Charging an extra month after cancellation

chan6791

Hello,

I have cancelled my virgin media package today as they were going to charge me £147 for my new contract. My old contract finishes on the 28/9/24.
Of course they say they need a 30 days notice so they are going to charge me £147 in October until my cancellation on the 18/10/24. Then they will refund me £89 which I will not receive for 45 days! 

So my question is: Can I cancel my direct debit now and just wait for them to send me a final bill or will I get charged for a failed direct debit?
I just can’t afford to pay double than what I was paying while in contract.

born_again

Could you not get them to offer a new contract at around the price you are paying now?

If you cancel the DD you could end up with a marker on your credit history for non payment.

PRAISETHESUN

Another recommendation to not cancel the DD. Much easier to just let things run their course automatically rather then risk getting a marker put on your credit files which takes even longer to get resolved.

JSmithy45AD

This is why you contact them after the 11th/17th/23rd payment has been taken (dependant on length of contract), you can then set a termination for the end of the last month.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

I suppose it depends when they told you what the new price was. If you've sat on it for a few weeks, it's not easy to argue. If they only told you the new rate a day or two ago, then I'd say you have the right to cancel without 30 day notice. Consumer agreements have to be reasonable, and it is unreasonable to force you to pay an extra charge.

Of course, the other pitfall is that they have a high out of contract rate designed to get you to renew for another couple of years and they could argue you were properly notified about that. Virgin's paperwork is dreadful and we never got copies of contracts, so you might have an argument there if you have nothing in writing explaining what happens at the end of contract.

Your other solution is to see if the retentions squad are interested in playing ball. Trouble I had was that they only started getting serious when I had already signed up with Vodafone, offering a price about 1/3 of their original  "best offer". You might find when you cancel the price comes tumbling down and it might be cheaper yo cancel your alternative supply under the 14 day rule if you can lose the £140 off quid.