have cancelled with virgin and had a similar problem, I wouldnt cancel the dd as this will cause harm to your credit file for the sake of £30. virgin once you have disconnected will produce a new bill and refund any over payment.

I really don't know anything about these things but can they harm your credit file if you refuse to pay an incorrect bill? Surely they don't have a leg to stand on with that? I'm going to have to check my credit rating after all the messing about with virgin but if they have put anything on there they will certainly be getting it in the ear from me! As I said I don't actually know anything about credit files so may have totally misunderstood how it works.

tx2online

madrhino wrote: »

I cancelled my Virgin media broadband and phone.

So, it's OK to call Virgin employees "muppets" but not OK for me to publish details of how one might contact BT Senior Service Team directly.

Moderation? More like an old boys club...

Heinz

tx2online wrote: »

So, it's OK to call Virgin employees "muppets" but not OK for me to publish details of how one might contact BT Senior Service Team directly.

Moderation? More like an old boys club...

That appears to be some sort of 'Mister Angry' response to something or other but, if its origin relates to a complaint about BT service, you may be interested to learn that BT company representative is active on this forum to assist with such matters.

Try a PM.

ellielovesem

In fact the BT representatives are so helpful that their PM box is full and won't accept any further messages!!

ACDeag

madrhino wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I think I will cancel the direct debit as I don't trust that they won't take the money, even if they say they won't.

They will probably charge you £5 in your last bill for not paying by Direct Debit

flower_garden

Hi new to this but had a very upsetting call today regarding Virgin Media and my daughter.
They are a young family like so many others,well 22 and 32 and 3 dont want to be in debt yet trying to keep afloat on one wage coming in and no other financial help.They were last year in a rented house yet because of the economic situ have had to move house and rent a cheaper house.
At the last house they had a very basic package with Virgin Media yet that had to be cancelled as it was a luxury as they called it.
She