O/T virgin media - so angry!!!!!!

[milf2be]

This is a bit off topic, but theyv made me so angry i feel like i strangle somebody would also like your opinions on what you think of the situation please

I was with virgin for 18 month, but i had moved house twice in that time (was renting for 6 months) so i took them with me every time and every time they started a new contract (which they didnt tell me until after i had agreed to change address ) anyway i didnt really mind this because i had always had reliable internet with them. now im living in a flat and even though i live in birmingham, the area i live in doesnt have the virgin optical cables, which means the internet comes through BT's cables. Anyway, this time the internet was rubbish. it disconnected all the time, it went really really slow and sometimes it would go off for hours.

My OH moved in and we got round to sorting it out. (i had been living at his for about 3-4 months and had never been home to sort out the internet) Virgin weren't really interested in fixing it until we threatened to cancel (i dont think they care so much about their BT line customers, because it was completely different service to what i had before). My OH finally managed to agree with virgin that they need to fix it within 7 days or we would cancel without the cancellation fee (at this point they had already tried to fix it 3-4 times with no success). They couldnt fix it, so after a lot more arguing we finally agreed to cancel the contract, at this point i made my OH ask that we didnt owe them any money and they confirmed we were all square.

Anyway we then rang orange to let them know we wanted a contract with them and gave them the date we were finishing with virgin, and i think in the end the orange one would start around a week after that. anyway when she was sorting it out she asked us for a mac code (i think thats what its called!!) and she said virgin should have given it to us when we cancelled to give to our new supplier...

so back on the phone to virgin again. i should point out we actually at a conference call at this point (unknown to virgin) because the woman from orange was on the phone but keeping quiet. virgin told us he couldnt generate a mat code because he had already cancelled our account. anyway, after a lot more arguing we finally got him to generate one and they emailed it to me a few days later. we then passed it on to orange and our internet got sorted (actually the fastest internet iv ever had its AMAZING)

I stopped the direct debit on my account because we had completely finished with virgin (or so i thought!) and noticed that a payment had just gone out to them. (was thinking dam at this point, now id have to get money back off them). i didnt think anything of it thinking they would contact me if they needed to. i got a letter a week ro so later saying i had cancelled my direct debit and they wouldnt be able to take payments from me any longer - good! so i ignored that. then i had a letter from them saying i owed them £26 deactivation fee :S which i was very confused about because we obviously agreed we werent paying one (plus it was £140 so i didnt know where they were getting the £26 from) so i rang them up and had another moan at them and she told me it wasnt a deactivation fee it was our final bill, they just automatically wrote deactivation fee - erm ok so i said, well iv all paid up and it was agreed on the phone that i had... at which point she told me that they changed the date that they closed our account because of generating the mac code. it was their fault they forgot to give us a code in the first place!!! so i asked why wasnt i informed of this (the new date was over a month after the other date) and why wasnt i sent a letter confirming this because i had received a letter confirming the last closing date!! (which i still have in a safe place btw!!) anyway the woman wasnt listening to me and we were going round and round in circles, so i said werent getting nowhere, im going to discuss this with my partner and get back to you asap.

My partner was working late at work for the next few days so every time he got home, virgin were closed and unable to talk. i then got another letter, less than a week later, saying that we needed to pay our final bill (that for some reason had now gone up to £28) or they would get bailiffs involved. I was LIVID and rang up virgin straight away to ask them wtf they were doing and i had told them i would be back in touch after i had spoken to my partner. the guy on the phone told me they had already got in touch with the bailiffs and therefore have ruined my credit history (like to point out on the letter i had gotten that day,it said if i didnt get in touch soon they would contact the bailiffs - i had literally rang them as soon as i had read the letter) i then insisted that they put me through to the right person and explained the situation to him. he said it sounded like the account would be wiped clean. i also mentioned that at the start of the contract u always pay a month in advance, so wouldnt that have covered it anyway? i also insisted that they make sure it wouldnt go on my credit history and i wanted them to do a credit check to make sure that it hadnt - paid for by them. i put all this in writing too and sent it recorded delivery to the address he gave me.

i got a letter back about a week later saying he had received it - then nothing. until yesterday when i had a letter off the bailiffs asking for the payment. i rang them up and explained that i was still querying the amount and virgin were fully aware of this! she told me i was still supposed to pay - erm no! 1. i was never told this and 2. i would never get the money back if i paid it i then explained what had happened and she told me i was wrong and virgin had already explained it to her. apparently i had never asked for a mac code (i have an email saying that i have) and i had never queried it with virgin!!! so virgin have obviously only given her a record of half the phone conversations or had purposely twisted what had happened on their records

anyway this was stressing me out so i said im going to pass you over to my partner and i passed the phone to OH and accidently pressed the end call button lol oops but he rang back and spoke to a different guy who was a lot more helpful and said he was sending it back to virgin to sort out my OH then rang virgin who said u cant call the department we need to sort out - only send letters my OH complained some more because they havent even answered our last letter yet and hes getting someone to call us back on monday.

now im stressing out because itl be hard to get a mortgage if i have a bad credit history (its not like i cant afford to pay it either!) and virgin have obviously written what they like on their records. i have all the letters i have received from virgin as well as the email about the mac code and another email saying that the internet has been switched over on 23rd march (later then the original date we agreed but still a month earlier then the date they are claiming!!)

sorry its so long!! do you think we have any chance of winning this?

 

[leigh-louise22]

Virgin are dealing with it wrong but unfortunately every company tries this, someone has obviously entered wrong information into their system to cover their own mistake. You should receive (I think it is approx) 3 warning letters from them before they contact baliffs even then they have to warn you that they are doing this which takes months not a week! If after the first letter you make a complaint/enquiry the account should be frozen until investigated. I hope you get it sorted soon!

 

[lindseymw]

Take your complaint to the ombudsman, I think Ofcom is the right one. They should be able to step in & investigate on your behalf.

 

[doddy0402]

wow!! What a situation for you!! I don't work for virgin, I work for a another company who deals mostly with mobile [phones and home bb and phones (mostly on the mobile side).
From what I remember about home bb, if they set an immediate disconnection on your account they cannot raise a mac key because the account has to be active for a mac key to be used by your new provider. So I'm guessing there was a misunderstanding with that first advisor over whether a mac key was required. (Your can get broadband somewhere else without a mac key, it just takes a bit longer to set up.)
They would have had to reconnect your account to get a mac key for you, and then there automatic billing would have kicked in and you would have been charged for the time the mac was produced, until it was used by you new provider (the 26 pounds I'm guessing?)
They should have placed your account in dispute from the moment you called through and queried the final bill (although it does tend to automatically come out of dispute after a month or so, as disputes are usually sorted by then!) They shouldn't send to debt collectors with account in dispute, so this is their mistake. Their debt collectors seem to work alot quicker than ours, as we usually have a turn around of 60-90 days after 'late payment'!
Virgin should have recalled the debt once you had advised them of their mistake, but it's good that you had someone in the debt collectors that would do that for you (usually they don't as they job is to get the money - that's it!)
If it has affected your credit in any way, once virgin have agreed it was their error, they can send confirmation to say that the bad credit information is incorrect, and it will come off your record, but can take up to 60 days to do this - so may affect any credit you will request in the mean time.
Sorry for the hugely long essay, but I would say keep contacting virgin until it is completely resolved, check your credit record around 2 months later to make sure there is nothing on there, and keep records of times and dates of any calls and copies of all emails as proof. Good luck!!x

 

[quirk]

Yep, virgin are pretty bad. We had nothing but trouble when we were with them, from them saying they were doing one thing, but actually doing another, to abuse. The abuse came from their workers that had came out to see someone else in our appartments, but I didn't know who they were at first, so I wouldn't let them in, so I got a load of abuse from them, swearing and banging at the doors. Many of us at the appartments had had to call the police because of them. They charged us wrongly for things and when we ever complained, it caused a great deal of stress if speaking to them, emails were ignored, we received a letter when we wrote letters confirming that they had received our letter, but nothing more. The flats were all under virgin and we couldn't change, so when we moved out, we switched from virgin straight away. So, I know how bad some of their workers can be and how much stress they can cause and I'm sorry you've had to put up with their rubbish too.

 

[Pixles]

=/ go to citizins advice. All internet companys do this, will try and get money before they do anything. We were on talk talk (tiscali) and we complained and complained for years about a fult line that would disconect when the phone went in the end they said, we will fix it if you sign up for a new contract and pay us £150 before to start investgations. Um How about NO. so we went to sky, who counciled out account for us, without needing a mac code and we got a few letters from talk talk saying they had recived changeover requests and the date it was ending, then 3 months after it all changed over we got a bill of £29 from talk talk.. Strange. so i phoned them and because i dident have an acc they couldent see what it was for but asked me to pay it or it would go to a bailift =/ i refused, i got a fre red letter bills from them, and then a balifts letter 6 months after it all had happened. i phoned them an they asked me what the amount was for.. when i said i dont no and nore do talk talk. i was told that balifts only threten for amounts under £100 as it costs the companys more to use the service. But if i was you go to citizens advice, as they seem to be going abit fast really, there pushing you to pay because they no you dont have to.

 

[milf2be]

Thank you for your replies

doddy0402- i think you're right about the mac code, but they never explained that to us and the letter we received after still said our end date was 17th march and we heard nothing about the new date which was sometime end of april. iv also just found an email from them saying our broadband was disconnected on 23rd march. My last payment out to them was on 10th march, so since (correct me if im wrong) i pay a month in advance i paid them for april anyway??

lindseymw - thats how i got out of my contract in the first place lol! it worked quite well, i ll have to try it again!

quirk - how awful, i cant believe they did that!! iv ust been going through my bank statements to check that i paid a month in advance at the start of my contract and i remembered they took £60 out for a connection charge - which they hadnt told me about and because i was starting a new contract i shoulndt have had to pay. they agreed with me on this, but instead of just sending me a cheque for £60, they decided to take £20 off my bill for the next 3 months :S they certainly dont like to do things the easy way!!!

 

[milf2be]

pixles - my mum and dad had the same problem with talktalk when they took over tiscali too!! yeah the letters are literally within weeks of each other, if not days and i only received 1 letter asking for £26 before the letter threatening to contact the bailiffs 7 days later (bearing in mind i had spoken to them in this time) and when i had rang them that day the guy told us the bailiffs had been contacted. then this letter i received yesterday from bailiffs was 2 weeks after that :S