Need Some Advice: Virgin Media didn't cancel my service, now want to charge me extra

p0ssumman

Hey all,

So bear with me here, I'm just after a bit of advice.

I took out a 12 month contract with Virgin Media in August '12, I let it run for the year, then phoned up to cancel in July '13 as I was moving house. I was told it would be fine and that they would cancel my service, no problems there.

Skip forward to this week, I notice that I'm still being charged £45.99 for the service (I know it's taken a while to notice, it's debited from an account I rarely use that got a bit lost in the Lloyds TSB split), even though I was assured that it would be cancelled for me at the end of July. I gave them a ring today and they say that they have no record of me cancelling, but they can cancel the service now. I was then told that, as they have no record of my call, I am not entitled to any sort of refund, and that I now need to return my TiVo box and router, both of which we got rid of in the move, else I will get charged 'around £200'. I had been with Virgin Media at a previous address and they never requested the previous TiVo box back before, in fact they used the new TiVo box as a selling point when I took out their most recent service.

At no point did they mention that I didn't own this TiVo box when selling it to me, or when I cancelled it over the phone, or that I would have to send it them back. I'm pretty sure I'm royally f'ed here anyway, but I just wanted to check whether you lovely people had any suggestions for me on what to do (and whether I could pick up a new box cheap on eBay and send that to them instead?)

Cheers in advance

macman

They didn't 'sell' it to you. Unlike Sky, VM equipment is leased and never belongs to you, so you have to return it at the end of your contract. You could send them another box, but the SN won't match up.

kwikbreaks

It sounds to me like you are adrift in a canoe on a creek with brown lumpy water and that bit of wood floating a long way off is your paddle.

There is a chance you might get away with sending in a different unit if you can get one but imo it's a pretty slim one.