Virgin Big Kahunas

alexamandasmith

Hi,

I have requested to cancel my contract with Virgin, however they say I need to pay £240 for early termination.
Apparently when I agreed to the big kahuna bundle this renewed my contract with them for a further 12 months. I was not told this, sent no paperwork stating this and would not have agreed to it.

Can anyone please tell me if I am legally bound or not?
Thank you.

Dizzy_Ditzy

technically yes i think you are.

Every time i have "gone cheaper" with them its tied me into a twelve monther.


I have never had anything other than marketing crap through the door from them.

vuvuzela

Ask them to listen to the phone call from when you changed services. If they refuse, then under a subject access request ask them for a copy of the phone call when you rang them to change to BK. This will probably cost £10. If they didn't mention you would be tied in for a further period then you may have an escape clause to get out penalty-free.

vuvuzela

queen_of_cheap wrote: »

technically yes i think you are.

Every time i have "gone cheaper" with them its tied me into a twelve monther.


I have never had anything other than marketing crap through the door from them.

Yes they are. However if they were not informed of this then it may not be binding.

unholyangel

In my experience, Virgin are very bad for this. I've even specifically asked "will this change tie me into another minimum term?" and been told no, only to later have them tell me I'm still in contract.

However, with a bit of arguing you should be able to get it sorted (provided they have genuinely not told you it would put you into another minimum term).

This document may provide some useful info - specifically the part about binding consumers to hidden terms:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/284426/oft311.pdf

Cycrow

unholyangel wrote: »

In my experience, Virgin are very bad for this. I've even specifically asked "will this change tie me into another minimum term?" and been told no, only to later have them tell me I'm still in contract.

However, with a bit of arguing you should be able to get it sorted (provided they have genuinely not told you it would put you into another minimum term).

This document may provide some useful info - specifically the part about binding consumers to hidden terms:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/284426/oft311.pdf

i guess it depends on who you actually speak to. My experience has been the opposite.

every time i've made changed, i've been told pretty clearly about the new minimum term and had to agree before they would proceed

Helix

Cycrow wrote: »

i guess it depends on who you actually speak to. My experience has been the opposite.

every time i've made changed, i've been told pretty clearly about the new minimum term and had to agree before they would proceed

Same here and I have always been sent a letter afterwards detailing the changes and my new minimum contract term on each service.

unholyangel

Helix wrote: »

Same here and I have always been sent a letter afterwards detailing the changes and my new minimum contract term on each service.

Not going to dispute anything else as my post above makes it quite clearly I was only referring to my own experience of them rather than speaking generally.

But you've always been sent a letter? How long have you been with them? Because I've been with them since they were telewest (around 12 years or so) and this year was the first year I have received anything (except from my original contract) reiterating what was agreed on the phone.

Not that its an issue for me anyway - I started recording calls with virgin many years ago due to issues like this.

I do understand why they dig their heels in - people probably said they werent told regardless of whether they were or not. But I'm not one of those people. I'm one of those sad people who genuinely does read the terms and conditions (except EULAs, I just skim through those).

Helix

unholyangel wrote: »

Not going to dispute anything else as my post above makes it quite clearly I was only referring to my own experience of them rather than speaking generally.

But you've always been sent a letter? How long have you been with them? Because I've been with them since they were telewest (around 12 years or so) and this year was the first year I have received anything (except from my original contract) reiterating what was agreed on the phone.

Not that its an issue for me anyway - I started recording calls with virgin many years ago due to issues like this.

I do understand why they dig their heels in - people probably said they werent told regardless of whether they were or not. But I'm not one of those people. I'm one of those sad people who genuinely does read the terms and conditions (except EULAs, I just skim through those).

I've been with them 4 years, my parents have been with them for about 20 years when they were still CableTel in this area then NTL. Back in the NTL days I would agree with you, you could never trust them over anything. However since they moved to a new billing system (I think they use the old Telewest system now) and become Virgin Media they have improved massively.