Virgin Media: can I cancel my contract after 5 months without paying up the remainder

sjarman

Hi all,

Am new to the forum but use moneysavingexpert.com all the time. Would appreciate your help with my ongoing saga with Virgin Media.

Been a Virgin Media customer since early April, £20 package for L TV and M broadband. From day 1 I have had nothing but problems:

- engineers not turning up for installation
- different engineers giving conflicting information
- despite cable, speeds never higher than 0.9 Mb (my dial-up was faster!!)
- whole broadband access has been replaced because 1st engineer did it all wrong
- catch up TV and On Demand freezes up all the time, as does the digital box
- English & Indian callcentres give conflicting information, both ALWAYS end up saying "you'll just have to wait, we are working on [enter issue] and it will soon be alright" (I hear this every week!)
- when I make a complaint, no one ever rings back.

Many many more examples, I sometimes work from home so have lost money left, right & centre.

Really annoys me that everywhere I see Virgin Media posters advertising how good they are, even a "100% satisfaction or your money back" (tried that, they didn't)

Sorry for the long story but they've really annnoyed me. My question is, can I after 5 months cancel my contract but refuse to pay up the remainder of the contract? Does anyone have any advice?

Thank you ever so much

Steffan

Madasafish_Customer_Care

Hi Sjarman,

It sounds like you've not had a great time so far. If you do decide that you do not wish to follow out your full 12 month contract, I would encourage you to make a clean break by following their code of practice (every ISP should have one):

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/pdf/code_of_practice_0607.pdf

Look at section 5.5.

Your post itemises things pretty clearly, I would recommend printing it out and posting it to:

Customer Loyalty Manager
Customer Concern
Concord House
Concord Business Park
Threapwood Road
Whythenshawe
Manchester M22 0EY

I'd be very surprised if they didn't work something out with you and doing it in an official manner, rather than just cancelling the direct debit, would avoid any future hassels.

Good luck!

Kind regards,
Samara

edit: you may wish to remove your email address from your post - but remember to include an identifier when you write to Virgin that makes it easy for them to locate your account.

sjarman

Thanks Samara, that sounds like a plan.

Steffan

jumblejack

I have just threatened virgin with cancelling my services (broadband M and talk unlimited phone XL) which came to £31 odd. They gave me a free wireless router and Broadband L with the same XL phone deal for £25.95 on a new 12 month contract!!!! Brill!!

robt_2

Well that was worth bumping a two year old topic for.

The very top thread in this forum is 'Virgin Media Retention Thread'.

New customers get it cheaper than that plus cashback so it isn't that good a deal.