BT and Virgin fouled up my number port

FrankBlack

February this year I decided to jump from Virgin to BT for phone, TV and Broadband, everything was arranged and my phone number was supposed to port at end of February, however on the day the Openreach engineer said he couldn't install a socket in the front room because of COVID, I said I'd wait until COVID restrictions ended to get the socket installed rather than have a phone installed the kitchen and was told that was fine.

What BT did then though is cancel the port entirely, which prompted Virgin to reactivate my Landline on their highest possible tariff, at first I didn't notice because I wasn't informed by either company, I received no calls at all on the landline (indeed Virgin couldn't confirm the line was functional when I pointed this out) and the bill was being paid out of the part month refund Virgin owed me from the cancellation. When I did notice I even paid the first bill after my account credit ran out, but they've just sent me another bill for the last month and the more I think about it, the more I think this can't be right, as far as my communications with Virgin at the time were concerned my instruction to them was cancel the phone line, I never requested they reopen it and certainly not at £34 a month.

Do I have any grounds for asking for the money back?  Or do I just have to pay the final bill and count it as a lesson learned?

NewLeaf1986

Who has the number now? Who's providing voice service? Anyone? Has BT since got you a landline up and running? 

I would raise a formal complaint with Virgin Media stating that you formally requested your landline be disconnected as of X date and request that they refund you accordingly.

Email this complaint to executiveteam@virginmedia.co.uk remembering to include your account number or phone number, an exact date of when the services should have been disconnected, and a figure of what you expect to be refunded.

They'll usually get this sorted within a few weeks.

FrankBlack

NewLeaf1986 said:

Who has the number now? Who's providing voice service? Anyone? Has BT since got you a landline up and running?

I finally got Virgin to cancel it last month, as of this moment I still have no land line, which is problematic because the BT automated phone system asks for a landline number before it lets you do anything and frankly the rest of their services aren't up to snuff either.