Q about MAC code

TomsMom

After queries with billing with my Virgin National broadband and phone package I will be leaving them.

A 12 month contract was taken out last July by my husband who knew he was terminally ill. He arranged with Virgin for me to have any further dealings with them.

Hubby died in October and I've had occasion to ring Virgin on 3 occasions since then. I've not specifically rung up to inform them that my husband has died but I have said during our conversations that "my husband has passed away since the contract was taken out".

Today, upon following up a call from last week after they failed to get back to me as promised, when I again mentioned that my husband had died since the contract was taken out I was told that the account must be closed down as it was in his name and that it was illegal for it to continue with me.

I asked for a MAC code and they say I wont get one because of the circumstances, i.e. they are closing the account due to death of the account holder. I said I would need one to give to a new provider as I couldn't afford to continue with them at the price they said it would be on a new contract. They are insisting I wont get one and that I will probably not keep my telephone number when I move to a new provider (something to do with a marker on the line).

I asked if there would be any charge connected with not having a MAC code and was told no.

I have now completely run out of energy to continue fruitless discussions with Virgin, every agent is telling me something different so I can't trust or believe anything I am told any more, and I virtually got called a liar today by their agent who said that if I had mentioned in conversation that my husband had died then any of the agents I spoke to would have picked up on it and told me they would have to close down the account. I suggested he listened to the recordings of the phone calls if he didn't believe me but he didn't take me up on that!

Can anyone tell me if this is correct, that I wont be able to get a MAC code in these circumstances, and that there will be no charge when I change to a new provider if I don't have one.

macman

A MAC is not essential, the worst case is that you would incur a £30 cease charge and that tags on the line might delay the switch.
Utter idiocy by VM, do they not have a specialist dept that deals with accounts in the case of bereavement? It can hardly be a rare event, so they should have some sensible policy in place-but you'll probably need to escalate it above tier one support to get any sense out of them.

TomsMom

Thanks Macman for your help with my posts today. So a £30 charge isn't too bad really (would just confirm another lie from them) and a short delay wouldn't be too bad. I've set up a Gmail account and am in the process of changing my email addy with every site or account that needs it, so if I'm without my own internet access for a while I can go to my son's and check emails and do my banking from there.

With my last phone call to them my first question was "Do you have anyone or a department who deals specifically with bereavement" and the guy in the Customer Relations department I was talking to just dealt with it himself.

What makes it worse is that my daughter's mother-in-law was in this exact same situation about 3 years ago. She rang and told them her husband had died and they just changed the account over to her name, no problems. Maybe they've changed their policy since, I don't know, and I can't be bothered to pursue it any more. I'm getting a much better deal if I go with Plusnet that I mentioned in my other thread, it's within my new restricted budget and the customer service can't be any worse than I've experienced lately!

I actually feel a snot-o-gram to Virgin coming on, will start working on it in the next day or two I think :rotfl: and will mention the name of the cheeky blighter who virtually called me a liar today suggesting that he could do with some retraining, particularly in light of the fact that he told me he had "other calls to take"!

macman

There may be someone along later who has specific experience with VM of this distressing kind of situation.
But if they've already said that they are closing the account, then it might be easier just to let that run it's course.