Virgin Media bill dispute

[roomtobreathe]

Evening all!

Looking for some advice on what to do about disputed charges on my Virgin Media telephone bill.

Back in May I was contacted by one of their agents about adding Sky Movies to my package for a nominal amount. Given that I was paying via Sky Now for the Movie package it made sense to take up VMs offer.

However, all is not well.

Just got notification of my bill due at the end of this month and there's £44.06 additional telephone charges. Seems that when they added Sky Movies they downgraded my telephone package from Talk More Anytime to Talk More Evenings and Weekends. Hence the extra charges. I don't remember anything about changes to my telephone package, especially when given my call usage to family landlines it makes no financial sense at all to change. Something I would have though VM would have known.

I called them on the help line to dispute the charges and ask for the charges to be removed from the bill but they have refused. They agree that it doesn't make sense to downgrade my telephone package seeing as it would incur these charges but refused to remove the charges. We ended up at a stalemate so I need some advice on how to approach this.

The VM bill comes out at the end of the month and I don't have the money in there to cover the extra amount so I'm going to have to cancel the direct debit as a start otherwise there won't be funds for other bills.

I've knocked up a letter to send of to their head office disputing the bill and was wondering what else I should do or include.

Thanks!

[Joanna Connolly Solicitors]

I haven't read your post in any detail but maybe you should make a formal complaint to Sky and if you don't get the resolution you want you can escalate your complaint to the Ombudsman (CEDR)

Here's a link which explains the process > https://www.cedr.com/consumer/cisas/...s/about-cisas/

I've just helped my daughter with a similar battle with Sky

Di

[roomtobreathe]

Thanks for the reply Diana!

The issue is with Virgin Media. On the phone to them they said that since the charges were applied correctly according to the package there was nothing they could do except to instigate a complaint against the agent who switched the package. Nothing further was explained about this but it seemed a way of trying to deflect away from VM who my contract is with.

Not really sure what they were trying to do but there was no option offered about how to complain about the issue of being charged due to the package being switched without my agreement.

I will write a letter outlining this and as I can't afford to have these charges coming out at the end of the month I will also cancel the direct debit and pay the undisputed part of the bill by BACS or cheque when it arrives.

Does this sound ok to do?

Thanks

[SXGuy]

What virgin do if you fail to pay is roll it over to the next month. Plenty of time to dispute it. I'd send an email to the ceo You will get a resolution ASAP.

[roomtobreathe]

Thanks all, I did send a letter of complaint in and got a phone call back after 48 hours. Upshot is they denied any problem, I maintained there was a problem. In the end we split the difference and agreed to move on.

Not the ideal solution but didn't want it to drag on.

Thanks

[Joanna Connolly Solicitors]

I did send a letter of complaint in and got a phone call back after 48 hours. Upshot is they denied any problem, I maintained there was a problem. In the end we split the difference and agreed to move on.

As long as you are happy with the outcome that's all that matters

Virgin Media's complaints procedure does give you the opportunity to refer it to the Ombudsman (CEDR) but these things tend to drag on as you say > https://www.cedr.com/consumer/cisas/

Di