MSE News: Virgin Media uses VAT rise to retrospectively hike phone prices

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"The firm is charging customers the new, increased tax rate for phone calls that were made before the increase ..."

Read the full story: Virgin Media uses VAT rise to retrospectively hike phone prices

Heinz

Why am I not surprised?

bob_a_builder

The telecoms giant says it has consulted HM Revenue and Customers which Virgin says has given it the all clear.

That'll be the same HMRC who waived the need for Vodafone to repay a 6 Billion tax bill

bob_a_builder

Will this extra cash taken go to the Government or to Virgin Media.

The_voice_of_reason_2

It should all go to the government because it's VAT so Virgin don't actually benefit in any way - think this is a misleading article

Former_MSE_Guy

The_voice_of_reason wrote: »

It should all go to the government because it's VAT so Virgin don't actually benefit in any way - think this is a misleading article

The money goes to the taxman but it still means consumers are overcharged as they should be paying the 17.5% rate.

VT82

So Virgin don't actually gain from overcharging their customers - the only reason they did it was presumably to save on the admin costs of building a computer program which would calculate the call costs correctly? And in doing so, they have created bad PR about themselves. And will probably have caused an increase in call volume and 'goodwill' refunds that will amount to more than they would have had to pay to fix the issue in the first place.

That's pretty dumb.

glider3560

MSE_Guy wrote: »

The money goes to the taxman but it still means consumers are overcharged as they should be paying the 17.5% rate.

Still misleading as the headline says "...retrospectively hike phone prices". Phone prices haven't increased - the VAT charged on them has. When prices are given ex. VAT anyway, I find the headline very misleading.

In fact, the Virgin price list even says "Please note that VAT is applied at the rate prevailing when your bill is prepared, not when the call is made."

flyingscotno1

glider3560 wrote: »

Still misleading as the headline says "...retrospectively hike phone prices". Phone prices haven't increased - the VAT charged on them has. When prices are given ex. VAT anyway, I find the headline very misleading.

In fact, the Virgin price list even says "Please note that VAT is applied at the rate prevailing when your bill is prepared, not when the call is made."

I agree, I thought the phone prices had been increased and hidden in VAT rise when I saw the title. A more accurate headline would be 'Virgin overcharges VAT to customers'.

dtaylor84

The "82p VAT" added to his bill was the full 20%, they would have charged 72p anyway. So they added an additional 10p to his phone bill...

Also the tax point is not necessarily the date the calls were made, so this may not even be overcharging

sirmarcus

Why is any Vrirginmedia customer making phone calls outside of their agreed free monthly usage plan ?

Via VM, I am able to make free phone calls during evenings and weekends. If I have to make calls during any other time (i.e. during the day), I always use http://www.18185.co.uk/index2.php.

I save a money doing this and I have no sympathy with any VM customers, whom make calls outside of their free plans.