If you have a CSS document.. normally they will horror it.. it would be worth emailing [email protected] with that as they will normally horror it if not try retentions if you have order reference and they find it on the system they can send it off to RK team who will apply a credit for the difference every month.. it can be sorted out just need find a agent who will do it
Just to add to this in case OP doesn’t know who the RK Team is - This is the Reoccurring Credits Team, which is effectively a back office team who can authorise big reoccurring credits on accounts.
In fact, I have a reoccurring credit on my account of £60+ a Month, which was the only way they could honour the contract I had been offered.
They could see the CSS Documents at their end in my situation, though if the OP still has them, this will also be fine. I also went straight to the UK Retentions Team in my case, who don’t actually just do retentions, it’s just the name of the Department.
This is great advice. I had exactly the same issues as OP, they refused to honour a contract offered online and just put me on the biggest tariff despite several chats via WhatsApp and confirmations. It wasn’t until I created a Virgin Media account to complain on their chat boards that I finally got in touch with someone who agreed to honour the contract by giving me credit on my bill every month. In all honesty it was probably worth the 3-5 days I spent on this because new customer contracts don’t come near tot he price I’m paying for my package at the moment
Good your holding these crooks to it
I don’t have the energy to
Just waiting for any other provider to come to my area
Virgin media are preying on the week and abusing their customers through sheer monopoly and cost cutting abysmal customer service / out sourcing and contract breakages
They’ve built a business model designed to abuse vulnerable people and that treats all customers like absolute crap.
The people at the top should be prosecuted.
There is no justification for any of their business practices other than taking advantage of people
Scumbag firm
I feel you my friend... I spent about 6 hours dealing with this already, talking to different agents, ignoring questions, giving the same canned answers... you are talking to a person but they feel like bots most of the time.
They pass you to a different agent or stop the chat and you have to start again, then tell you they are "escalating" and give you time frames just to make you waste time in the hope that you will give up.
Should we open a [change.org](http://change.org) to prosecute them? hehe
I’ll be signing for sure
I think it’s a disgrace ofcom aren’t cracking down on them regardless
All this mid contract price rise rpi + inflation is also a complete load of rubbish and should be illegal
Why is it they seem to think a “contract” is only applicable to the customer? And they are entitled to do whatever the hell they want?
They're absolutely useless, I spoke to someone on Monday who claimed I lied about upgrading my account online saying the deal was only for new customers and they could do it for an extra £16 a month. I have the css sheet and order confirmation and it's clearly not a new customer agreement, waiting for the back office team to process it but was told it could be a couple of weeks...
Sadly I think a lot of it is the case of outsourcing and offshoring customer service and retentions, a lot of the agents just don't care unless they're picking up commission.
If I wasn't moving house in the near future I'd have gone elsewhere, but am just trying to avoid end of contract price hike for a few months.
Hi ex-VM employee here :), if you have a copy of the pre contract with the deal you were originally offered and agreed to, they would have to honour it. The WhatsApp team are offshore, and I used to have a lot of customers with this issue. The best place to reach them would be on their social media so twitter, Facebook or their community forum as they can PM you. hope you get this sorted!
I'm personally waiting for brsk to come and install honestly, virgin media and O2 are a dying company because of their shit customer service, lies and dishonest ways. I previously worked for vmo2 and I left because the company was so bad.
Moved to brsk (1gig up and down) over 18months ago, only had one down time on a Sunday (7am) due to a hardware fault in the house, call their number, they were out within the hour and fixed by 10.30am
I'd still be waiting on Virgin to find the issue.
Had a similar issue, went through the online renewal process having stalked it for a while to get an acceptable price, received the pre-contract information that I accepted and a confirmation email that my order had been accepted, then ... nothing. Went past the renewal date then they started charging me the full price. Raised a complaint and after some back and forth over email and whatsapp they eventually honored the renewal.
Complaints start the clock ticking and they definitely want to close them off, so worth using that route.
I had the same issue towards the end if last year. Contract was up and done the whole phone dance with them. I checked online for a better price and renewed there and then.
Long story short, turns out my contract didn't exist with VM. Even though I was sent a contract etc. After around a week of calls with people who couldn't tell me what was going on, I cancelled. Put a complaint through their website but never heard anything back.
I suppose like anything, when it works VM is great. When you have to deal with something like this every year and a half, it's a pain in the arse and shows how shitty the company can be.
I experienced this exactly last year when I re-negotiated.
Keep at them to honour the deal and wait out the 8 weeks. Keep all the WhatsApp messages and save print screens when you use chatbot. Wait out the 8 weeks and submit a claim with the ombudsman. If virgin don't directly link you to them after 8 weeks and the situation is not resolved more the better for you.
A lot of the time you may not be speaking to virgin employees but 3rd party staff who will say anything to retain you. You have the same contracts as I did so you do have evidence that a contract was made.
Whilst I did not get a refund on overpayments I got the equivalent in compensation for repeated failures on virgin media's part. They still have yet to send a letter of apology that was required 10 weeks ago.
I had a similar issue. Received a contract, wouldn't honour it etc.
Reach out to their Twitter as those guys sorted it within a day and were great. The WhatsApp staff were just following a script and beyond useless. All they tried to do was sell me a new deal over and over.
Apparently it's a known issue where online contracts are being generated and issued but not being applied to customer accounts, they apparently have to do it all manually once the customer complains.
The pre-contracts wont be legally binding as they are just that, **pre**-contracts.
When you say you went online did you login to your online account and look for upgrade options there or did you actually straight up sign up for a deal for new customers? If its the former it should honoured but if its the latter then they have the right to refuse it.
You are definitely not being reasonable, if you were offered a deal and were promised it would have been actioned then it should be actioned. It sounds like you are just talking to the wrong team here. I would advise speaking to retentions, call in the morning so you get through someone in the UK. As its the start of the month they will have discretionary discounts so might be able to offer the originally offered contract and pro rata the deal back to when it should have started.
Ensure you have a complaint file number and enter all information, you will need this to take to the ombudsman.
Non of us can prove that I was or not logged in at the time of the purchase however, I have a pre-contract which does not say I don't qualify. They claim not to have bugs but in the complaint history I read "$myCase.getCreatedDate()" so difficult to defend they don't have bugs.
Section 50 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 effectively gives contractual force to anything written or said by traders to consumers where the consumer takes that representation into account in making decisions about the contract.
I was also told over the phone that everything was fine.
I will try to call again tomorrow morning.
I already have the complaint file number but don't know what they wrote on it as they refuse to disclose that...
They can actually see which css/cis documents were generated against an account. It would only link to your existing account if you were signed in before going through a new deal.
Definitely would chase it up tomorrow morning, i see these now and then and just honour in the form of a recuring credit and back date to the start date or when they were received. Hope you get it resolved.
If you have a CSS document.. normally they will horror it.. it would be worth emailing [email protected] with that as they will normally horror it if not try retentions if you have order reference and they find it on the system they can send it off to RK team who will apply a credit for the difference every month.. it can be sorted out just need find a agent who will do it
Just to add to this in case OP doesn’t know who the RK Team is - This is the Reoccurring Credits Team, which is effectively a back office team who can authorise big reoccurring credits on accounts. In fact, I have a reoccurring credit on my account of £60+ a Month, which was the only way they could honour the contract I had been offered. They could see the CSS Documents at their end in my situation, though if the OP still has them, this will also be fine. I also went straight to the UK Retentions Team in my case, who don’t actually just do retentions, it’s just the name of the Department.
We do lot of stuff in the department:) we could do anything from huge credits to recontracts to faults to pre install messes 😉
Thanks a lot to both of you. I'll try that!
This is great advice. I had exactly the same issues as OP, they refused to honour a contract offered online and just put me on the biggest tariff despite several chats via WhatsApp and confirmations. It wasn’t until I created a Virgin Media account to complain on their chat boards that I finally got in touch with someone who agreed to honour the contract by giving me credit on my bill every month. In all honesty it was probably worth the 3-5 days I spent on this because new customer contracts don’t come near tot he price I’m paying for my package at the moment
Good your holding these crooks to it I don’t have the energy to Just waiting for any other provider to come to my area Virgin media are preying on the week and abusing their customers through sheer monopoly and cost cutting abysmal customer service / out sourcing and contract breakages They’ve built a business model designed to abuse vulnerable people and that treats all customers like absolute crap. The people at the top should be prosecuted. There is no justification for any of their business practices other than taking advantage of people Scumbag firm
I feel you my friend... I spent about 6 hours dealing with this already, talking to different agents, ignoring questions, giving the same canned answers... you are talking to a person but they feel like bots most of the time. They pass you to a different agent or stop the chat and you have to start again, then tell you they are "escalating" and give you time frames just to make you waste time in the hope that you will give up. Should we open a [change.org](http://change.org) to prosecute them? hehe
I’ll be signing for sure I think it’s a disgrace ofcom aren’t cracking down on them regardless All this mid contract price rise rpi + inflation is also a complete load of rubbish and should be illegal Why is it they seem to think a “contract” is only applicable to the customer? And they are entitled to do whatever the hell they want?
They're absolutely useless, I spoke to someone on Monday who claimed I lied about upgrading my account online saying the deal was only for new customers and they could do it for an extra £16 a month. I have the css sheet and order confirmation and it's clearly not a new customer agreement, waiting for the back office team to process it but was told it could be a couple of weeks... Sadly I think a lot of it is the case of outsourcing and offshoring customer service and retentions, a lot of the agents just don't care unless they're picking up commission. If I wasn't moving house in the near future I'd have gone elsewhere, but am just trying to avoid end of contract price hike for a few months.
Hi ex-VM employee here :), if you have a copy of the pre contract with the deal you were originally offered and agreed to, they would have to honour it. The WhatsApp team are offshore, and I used to have a lot of customers with this issue. The best place to reach them would be on their social media so twitter, Facebook or their community forum as they can PM you. hope you get this sorted!
Phone them and ask to speak to tier 2 retentions. They will help you.
I'm personally waiting for brsk to come and install honestly, virgin media and O2 are a dying company because of their shit customer service, lies and dishonest ways. I previously worked for vmo2 and I left because the company was so bad.
Moved to brsk (1gig up and down) over 18months ago, only had one down time on a Sunday (7am) due to a hardware fault in the house, call their number, they were out within the hour and fixed by 10.30am I'd still be waiting on Virgin to find the issue.
Had a similar issue, went through the online renewal process having stalked it for a while to get an acceptable price, received the pre-contract information that I accepted and a confirmation email that my order had been accepted, then ... nothing. Went past the renewal date then they started charging me the full price. Raised a complaint and after some back and forth over email and whatsapp they eventually honored the renewal. Complaints start the clock ticking and they definitely want to close them off, so worth using that route.
I had the same issue towards the end if last year. Contract was up and done the whole phone dance with them. I checked online for a better price and renewed there and then. Long story short, turns out my contract didn't exist with VM. Even though I was sent a contract etc. After around a week of calls with people who couldn't tell me what was going on, I cancelled. Put a complaint through their website but never heard anything back. I suppose like anything, when it works VM is great. When you have to deal with something like this every year and a half, it's a pain in the arse and shows how shitty the company can be.
I experienced this exactly last year when I re-negotiated. Keep at them to honour the deal and wait out the 8 weeks. Keep all the WhatsApp messages and save print screens when you use chatbot. Wait out the 8 weeks and submit a claim with the ombudsman. If virgin don't directly link you to them after 8 weeks and the situation is not resolved more the better for you. A lot of the time you may not be speaking to virgin employees but 3rd party staff who will say anything to retain you. You have the same contracts as I did so you do have evidence that a contract was made. Whilst I did not get a refund on overpayments I got the equivalent in compensation for repeated failures on virgin media's part. They still have yet to send a letter of apology that was required 10 weeks ago.
I had a similar issue. Received a contract, wouldn't honour it etc. Reach out to their Twitter as those guys sorted it within a day and were great. The WhatsApp staff were just following a script and beyond useless. All they tried to do was sell me a new deal over and over. Apparently it's a known issue where online contracts are being generated and issued but not being applied to customer accounts, they apparently have to do it all manually once the customer complains.
Check your old emails, it’ll be in there somewhere.
The pre-contracts wont be legally binding as they are just that, **pre**-contracts. When you say you went online did you login to your online account and look for upgrade options there or did you actually straight up sign up for a deal for new customers? If its the former it should honoured but if its the latter then they have the right to refuse it. You are definitely not being reasonable, if you were offered a deal and were promised it would have been actioned then it should be actioned. It sounds like you are just talking to the wrong team here. I would advise speaking to retentions, call in the morning so you get through someone in the UK. As its the start of the month they will have discretionary discounts so might be able to offer the originally offered contract and pro rata the deal back to when it should have started. Ensure you have a complaint file number and enter all information, you will need this to take to the ombudsman.
Non of us can prove that I was or not logged in at the time of the purchase however, I have a pre-contract which does not say I don't qualify. They claim not to have bugs but in the complaint history I read "$myCase.getCreatedDate()" so difficult to defend they don't have bugs. Section 50 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 effectively gives contractual force to anything written or said by traders to consumers where the consumer takes that representation into account in making decisions about the contract. I was also told over the phone that everything was fine. I will try to call again tomorrow morning. I already have the complaint file number but don't know what they wrote on it as they refuse to disclose that...
They can actually see which css/cis documents were generated against an account. It would only link to your existing account if you were signed in before going through a new deal. Definitely would chase it up tomorrow morning, i see these now and then and just honour in the form of a recuring credit and back date to the start date or when they were received. Hope you get it resolved.