Help needed to leave Virgin, had more than enough problems to justify leaving

wozzadell

Hi all,

First time post here, am looking for some advice on leaving Virgin within a contract due to the poor service and also misleading charges and contract additions.

Had no problems with them for broadband in one flat, but 12 months later I moved and since then it's been nothing but problems.

We upgraded to TV, Phone and Broadband yet since September 2010 we've had downtime into double figures and engineers called out more than half of those times. Yet still problems persist so have decided to leave and get a phone line installed etc and switch broadband.

The number of times we've had to call a technician out who has made a fix only for it to stop working weeks later is more than enough to put up with and surely a justified reason to request cancellation even though I'm under a contract.

On calling Virgin they wanted me to pay £179 cancellation fee despite the terrible service.

I understood when moving to a new flat in September I would be entered into a new contract but as that was nearly 9 months ago so assumed that if we did have to pay any fee despite the poor service it wouldn't be that much. Well how wrong was I! I was told that as I had been given a discount on the account in April I had entered into a new 12 month contract!

There was no discount! This came about as in March/April time we received a bill £8 higher than normal which I queried and it turns out that we were given some free calls package at the time of signing up in September 2010 which had now ran out. This was never sold to me nor was I informed that we were getting any phone discount when originally discussing this in September. This was sold to me that all we have to pay is £31.99 (pre VAT rise) a month for phone, TV and broadband. I even queried any other charges or was that all in which was confirmed.

We rarely use the home phone so I phoned up Virgin and explained this and that we were sold a package under different circumstances and asked for the charges to come off and go back to the rate we we always expecting and told we would pay. This was ok and we reverted back to the normal rate.

In doing so I found out last night that by correcting the false charges I'd entered into another 12 month contract! This was never mentioned to me and this has meant the cancellation fee being much longer. How can you get entered into a new contract when you are merely correcting them on charging something that was never agreed in the first place?!!

Despite being misled about the initial package I signed up to, the rectifying of that adding unbeknown to me an additional 12 months contract and the service going down more than 10 times in 9 months with a technician being called out on more than half those occasions they reason to me that unless I paid that £179 to leave there is nothing I can do to leave as they offered me an alternative solution last night which is for an apparent 'super technician' to visit the flat and try solve the solution.

How is this 'super technician' any different to the normal technicians who have fixed things only for that to break weeks later and why only now when saying I want to leave is this person being offered? Would have happily took up this offer after the third or fourth time it went down, but now is just a joke.

If the 'super technician' came and fixed it only for it to stop working again then do they expect me to still pay £179 cancellation fee or just accept that until the end of my contract I'll be receiving a service that will stop working roughly every 6 weeks?

Apologies for the waffling and ranting but am very frustrated that after all the tech issues and two bill/contract issues I'm being made to feel that requesting to cancel is unreasonable as I didn't take them up on the offer of the 'super technician' and that is Virgins way of acting reasonable!

If anyone has any advice or experience of leaving their contract early please share, be very much greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Wozza

wozzadell

Have just come back from being away this weekend and lo and behold the internet has stopped working again so will be spending another evening trying to cancel Virgin.

Has anyone ever gone through the ISPA before to help?

Heard of some people contacting them then being able to cancel much quicker as they got involved. Had anyone had any luck with this route?

Thanks in advance.

spike7451

Ah yes...the 'Super Techy'...just the same as us normal techy's but is a senior technician..
Going by the fault's you've been having,I'm suprised no one ordered a repull to replace the existing drop cable with a larger one,although as you're in flats,it's possible that your feed is being used for other properties.
If the signal level is OK at the ETB (the box on the wall outside your block) or the DP (Internal connection point) but crap at the PC point,then why didn't they fit a Reverse Line Powered HDU?...That would give you the same signal strength at the modem point as the ETB/DP.

wozzadell

ah thanks spike7451. Made it a bit clearer on where the issues may be for me however as we've had to have a technician out too many times now I really need to wash my hands with Virgin and get out the contract. They mentioned a re-pull in the call last week when the 'super techy' was offered.

Funny how they now seem to want to help when I want to leave yet in the first 6 or 7 calls to arrange subsequent technician visits this was never mentioned.

Added to this how I was miss sold a package and them adding an additional years contract when correcting said miss sold package I really don't want to be spending any more money with them or dealing with them.

Thanks again for the explanation though spike7451.

notisis

Since you haven't ever got what you signed up for I would imagine Virgin are in breach of the contract. Even allowing for reasonable outages they really have not performed. I would have a word with Ofcom initially and see what they suggest if Virgin won't play ball.

Darlyd

I would write to them and tell them everything that has happened and cancel as they are in breach of contract. And in the mean time switch to sky They will put your phone line in too...