I once had a friend who stopped paying Sky, eventually the channels went off one by one, but it was only when Sky did a card change that he lost Film 4 and the Sky movie channels (he didn't have sports).
In the past when VM have found out that services aren't being paid for, they have sent out letters to the customers affected and started charging from the date of the letter. No back payments were requested. I had free broadband in my main home for years
