Who to complain to?
 

I'm wanting to put a complaint in against VM of a rip off deal they sold my wife over the phone when we said we are considering leaving.

had the fullhouse package since before 2018 and never bothered to renew as got pretty much everything we wanted other than sports and movies. This was with 350MB BB. package eventually moved up and up to £112 a month.

Wife gave VM a call to see if they could match the same package back in June for a better price stating we wanted to keep everything we had for a better price.

The guy moved us onto the Mixit package and said that is about the same as our old package for £68 a month.

With it being the summer and work hours not had a chance to flick through the box and my wife today have I noticed there doesn't seem to be as many channels as before.

I flicked through and noticed nearly all the HD channels are blanked out, we don't even get SCFI channel anymore either and a load of others.

I've looked on the VM site and found that the mix it tv is = to the big bundle like the base pack with 100 channels not the 230+ we had before.

He hasn't done us a deal he's just ripped the wife off to a new 18 months contract with half the channels for the cost of the end of month 19 contract price of the "Bigger Bundle"

I'm wanting to chase it up as a complaint as it's not what we asked for. Is there a particular department you write to?

Re: Who to complain to?
 

Re: Who to complain to?
 

Find the virgin media CEO's email address at ceoemail.com and contact them regarding the issue. I e always found them to be very helpful

Re: Who to complain to?
 

I've found out what happend, looking at the last contract we changed in May we were put on the "Maxit" tv with the existing 350mb BB.

Which is the same as the "fullhouse bundle" Then come July time I saw they were offering to move us from 350mb BB to 500mb BB for an extra £6 a month. so I did this online through the BB upgrade option.

It took a week to go live, some where in this they have changed the TV package to "Mixit with TNT sports"

However the contract doesn't mention a change to TV as I was only upgrading the BB package which says 350mb broadband removed and 500mb BB added.

Has someone messed up at VM or can upgrading the BB only alter the TV package as well?

Re: Who to complain to?
 

No that doesn't have to happen, and any changes should be detailed in writing.

Re: Who to complain to?
 

VM forums Admin team sorted it, infact we got a better deal, we originally had the Maxit tv with 350m BB for £68 a month, then we moved to 500mb BB for £74 a month then all the tv channels went from Maxit and it was changed to Mixit.

VM Admin team put Maxit back on with 500mb BB and even reduced the price to £61 a month.

Deffo went out on one this time to help a customer.

Re: Who to complain to?
 

Always check what you're told things will be changed to against what actually happens.

This seems to happen far too often to be carelessness alone.

They offered to restore Maxit TV for £3 less, but after checking it was only £2 less which was not what was agreed.

Got nowhere with that offshore call centre all but calling me a liar, a solicitors letter about breach of contract obtained the required result.

Re: Who to complain to?
 

You argued for a quid a month and got a solicitor involved? Or am I reading it wrong??

Re: Who to complain to?
 

How much does a solicitor charge for a consultation and a letter?
Walter Mitty.

Re: Who to complain to?
 

They didn't say what happend in our case. It was a BB only upgrade I was doing through the online portal.

The only thing I don't like with VM is the site is a mess compared to SKY who make it simple by giving you pretty much all the channels, then you just add the bolt'ons for the rest as a month by month addon. makes it so much easier for the customer.

You also have to watch the package names with VM Mixit tv and Maxit tv are almost identical if you don't pay attention.

After this package deal ends we will probably move to Sky and keep the VM BB unless some other company comes along with fibre as at the moment VM are the only ones at my address that do BB beyond 100mb

Re: Who to complain to?
 

Yes, I get free legal services through work. It wouldn't be cost effective otherwise, but availing myself of this facility to save any more of the usual messing about and arguing back & forth with that call centre was much easier. My health is too poor to be bothering with it.

I really feel for vulnerable people who are too frail to stand up to this sort of thing who cannot call upon others for help and just have to take being ripped off.

Re: Who to complain to?
 

If what you say is true I think I'm more shocked (apart from you actually taking this action) that a solicitor thought that his time in this case was considered cost effective for the total amount of £18.

Re: Who to complain to?
 

Once again, no you don’t.

If you are provided with any service like that (medical, legal, company car, or any assets provided to an employee that have significant personal use), it is a benefit in kind which one has to pay tax on (and perhaps NI), and which the company pay NI on.

Re: Who to complain to?
 

It was the principal of the matter. If two people agree on a contract then both are duty bound to honour it in full. Virgin have to learn that they cannot simply do as they please after a contract & agreement has been reached.

It won't have taken him much work, the copy of the correspondence simply points out this very basic fact of a contractual agreement.

Re: Who to complain to?
 

I agree with Richard.

When we moved to this house we had to take on British Gas for a month while our existing service provider moved over.

I paid the final bill with BS 1p short. They did write to me to remind me that I had an overdue amount. I didn't think much of it for the sake of 1p but not long after they had sent it to their internal debt department. Again I just throught it's just 1p but they proceeded to threaten passing it onto a debt collection agency. I just paid it, the costs involved would have been much more chasing me for it.

I've sure VM wouldn't let a customer pay short on the bill so the principle applies when a contract price is given and they don't stand by it.

Re: Who to complain to?
 

Exactly. Anybody who disagrees with what I did should start paying £1 short on their monthly bill. Who knows, Virgin might say "Oh it's only a quid, forget about it"! More likely services will be withdrawn and the debt passed to a debt collection agency with extra costs piled on.

Don't believe me? Give it a go and let us know what happens ;)