I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract • Hacker News Board

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#41

Post by Silhouette » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 11:52 PM UTC

artistsvoid wrote: post #25

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 credi…

Please be really careful doing this. Cancelling a payment authority is not the same as cancelling a contract, even if you have a right to do the latter under your terms. If you just stop making payments for something you do owe, you are the one in the wrong, and you can end up with a bad credit history, legal action taken against you, specialists chasing you for the debt in increasingly scary ways, etc.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#42

Post by willcipriano » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 11:53 PM UTC

artistsvoid wrote: post #34

jrockway wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So they can't charge you but will still try to 'collect' and ruin your credit rating I suppose? Well, doesn't solve a lot then.

Yes, with a service like internet you are paying for the previous months service, not the next month so the money is owed even if you cancel the credit card. Netflix bills you for the month upfront, so when you don't pay them simply remove access to the service and you owe nothing.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#43

Post by ccmcarey » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 11:53 PM UTC

artistsvoid wrote: post #25

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 credi…

https://privacy.com/ is a provider of these that I often see mentioned.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#44

Post by xzel » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 11:54 PM UTC

artistsvoid wrote: post #25

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 credi…

There are a few options out there and I’ll try to cover the ones I’ve used. Privacy: I’ve used this a few times for disposable cards but they act as a debit card such that withdraw from your bank. There are some goofy limits around making cards but it’s a pretty good service. Citi credit card has one that uses flash for a front end that works great but I believe they’re ending the service soon. Capital One credit card is probably the best out there and uses a chrome extension to generate cards per-website. Stripe seems be testing a solution but for third parties and BoA killed their VCC program last year.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#45

Post by baby » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 11:55 PM UTC

I’m not sure what that fuss is about. I just stop paying whenever I run into these kind of issues. It’s easier than what people think. I wanted to cancel my gym membership and they wouldn’t let me before I finished my year membership. So I just stopped paying. Some numbers were calling me but I never answer unknown numbers.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#46

Post by pteraspidomorph » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 11:55 PM UTC

paultopia wrote: post #19

Nothing is harder than cancelling internet service, with the possible exception of cancelling a gym membership. In order to cancel Mediacom's 'service,' I had to send a letter[1] to them, with copies to their general counsel, threatening 99 kinds of lawsuit. I made the letter intentionally deranged, complete with footnotes about financial BDSM, to give them the impression that I would actually do it. They cancelled t…

The last time I changed my mobile phone number I did it to get away from the incessant harrassment from a gym after I canceled my membership (canceling was itself extremely difficult).

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#47

Post by dylan604 » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 11:56 PM UTC

amiga-workbench wrote: post #14

jibbit wrote: post #6

I’ve tried to cancel my virgin media subscription twice (because it’s too expensive), and each time was upsold a more expensive package. I explained this to my wife, who laughed at me, then the same thing happened to her.

I once downgraded my Virgin package, the online support was helpful and let me know which department to ask for and exactly what to request. Once on the phone I think I was forwarded on about 3 times before I got the right person. From that point on it was really painless. I think it took about 20 minutes in total? All I wanted to do was drop down to the lowest speed package and stop paying for the landline phone ser…

It's sad that 20 minutes out of your day is what qualifies as painless in this regard. The phone companies/ISPs are like cats training their owners to just accept the way things are.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#48

Post by artistsvoid » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 11:57 PM UTC

lightgreen wrote: post #39

artistsvoid wrote: post #25

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 credi…

In the UK you can simply cancel the direct debit (most regular payments in the UK happen using direct debit, not by credit card). But as far as I understand not paying for a contract may result in damaged credit history, so the mortgage can become more expensive for example; or they may sell your "debt" to some collector company, who may start bothering you (I heard these stories from friends). So because of these re…

Makes sense ; where I come from direct debit is also widely used for such matters. Wouldn't it be awesome if when you stop paying it would simply automatically cancel the contracts within a given time period, no questions asked, no need for any 'credit rating' et cetera ... it sounds like something akin to this would be 'doable' in law? Especially with subscriptions regarding 'digital' services that are renewed on a monthly basis.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#49

Post by Silhouette » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 11:58 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #26

Silhouette wrote: post #12

Abuses such as this infuriate me, and I typically have a very low tolerance for them now. Any business that is causing trouble at my expense still gets one polite attempt to contact them via their preferred means and a reasonable chance to respond, but usually only one. I'm not hanging around on the phone for more than a few minutes or waiting more than a couple of working days for a substantial response to an online…

I imagine there could be a good business in the automation of the creation + address discovery + delivery of such letters. Like automated DMCA takedown notices, but C2B rather than B2C. “Pay a dollar to have our lawyers cancel a subscription for you.” (Even better if you really do have a team of lawyers willing to work on contingency to take these sure-bet claims to court if necessary—just their existence would be an…

Maybe, but then the main point of having a small claims system is that a normal person should be able to use it with relatively little overhead and without needing to bring expensive lawyers into the situation. You do need to do a little homework if it's the first time you're thinking of making this sort of claim and as always you should make sure you are being fair and reasonable about trying to fix things before going all legal on them, but there's decent information about how to use the system available from the relevant government websites these days if you need it.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#50

Post by cumcastsucks » Sun, Jun 21, 2020, 12:01 AM UTC

i called and cancelled a "no contract" comcast plan one day. it took an absurd amount of time to cancel, and i finally had to yell at someone after being handed off 3-4 times to reps that each tried different tactics to get me to stay. i was able to cancel at some point and received confirmation.

then - no joke - a few days later i get an email that my comcast starter kit would be coming in the mail. THEY signed me back up! i called and it was explained to me as "oh, it looked like someone cancelled your plan in error". i was astounded. they then sent me to a comcast store that had been closed for years to return the modem, which i couldn't ship. i was about ready to throw the modem through the storefront at this point when i finally drove 30 minutes to an open location.

i will _never_ use anything comcast again. i feel so sorry for any poor souls that have no other option. i would not live anywhere it was my only option, that's how much i loathe them.