MSE News: Ofcom investigates Virgin Media over exit fees

phillw

VisionMan wrote: »

Virgin Media's cable network only covers 44% of the UK, or 15m homes of the 26 available. So if a user moves home, and then requests Virgin to switch to it, but they don't cover it, thats not the users fault. It is ultimately Virgin's, but that'll be £200 pounds please. Going forward, I think not and they will lose, as its an unfair condition.

It's unfair to expect Virgin to provide service to every address. It would be strange if ofcom do take that view. It's not like they make a secret that they don't service the entire country, I would expect any potential customers to be aware of that.

If ofcom do anything, then it will be to reduce the amount that virgin charges. They should be able to recover their up front costs, but their lost profit is harder to justify (although virgin aren't alone with this and ofcom have done nothing).

Proving that you're moving to a non virgin area would be difficult. Maybe you could employ a solicitor to gather the evidence and write a letter, they could charge you £300 for that.

VisionMan

As I said, its a difficult one. But in regard to this -

phillw wrote: »

Proving that you're moving to a non virgin area would be difficult. Maybe you could employ a solicitor to gather the evidence and write a letter, they could charge you £300 for that.

No, it isn't actually. If they challenge a home mover all they would have to provide is a copy of their draft contract (buy or let) to Virgin as proof of COA (change of address).
But whatever happens, both Sky and Virgin Media will be affected in one way or another by this review and not before time.