Virgin Media

MANY residents will be subscribers to Virgin Media.

Some may have experienced a less-than-reliable broadband service and may be interested, if not in cancelling, then at least in seeing a report about a large fine levied by Ofcom:

Virgin Media fined £28m for preventing customers from cancelling co...

In response to this unwelcome publicity, VM issued a PR statement strictly on their own behalf. Past un-subscribers could be forgiven for any amusement at VM's damage limitation exercise.

After years of subscription to VM's broadlybad services, I set about cancelling. The friendly call-centre agent in India said that I'd had a contract longer than he'd been alive! (I'd been with it's predecessors Cable London, Telewest and Blueyonder).

Eventually I was put through to a cancellation (i.e. retention) agent with a Scottish accent. From elsewhere she already knew to the £, exactly what my new deal was going to cost me (under 40% of VM's prices). She offered to match it.

I had Net Zero confidence in this offer. The implication to me, of that (merely) verbal offer, was that either VM could still make a profit after slashing their price by more than 60% (!) or they would soon start creeping up their price rises. Again. 

I told her it was too late (the new ADSL service was already booked). I also told her that her company depended on customer inertia and who anticipated VM's famed difficulty to switch to another company.

——

OFCOM

"Right at the beginning of this problem, a number of years ago in 2022, we tried to resolve this informally.

My impression is that Ofcom—like other industry regulators—might have acted earlier and more forcefully, rather than hoping to "resolve this informally" (Ofwat being the class-leader in this form of informality).

For some companies, big fines are the only language they really understand. For the greediest companies, fines should be levied large and early.