Advice on "compulsory" phone line rental.
 

I am posting on behalf of my brother. He is a vulnerable person, in that he is educationally challenged and whilst the family keep an eye on him, he does want to lead an independent life and will make mistakes!

Back in November 2011, I was visting his house, when I noticed a bill from Virgin Media and one from Talk Talk, which was an active phone line

He has cable TV via Virgin but I also saw that account included line rental at £11 per month.

I immediately contacted Virgin and cancelled his line rental with no problem however on pointing out that he had had an unused phone line for some time, could he have a refund. This was declined.

It appears he was with NTL before they became Virgin Media for his cabled TV but with no phone line. This seems to have been added when Virgin came into existence.

There is no way he would recall whether he was told about this or whether he even agreed to it but this is from 2006/2007 at £11 per month for what has been an unused "facility"

It seems at one time that it was a pre-requisite that to get Tv packages off Virgin one HAD to have a phone line as well!?

Obviously I am somewhat annoyed about this restrictive practice when one considers the ease with which I cancelled the line rental and the fact that NTL didnt impose one!

When, if ever, did Virgin drop compelling people to have a line rental with their TV package so that I can try for a refund from then.

Re: Advice on "compulsory" phone line rental.
 

I do not believe that Virgin Media and its predecessor companies have EVER required anyone to have a landline.

If you buy two or three services from them, you can find that the bundle without phoneline is very little less than the bundle with the phoneline.

Re: Advice on "compulsory" phone line rental.
 

There has never been a blanket requirement, however certain TV packages or offers have required a phone line - but there were always non-phone line alternatives