Warning - Virgin Media broadband deal on MSE.com.
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On 01/12/2021 I followed up on the Virgin Media Ultrafast M100 Broadband + Line offer advertised on MSE.com. The deal included a £100 credit that would be applied immediately. This would specifically result in £0 being charged for the first 4 months and £23.95 thereafter on an 18month contract. The MSE.com advertisement also stated " ... Important! Your £100 bill credit will be applied to your first bill ..." I have screenshots that confirm this information.
Based on that information on MSE.com and that supplied on the Virgin Media site I ordered the service after being transferred through MSE.com to VM.com which confirmed the costs and that there would be no setup fee. I have also retained screenshots to confirm this. Virgin Media identified the package as Broadband + Phone M100 Fibre Broadband & Talk Weekends.
Unfortunately, within 24 hours I received emails from Virgin that showed that they were not going to provide the offer advertised on MSE.com and on VM.com and which I had ordered. Instead of £0 for the first 4 months and no setup fee, they planned to charge £82.90 for the first month including a £35 setup fee, and then revert to £23.95p per month thereafter.
On seeing this huge disparity between the advertised offer and the different deal Virgin Media was planning to provide I immediately tried to check the details on Virgin Media's website. Unfortunately, the website was down for a time and some information supposedly on links in a Virgin email did not exist or produced error messages. I eventually got on to the Virgin Media Chat line on 02/12/2021 and only after no agent could explain the great disparity in the sales information provided to me, I canceled the service in writing online with the Chat agent. This was done two days before Virgin stated the service would start. I also requested that Virgin send me a copy of the Chat transcript. They did not do so and proceeded to start the unwanted service without any authorisation from me. Luckily I had managed to copy the chat before the chat finished.
Virgin Media has now told me that I will apparently be charged for the first month of a service that was effectively missold to me, that I did not order, did not want, never authorised and never initiated. They denied any knowledge of the details of the specific offer posted on the MSE.com website and informed me that MSE.com must have posted the wrong information. They also refused to accept that any of the details they posted on their own website (of which I have a screenshot) are incorrect and cannot explain why that information materially conflicted with their own subsequent emails. Rather than take ownership, they told me to take the matter up with the MSE.com site. I would presume that any information about a specific deal advertised on MSE.com would only come directly from the particular company itself, as I have no reason to believe that it is the practice of MSE.com to invent incorrect details.
I, therefore, contacted MSE.com with the details of the effective misselling so that they could be informed of Virgin's allegation against MSE.com and so that other viewers of the MSE.com site could be appropriately warned about this effective Bait and Switch operation with the specific deal I responded to and potentially with other deals as well. I was told that that they could not respond specifically to the information in my email due to the volume of correspondence received.
As a consequence, I am posting this to warn all potential subscribers to Virgin Media offers on MSE.com that if the same things should happen to them, they may not be able to take Virgin Media deals as described on MSE.com at face value and that they cannot necessarily trust the information posted on the Virgin Media website without suitable corroboration. I would urge everyone who may wish to take up such offers to take screenshots of all the promotional material they may come across and to carefully read and retain every single email that Virgin Media may send you in order to confirm that the details of your order are exactly what you were sold and are complete and as required under UK distance selling regulations, as far as possible.
I have retained all the documents that confirm the details provided above for any follow-up and will report back on this misselling issue as necessary. Other details of the Virgin Media customer service setup are available, including the fact that Virgin asked me to send Virgin parts of emails that Virgin had sent to me.
Based on that information on MSE.com and that supplied on the Virgin Media site I ordered the service after being transferred through MSE.com to VM.com which confirmed the costs and that there would be no setup fee. I have also retained screenshots to confirm this. Virgin Media identified the package as Broadband + Phone M100 Fibre Broadband & Talk Weekends.
Unfortunately, within 24 hours I received emails from Virgin that showed that they were not going to provide the offer advertised on MSE.com and on VM.com and which I had ordered. Instead of £0 for the first 4 months and no setup fee, they planned to charge £82.90 for the first month including a £35 setup fee, and then revert to £23.95p per month thereafter.
On seeing this huge disparity between the advertised offer and the different deal Virgin Media was planning to provide I immediately tried to check the details on Virgin Media's website. Unfortunately, the website was down for a time and some information supposedly on links in a Virgin email did not exist or produced error messages. I eventually got on to the Virgin Media Chat line on 02/12/2021 and only after no agent could explain the great disparity in the sales information provided to me, I canceled the service in writing online with the Chat agent. This was done two days before Virgin stated the service would start. I also requested that Virgin send me a copy of the Chat transcript. They did not do so and proceeded to start the unwanted service without any authorisation from me. Luckily I had managed to copy the chat before the chat finished.
Virgin Media has now told me that I will apparently be charged for the first month of a service that was effectively missold to me, that I did not order, did not want, never authorised and never initiated. They denied any knowledge of the details of the specific offer posted on the MSE.com website and informed me that MSE.com must have posted the wrong information. They also refused to accept that any of the details they posted on their own website (of which I have a screenshot) are incorrect and cannot explain why that information materially conflicted with their own subsequent emails. Rather than take ownership, they told me to take the matter up with the MSE.com site. I would presume that any information about a specific deal advertised on MSE.com would only come directly from the particular company itself, as I have no reason to believe that it is the practice of MSE.com to invent incorrect details.
I, therefore, contacted MSE.com with the details of the effective misselling so that they could be informed of Virgin's allegation against MSE.com and so that other viewers of the MSE.com site could be appropriately warned about this effective Bait and Switch operation with the specific deal I responded to and potentially with other deals as well. I was told that that they could not respond specifically to the information in my email due to the volume of correspondence received.
As a consequence, I am posting this to warn all potential subscribers to Virgin Media offers on MSE.com that if the same things should happen to them, they may not be able to take Virgin Media deals as described on MSE.com at face value and that they cannot necessarily trust the information posted on the Virgin Media website without suitable corroboration. I would urge everyone who may wish to take up such offers to take screenshots of all the promotional material they may come across and to carefully read and retain every single email that Virgin Media may send you in order to confirm that the details of your order are exactly what you were sold and are complete and as required under UK distance selling regulations, as far as possible.
I have retained all the documents that confirm the details provided above for any follow-up and will report back on this misselling issue as necessary. Other details of the Virgin Media customer service setup are available, including the fact that Virgin asked me to send Virgin parts of emails that Virgin had sent to me.
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Replies
If you did not specifically ask them to CANCEL the order, they wouldn't have done so. Not through chat but request by phone.
It seems like you wanted an offer that was not available any more and wouldn't take no for an answer.
I specifically asked Virgin Media to cancel the service 2 days before it started and in no way "...wouldn't take no for an answer..." That suggestion is absurd I'm afraid because I never spoke to anyone before Virgin Media took my order as the process is automatic. How exactly is it possible to "..take no for an answer..." when I was not put through to anyone to speak to and was never told the offer was no longer available anywhere on MSE.com or Virgin Media at any point during the actual ordering process.
This is a blatant case of misselling using materially false information on both MSE.com and Virgin Media.com and a Bait and Switch tactic. That is why I have warned other possible purchasers of any Virgin Media deals advertised on MSE.com. I took screenshots of the details of the deal on both and can substantiate the details of the order whenever necessary. The tactics used by Virgin Media in my particular case are exactly the sort of thing that Martin Lewis warns consumers about.
I had been looking at broadband deals on MSE.com for a number of weeks and based on the specific information supplied on MSE.com on 01/12/2021 I decided to order the deal. I was taken through to Virgin Media directly from MSE.com. Virgin Media never told me that the deal on MSE.com was not available and the information on their site specifically confirmed that I would not be charged any setup fee, among other things. As a result of the specific information I was supplied with on both MSE.com and Virgin Media I ordered the offer.
The information on MSE.com specifically that I would be charged £0 for the first 4 months i.e. specifically £0 over that period and was inclusive of a discount of £100 that would be applied immediately by Virgin Media. The £100 had the word important in red type beside it so that it could not be missed. Within 24 hours I received an email from Virgin Media informing me that instead of the promised £0 for the first 4 months they actually planned to charge me £82.90 for the first month. This apparently included a £35 startup fee that they had specifically indicated would not be charged. In addition, they were planning to charge me £23.95 for the subsequent 3 months. None of this information was made available to me on either MSE.com or Virginmedia.com before I ordered the offer in good faith. The difference between the information I was given before ordering the deal and the subsequent email from Virgin Media amounted to £154.75extra during the first 4 month period.
As soon as I was made aware of the extent of the misselling I immediately contacted Virgin Media to try and find out what was happening but their site appeared to be down and some promised information about the bills could not be found. I subsequently made contact with a Virgin Media agent. Before that contact was over I had cancelled the order because it was missold to me and the agent did not even have access to the emails that Virgin Media had sent me. I later reiterated my request to cancel. Under UK law no contract can properly exist where one party has been materially and provably misled before ordering it.
I intend to add relevant content as necessary to update visitors on this issue. I also intend to take this issue to other consumer sites to warn them of what Virgin Media did in my case.
As you cancelled the order then I'm not sure what your complaint is?
Virgin Media sign-up via MSE included £75 immediate bill credit.
Two months on and after a number of live chats and phone calls and Tweets, I am still no further forward to obtaining the credit.
The order email sent by Virgin to me included the £75 credit offer(!).
I have been passed between billing/sales/reward departments. On one call last month I was advised I'd receive the credit, with an email confirming. Still no credit.
On my most recent call, I was passed between three departments, having to explain the situation each time. Still no resolution. No-one can (or wants to) help me. I did get one suggestion, contact the third party I used to submit the order (MSE). But the order confirmation was sent by Virgin, including the credit offer, but they are so far choosing the ignore this rather conclusive piece of evidence.
I am now contacting VM again, and again I am going round in circles.
Absolutely disgraceful customer 'service'.
I will be giving all my evidence to the regulators.
I did complain to Virgin on a number of occasions. They lied openly to me.
I requested they cancel the service before it started because it had been illegally sold to me - they did not cancel the service.
They said I would not be charged - That was another lie as they charged me and are now harassing me for an illegally sold service.
Virgin media customer service do not even have basic information about my supposed account. They can do practically nothing for their 'customers'. Calling them is mostly a waste of time.
I will keep posting here to inform and warn people about their behaviour in relation to the service they illegally sold to me through MSE.com.