Broadband early disconnection fee

idsecret

Switched from Sky to Virgin for broadband in January. The day after the Virgin broadband router arrived we went on a two week holiday, never taking the router out of the box. Arrived home two weeks later and connected up to Virgin.
decided that Virgin wasn’t the right fit for us and went back to Sky. Virgin are now saying we owe £325 early disconnection fee as we are 1day out of the two weeks cooling off period. Explained that we were away for the two weeks but they are adamant that the new contract started from the date of delivery and not the connection date. Wrote emails to them but they are not replying. Do I have to pay this fee or should I take it up with an ombudsman?

la531983

To be blunt the fact you were on holiday for 2 weeks is none of their concern.

idsecret

This I know, but my point is that the Virgin router remained unconnected. So no service supplied for the two weeks, what is the point of the cooling off period if the product is not used and tested.

Smith2001uk

What was the date on your contract (probably in an email) did you contract go live? 

regardless of a router connected that was the start date i suspect.

Alderbank

idsecret said:

This I know, but my point is that the Virgin router remained unconnected. So no service supplied for the two weeks, what is the point of the cooling off period if the product is not used and tested.

The point of the cooling off period is to give certainty to both parties.

It's a rule devised by the regulator OfCom and imposed equally on all broadband suppliers. Virgin has no discretion about it, nor does Sky, Plusnet, etc. It is a legal requirement on them.

The exact wording in Virgin Media's T&Cs is:

M. Cooling off rights

1. If you have ordered any of the services online, by telephone or from an agent attending at your home and have entered into a new contract with us you have a statutory right to cancel an order for those services within the cooling off period, which is 14 days from the latest of:

1. the day after the delivery of the equipment;

2. the service start date; and

3. the day on which you received a copy of these terms and conditions in printed or PDF format.

In most cases the equipment is delivered a couple of days before the start date.

When was your service start date? That might give you the extra 24 hours you need.

idsecret

Contact start date was the 21st January. But I couldn’t check the product as we were out of the Country for the duration of the Cooling off period. Would that not change the circumstances?

idsecret

Service date is the same as contract date so I’m guessing I’ll have to pay up for this one. Just feels unfair when Virgin receive this exorbitant fee for practically nothing.
anyway thanks to all for getting back to me.

iniltous

You seem to think the cooling off period was a try before you buy period, but it’s not , it’s time to consider if you were pressured into taking a ‘contract’ and if you feel you were , it’s sufficient time to cancel ( without a sales person breathing down your neck ) , the fact that VM start the cooling off period on equipment delivery is better than some , they could start the cooling off period on the day the order is taken .

TBH , it was reckless on your part , to go away for a fortnight, that coincidentally was the same 14 days you had to cancel without penalty, you wrongly assumed because you didn’t connect the equipment then the 14 day cooling off period wouldn’t have started…

As you didn’t  even connect the equipment so have no experience of the VM service would be like , yet decided it wasn’t for you so rejoined Sky but what’s the  new thing happened during your holiday that brought you to the conclusion that VM wasn’t for you ? basically it’s weird that you joined Virgin in the first place if you changed you mind without reason  

A cynic may say you never really intended to join Virgin and Sky were always your preferred provider , but your timings went astray, Virgin were a bargaining ploy with Sky to get the best deal  out of them , you should have cancelled earlier, in fact you didn’t need to actually sign up with VM at all , you could have simply told Sky you had , they wouldn’t have known any different….

AndyPK

Cancel sky if you can to save a load of money. You aren’t going to win with V

idsecret

iniltous said:

You seem to think the cooling off period was a try before you buy period, but it’s not , it’s time to consider if you were pressured into taking a ‘contract’ and if you feel you were , it’s sufficient time to cancel ( without a sales person breathing down your neck ) , the fact that VM start the cooling off period on equipment delivery is better than some , they could start the cooling off period on the day the order is taken .

TBH , it was reckless on your part , to go away for a fortnight, that coincidentally was the same 14 days you had to cancel without penalty, you wrongly assumed because you didn’t connect the equipment then the 14 day cooling off period wouldn’t have started…

As you didn’t  even connect the equipment so have no experience of the VM service would be like , yet decided it wasn’t for you so rejoined Sky but what’s the  new thing happened during your holiday that brought you to the conclusion that VM wasn’t for you ? basically it’s weird that you joined Virgin in the first place if you changed you mind without reason  

A cynic may say you never really intended to join Virgin and Sky were always your preferred provider , but your timings went astray, Virgin were a bargaining ploy with Sky to get the best deal  out of them , you should have cancelled earlier, in fact you didn’t need to actually sign up with VM at all , you could have simply told Sky you had , they wouldn’t have known any different….

A lot of assumptions on your part, the reason we were changing was because the Sky Broadband contact was ending and we had every intention of moving away. Went to VM because we had been in contract before many years ago when they were a great deal.
didn’t decide to return to Sky while we were away, it was only on connecting up on our return we discovered that multi room with VM is a hard wired option. This is not possible for us so returning to Sky was the obvious choice.
No decision was made while we were away, it was all about our return. 

VM doesn’t give us the equivalent service Sky offers as Multi room is a must for us, but has to be wireless.

M25

The dog ate my homework.

You paid for the service and Virgin supplied the service.

You have to take all the blame for your decisions.