I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

When I cancelled my home braodband contract a while ago (because I was moving), I eventually ended up with a debt collector after me because they had kept billing me. They had also disconnected me, connected someone else at the same property with the same cable, billed them and been paid by them, so they were not only billing me after I had cancelled, they were billing twice for the same connection. I tried csalling their customer services to sort it, they were no help. Eventually one of their agents admitted there was nothing they, or anyone else I could call with a publicly available number, could do.

(Edit: I forgot, I had also sent recorded delivery mail about it, but got no response).

I eventually got it resolved by finding the number for the CEO's secretary or someone, and harassing them about it until they got it sorted.

Now, the same thing has happened with Virgin Media Business at work (I cancelled because it was always going down, including the PSTN phones, the service was awful and we no longer need it - we had it before I joined, they have been billing us for months after we cancelled).

Worst ISP ever.

Definitely don't let them run their script and mess you around.

Personally, I tend to start any call with a customer support person with something like "Hello, I'm calling about an existing account, would you like the account number?". Almost invariably, they will say yes and then do a couple of checks to confirm my identity for data protection purposes.

At this point they know exactly who I am, and they probably ask why I'm calling. If I'm asking to change or cancel something, I state that immediately, so now they have a record of both my identity and my request.

By now, I'll also have a pretty good idea of whether I'm talking to a human being who is interested in helping me or some call centre automaton who's just going to be awkward and stick to a script.

If they then try to give me the run around, I just repeat that I've informed them of my details and my wish to change/cancel, if necessary state that I'll be cancelling payment authority accordingly, and then tell them I'm ending the call.

If possible, I'll also keep a recording of the call (which is legal in my country) but at the very least I'll make an immediate written record of the time of the call, who I spoke to, and what was said.

I remember once seeing a commercial for an 'online virtual credit card' website/company? Quick online search tells me there are many providers out there.

As far as I know you can create virtual credit cards on the fly and use them to pay. So you could have one with which you pay your Streaming Subscription, one with which you pay for Cable, et cetera and their pitch was exactly this: You can destroy the virtual credit card and there is no fear of any fees whatsoever, so when you cancel some subscription or something...

I didn't follow up at that time, but made a mental note. Has anyone any experience with such services? It's funny that the 'fear' of cancellations not working and being charged 'unlawfully' was the main pitch in the commercial I've seen. Also funny: Cable and Mobile Phone providers are the same devils in the US than in Europe it seems ...

Typically (in the US) the company that set up the recurring subscription that you pulled out from under them just sends your account to a collections agency. My credit card number changed and the New York Times did that to me.

I've been a happy A&A customer for 15 years now. They're not the cheapest, but you get what you pay for. Excellent tech support, no nonsense attitude.

Edit: as an example, a bunch of years back I detected a routing loop. Emailed them the traceroute. Got a response back in a few minutes saying they were looking into it, and it was fixed shortly afterwards. So nice to be able to communicate with someone who can actually fix problems. The only other times I've had to contact them have been related to diagnosing problems in the underlying BT copper (not really their problem), and they were super helpful there too.