Last minute Loophole for Price Increase Virgin Media contract cancellation

price84_2

Hi all,

Ive been recently wanting to cancel my Virgin Media contract (line rental and broadband), but only 6 months into a 12 month contract I was dreading the cancellation fee.

I called them today to ask them how much it would be and they said £105 to cancel :mad:

Anyway I did some investigation. I found out (as you may know) that Virgin Media are raising their prices from today (April 1st) for some Media services including Broadband (M), TV (L and additional set box) and Virgin Phone line rental (99p increase).

As you may have already discussed on this forum, in their terms and condition
its states that if Virgin Media Payments increase our charges under these Terms and Conditions
that
you may cancel the Service affected without penalty by giving us notice in writing. If you cancel your Service in these circumstances, the increased charges will not apply to your Service prior to cancellation and section H.6 (Early Termination and Disconnection fees) will not apply if you cancel before the end of the Minimum Period.

So I rang back and said I wanted to cancel under this term, however (as stated in the terms and conditions) they said that I had to give notice

within 30 days of any increase in charges or changes to the Service or these Terms and Conditions being notified to you

Which they said was by post on the 2nd of Feb, so this did not apply. However I said that the terms also say

or, if later, receipt of your first bill following such increase in charges,

They then argued that in fact they had printed my first bill prior to such increase on the 2nd of April, so 30 days from then was yesterday!! April 31st!!

However I then stated that in fact the term dont say when the bill was printed and posted, but RECIEVED!! so that at earliest would have been the 3rd of April, and that 30 days from then is in fact today!! They were stumped!

After a long consultation with the Virgin legal team the guy rang me back and said that in fact I was correct and that they will cancel my contract with NO DISCONNECTION OR EARLY TERMINATION FEE 30 days from now.:j:beer:

They even tried to offer me a downgrade and £12 to cover the price increase, but I stuck to the cancellation with no fee


So basically if your Virgin media package is effected by the price increase, and you want to cancel WITHOUT A FEE and youre still within 30 days of RECEIPT of your last bill, then please follow what I did! it saved me £120!

Thanks