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I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

virginmedia-is-evil.com

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Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#101

Post by Nextgrid »

preinheimer wrote: post #69

The thing that kills me with these stories (and if you read the comments there's plenty more) is that customers _remember_. I'll never use Videotron again after the crap they put me through when I cancelled. I'd love to blame monopolies (sure, pick the other guys, but you'll be back in a few years when they piss you off) but the other big offender here is gym memberships, and there's no shortage of choice there. I th…

> I think there's at least 4 different brands within a 5 minute drive of my house.

And just like with ISPs, all of them are equally scummy, so it is indeed a monopoly/oligopoly of scumminess.

UK has fairly good consumer protection laws, in fact if you express your intent to cancel, they refuse for an invalid reason or ignore it and you cancel the payment and let the "debt" accumulate there isn't anything else they can do besides threatening letters, a black mark on your credit report (which can be removed with enough effort) or debt collectors (who are actually reasonable and will drop the matter once you explain the situation).

They could go to court, but they won't because 1) they know they are in the wrong and 2) it's not worth their time anyway. The mark on the credit report is pretty much the only leverage they have, and unfortunately it works due to most people either being afraid of it or actually relying on easy access to credit.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#102

Post by dijksterhuis »

harel wrote: post #60
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #18

In the UK, use this: https://www.aa.net.uk/ I'm not affiliated with them in any way. They just have a great reputation for good technical knowledge, privacy, and support.

Thanks, I wasn't aware aa existed. What kind of speed are you getting out of it on average?

I'm on FTTC and I'm getting 70Mbps down pretty much as standard.

That's throughout the day as well. Never noticed any issue with peak time usage.

Regularly get about 30ms ping when playing CS:GO.

If I could get FTTP, I would, but I think that was dependent on openreach.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#103

Post by Nextgrid »

dogma1138 wrote: post #58
Havoc wrote: post #36

Looking for fiber in London next month. I guess VM won't be it. Reddit seems to think Hyperoptic is where it's at. With VM as second. That's on raw speed front. So if VM can't be trusted I guess I need to apartment hunt by Hyper...sigh.

HyperOptic or G.Network I’ve used both currently on the latter. However you have little to no choice in the UK. FTTP is only absolve in specific buildings if your building isn’t connected it’s virgin or xDSL via Openreach (pick your ISP at that point however they are pretty much all the same unless you pick Tesco Broadband or some other small scale crap like that so for DSL I would got with Zen or well BT). The other…

I have an FTTP line because there's no other choice. The connection fees were covered by the Gigabit Voucher Scheme which I believe is still around. It's only for businesses, however there is no requirement to actually be trading so you can very well set up a one-man company (12£ fee to companies' house) and then do it.

The voucher scheme covered it for 2,5k which is a bit steep but also not that expensive in the grand scheme of things if you own your property. The monthly fee is around 400/month (unlike consumer plans, those are negotiable, I negotiated mine down to 384/month including VAT).

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#104

Post by Nextgrid »

cortesoft wrote: post #55
baby wrote: post #45

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.

Have you checked your credit rating recently?

To be fair, the credit score is the only leverage these nasty companies have and why they get away with being so scummy and get the customer to bend over for them.

Not giving a shit about your credit score and not living off credit (which is a problem for a ton of other reasons) is the only way to thwart that and personally it's been a highly successful strategy for me.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#105

Post by Silhouette »

Nextgrid wrote: post #88
Silhouette wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already illegal, potentially for multiple reasons, at least here in England.

Laws only work if they're enforced. It can be illegal but how much effort does it take to actually get the problem investigated by the relevant authorities?

Well, harassment can be a criminal offence here, and depending on the circumstances actual police officers will turn up to formally notify someone that a complaint of harassment has been made against them. I imagine uniformed police officers turning up at your corporate HQ would be enough to get most businesses' attention.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#107

Post by Nextgrid »

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…

I dealt with Virgin's debt collectors twice and they were reasonable and actually offered better customer service than Virgin itself. When I explained them the situation and why I cancelled the payment they immediately dropped the case and I haven't heard of anything since (it's been 2 years since the first case).

Of course, you should always aim to cancel properly, but if the company is intentionally being obtuse and you've made reasonable attempts to cancel "within the rules" then just cancelling the payment is a valid option.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#108

Post by lightgreen »

Nextgrid wrote: post #104
cortesoft wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you checked your credit rating recently?

To be fair, the credit score is the only leverage these nasty companies have and why they get away with being so scummy and get the customer to bend over for them. Not giving a shit about your credit score and not living off credit (which is a problem for a ton of other reasons) is the only way to thwart that and personally it's been a highly successful strategy for me.

Credit score matters for the mortgage which is a very good reason to have a good credit score.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#110

Post by Nextgrid »

Silhouette wrote: post #41
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.

Credit history and debt collection is fair, but I wonder, how does "legal action" happens considering the customer has already attempted to cancel in good faith?

How do they defend the lawsuit when the customer provides proof that they did a reasonable attempt at canceling within the rules and were stonewalled?

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