Virgin Media Customer Bereavement problem

Hargreaves1910

Hello my sister recently lost her husband, the funeral was last week and she is in a terrible state. This week she started ringing round all the providers to tell them of the change in circumstances so they could alter the contract details.

She rang Virgin Media to get the broadband and phone contracts altered and spoke to someone in India I think. They told her they could do it for her and then cancelled the old contract and charged £167 for early termination and opened a new contract in her name only and charged her £50. These amounts were immediately debited from her bank account. Try as she might trying to explain she only wanted to change the name they said that was the only way they could do it!

When she asked to speak to a supervisor they said there was none available as they were all busy. And to rub salt in to the wound they kept shouting congratulations on your new contract!

What sort of a service is this? She is beside herself with grief and this is the last thing she needs.

Can anyone tell me where to go from here? I see there are bereavement forms to download but can she speak to anyone over the phone who understands her problem? Because the people she spoke to seemed to be clueless.

Thanks.

xylophone

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/account-holder-has-died
Did she ring the bereavement service number?

D_M_E

Tell her to contact her bank and tell them that the 2 payments, £167 and £50, were not authyorised and she wants them back under the DD guarrantee.

Next, go on the CEO email website, look up Virgin's ceo email address and fire off a complaint.

Next, as she has been designated a "new" customer, presumabably she is within the cooling off period, so phone, write, chat, email them and cancel the so called unwanted "new" contract and make sure any DD set up on her account by Virgin is cancelled and stays cancelled, and make sure the bank knows that any payment taken by Virgin is unauthorised from now on.

Hargreaves1910

xylophone no I don't think she did. I think she just rang the contact number 150?

D_M_E thanks for that info I will ring her tomorrow and pass that on much appreciated.

mac.d

Good luck to your sister with this Hargreaves1910, as most of us sadly find out, there are usually bereavement teams set up to deal with these circumstances, but you are not always put through to them by poorly trained customer service staff.  From my experience, if married, businesses absolutely do not need to stop the current contract and put you on a new one, a married couple is the one instance when the name can simply be changed to the remaining spouse.