Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

At present there is a cap of about £288 on fees to buy yourselves out of a Virgin contract. As of now for new customers and current customers who recontract, this cap is to be removed.

No mention of this in the price increase letters was there?

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

Well spotted, that's yet another massive negative change. Does seem to only apply to those recontracting after the 2nd April. This could means hundreds possibly thousands in extra cancellation charges. Sneaky toerags.

https://www.virginmedia.com/legal/fi...MzM1OS4wLjAuMA..

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

Therefore, does this mean that if you pay say £100/month and you left say one month into the contact, VM would come after you for £1.080 even if you were forced to mvoe to an address where VM does not provide a service?

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

From the link in Mr K’s post

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

If you only had one month left on your contract then you would need to give the standard 30 day cancellation notice, so you would just pay the £100, no EDF is involved.

Using the Bigger Bundle + Movies (M250 Fibre Broadband, Maxit TV + Sky Cinema and Weekend chatter - Monthly Cost: £100.00) with three months left as an example, you would be charged the £100 for the 30 days notice, plus the EDF per month remaining (includes VAT): £88.16 times two, so £100 plus EDF of £176.32.

EDIT

If you moved to a UK address outside of the Virgin Media network, then after providing evidence of your new addres, the EDF would be removed, and you would only be charged for the usual 30 days notice.

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

When it was NTL I remember they only charged the equivalent of what you would have paid if you had downgraded all services to the minimum available.

I suspect that a lot of people will be 'moving' to a friend/relatives address outside of a Virgin area. If they're only renting a room there they won't have any evidence of bills being in their name, so a letter should suffice.

Even better if they know people who live abroad!

I think the only legal way they'd be able to check a person hadn't moved out would be when the electoral register is updated, so people would need to ensure that they opted to go onto the edited register that companies etc have no access to. I doubt they'd take it that far, but you never know with this money grabbing company these days.

In any case, if nobody returns the annual canvass form to update the electoral register at a property, they tend to leave the existing occupants on the register for 2 or 3 years. This means that some people are on the register twice, but can only legally vote once*

* Some students are allowed to vote twice at certain elections for their home & term time address.

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

Probably not…

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

Be interested to know how many people have successfully claimed cancellation charges back. Seems they charge you whatever and it's up to you to claim back if you' ve moved to a non cabled area . The t&cs/ timescales for claiming are very tight, its almost as if they don't want you to claim. You might well not have valid proof within the 30 day timescale, house moves/changes of addresses/paperwork take time.

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

You’d have a rental/mortgage/house purchase agreement, or utility connection confirmation, or bank account with the new address.

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

Housing Benefit accept a letter from the new landlord to serve as proof of occupancy & rent payable where it's only a licence agreement and not a tenancy, so it would seem disproportionate for a utility company not to accept this.

I suppose people could always change ther bank account address back after it's served it's purpose.

A lot of banks have gone paperless, sp maybe a temporary address of someone you don't even know would suffice (I have no idea if banks send out a confirmation of change of address letter for security reasons .though).

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

Are you encouraging fraud ? :erm:

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

I'm just exploring the ways that people might deploy to circumvent liability for exorbitant charges.

It'll be interrsting to see what Virgin do if they suspect fraud, I suspect that they would simply put the charges back onto the account & sell the debt to a debt collection agency if it wasn't paid.

They wouldn't want to spend staff time delving into this too deeply or risk tarnishing their brand even further by taking legal action.

We might see some interesting court cases in the future though where the former customer disputes application of these charges though.

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

That’s a yes, then…

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

PS Living abroad does not get you off any early disconnection fees.

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

So does this mean that, if for example, you are paying £100/month for your services and for reasons out of your control you have to move somewhere where there is no Vm services with a year left on your contact then VM would come after you for £1,200?

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

No…

From the link above…

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

As contract lengths have now routinely been increased to 18 months, this could still be a hefty sum indeed.

I wonder if someone could downgrade and then cancel the contract early to save some money?

---------- Post added at 19:49 ---------- Previous post was at 19:44 ----------

True, but it would be nigh on impossible to trace, let alone recover, money from someone abroad. Even local authorities with their extra powers write off such debts and debt collection agencies wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.

The size of the amounts owed would simply be too uneconomical to pursue.

They may do a quick search to see if someone has lied to them and is still living in the UK, but due to data protection laws a private company could only find you if you didn't opt to go onto the Edited Register of the electoral roll.

Anyone who does get found, despite being on the Edited Register, needs to ask where they obtained their information from. Fines for breaking the GDPR will easily dwarf any amounts owed, so they are likely to go away with their tail between their legs hoping you don't report them to the Information Commissioner.

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

Which part of "No" didn’t you understand?

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

Be nice to hear from someone that has successfully made a claim for a refund of cancellation charges. VM charge them regardless, up to you to meet their narrow criteria for a refund. Anyone done this? Their CS doesn’t fill me with confidence.

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

Exactly. It sounds like one of those cashback schemes where you have to meet impossible demands or remember to ring up at 12:58 and 10 seconds on the first day of June during a leap year..

Crafted to make people forget in their busy lives so they cannot claim, but to look good good to the casual observer.

People won't be happy, which is why I think that some will try and play Virgin St their own genersl game of sly, dishonest, disingenuou and manipulative behaviour (in my experience & opinion).

It wouldn't surprise me if they have had to do this, so are going to be as strict and inflexible as possible to prevent as many people claiming tje money back as possible.

They will probably say "Can we have a forwarding address in order tovsend any refund due" and then use it to pursue any unpaid charges..

They'd get my PO Box addres if it were me, but a c/o addrrss should suffice. Asking them to communicate to the current addrrsd with a redirection on place would be a good idea too. The Post Office cannot disclose tje new address tovanyone else.

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

When are you going to give up on your vendetta against Virgin Media, Richard?
Virgin Media have a process to ensure that people like you don’t pretend they’ve moved to a non-serviced area to get off their contracted responsibilities.
The sooner you cancel your last contract with this company you find so odious the better.
I’m sure you’ll find another company to spend your time berating.

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

When they were good, I said so. Now they are crap, I (and many, many others) say so.

You do lnow that thishis forum was set up so that people can share their honest opinions about cable, yes?

Do share the 'processes' that Virgin deploy agaonst 'people like me''?

I am too seriously disabled to move to somewhere else in the UK, never mind abroard and am in my twilight years,.

I too welcome the day that someone professional buys Virgin or suitable competition becomes available in my area.. if they too turn out to be crap, of course I will say do. If they turn out to be good, I'll say that too.

If you don't like thst, you are free to put me on ognore instead of whining about it.

Anyone would think you had shares in the company :erm:

Re: Cap on buying yourself out of a Virgin contract to be scrapped.
 

Thank you for finding out and posting this information Hugh.