Unilateral Suspension of Service - Account 067835601
Today you unilaterally suspended service for outgoing calls on our 2 telephone lines 01253 473931 and 316238; and also our cable internet access.
It appears that someone form Virgin telephoned on Saturday and asked to speak to me, and was informed that I would be available after 4 p.m., which I was, and your employee indicated their intention to call back at that time. No further call was received.
Yesterday, while was in Brussels, a letter arrived from Anne Curran ref 41814/4095. This only came to my notice today after service had been suspended.
You could also have e-mailed me at , the e-mail address which you use to advise that invoices are available for viewing, but you appear to have made no attempt to do so.
Today I phoned 0845 4541111, but was unable to speak to Ms Curran. Your operator informed me that the account had been suspended because the calls and charges were higher than normal, which appears to be in accord with your Virgin TV, Virgin broadband and Virgin phone services Terms and conditions (I) Suspending our services
(1) "We may suspend any or all of the services immediately without notice if:"
(3)
For your and our protection we can suspend the services if the number of calls or charges for calls made by you has increased to such an extent that it appears, in our reasonable opinion, that the services are not being used in a manner consistent with your previous use.
We will make reasonable efforts to contact you before suspending the services but we are not liable for any loss you may suffer through this suspension.
As neither...
(d)
"you go over any credit limit on your account;"
or
(h)
"in our reasonable opinion it is necessary to do so."
...appear to apply, we are absolutely astonished at the arbitrary and hasty manner in which this action was taken.
May I take this opportunity to ask you to explain what you consider a normal pattern of use, and what parameters you use to determine inconsistency with previous use?
Do you not want your customers to use your services, increase their use, and spend? If so, this seems to be a very curious way to go about it.
Little wonder that Standard and Poor's revised and "downgraded its outlook on the UK-based operator to 'stable' from 'positive', because of the group's 'persistently limited revenue growth'!
The amounts your operator quoted do not appear to be alarming, or even mildly surprising.
If Virgin Media are so finely financed that they are not prepared to risk about £100 credit for a customer who always pays promptly, and has an excellent credit rating, then I strongly suggest you review your credit risk policy.
I could understand this policy being applied to mobile phones which are frequently stolen, but to apply it to landlines seems curious.
It may also have been sensible for you to ask us to suggest an intervention limit, to help preempt your premature and precipitate action.
I asked how I could get service restored without delay, and who to speak to. I was informed that I should telephone a different number 0845 1424444 for your credit services department, and that your first operator could not transfer the call, which also strikes me as totally incomprehensible for a communications company. Part of my reluctance to do so was the thought of a further 5 or 10 minutes of my life wasted waiting on hold for you to provide a staff member to answer my call, and also because of the security grilling necessary on the occasion of each call. (I do not as a matter of course remember all 5,000 [estimated] of the passwords, PINs, and other number required in so-called modern living).
I called the second number, and after the requisite wait on call hold, got a second operator who proceed to ask me some of the security questions I could not answer, and advised me she could not continue. By the way, do you not think that asking what password somebody would choose if they were choosing a new one now is not only ludicrous, but a potentially very serious security breach?
I asked this operator for the address and fax number of your registered office. She misinformed me that it was "Customer Concern, P.O. Box 333, Matrix Court, Swansea, SA7 9BB". I discovered from later scrutiny of your website that the correct address is "160 Great Portland Street, London W1W 5QA". She also informed me that she could not supply a fax number.
After further persistence, your operator offered to permit me to speak to a "manager", and I was transferred to "Scarlett". She managed to ask me security questions which I was able to answer, and I was able to ascertain that by volunteering to make an immediate payment, you would be able to restore the services. After some discussion, the amount of £100 was settled upon, and Scarlett proceeded to process a debit card payment for that amount.
We noted that internet service was restored within a short time, and telephone service some time later.
We believe that the reason cited "for your and our protection..." is misleading propaganda, and that it is almost entirely in your interests, and even so it appears extreme when your marginal costs of providing the services must be less than 10% of the charged rate, and therefore your profit margin around 90%.
In any case, could you explain why and how it protects us to have are broadband internet services suspended effectively without notice?
Scarlett asked if I minded waiting while she attempted to find the requested fax number. Shortly afterwards the call disconnected. Naturally I suspect that she terminated the call unilaterally.
I made a further call, and asked to be reconnected to Scarlett, but the male operator advised me he could not reconnect me, but could use an internal messaging system to request a callback. I agreed to this, but was slightly perplexed that he did not think to ask which number she should try to contact me on. When he advised me that he had sent the request, I queried this, and gave him the telephone number where I was situated at that time, which he said he would relay. I am not surprised to find that your staff appear to have made no attempt to return this call.
To help avoid any repetition of your unacceptably bad service, I have today requested an alternative service provider to replace you for the line number 316238.
As you are a monopoly supplier of cable broadband in this area, we have little choice but to allow you to remain our service provider for this, together with its tied number 473931, but may I have your assurance that these services will never again be suspended without proper care or sufficient notice or reason? In the event of any repeat, we intend to notify the relevant regulatory authority that you are not a fit and proper "public communications provider as set out in section 151 of the Communications Act 2003".
We have in any case decided to arrange a second parallel broadband supply via ADSL, so that in the event of any further disruption in our service from you, that we will retain built-in redundancy of service.
You may wish to note that we did not contract with you directly for service on either line or cable broadband. Our original contract for cable broadband and line 473931 was with Telewest, who you took over.
Our original service for line 316238 was with a different supplier who you also acquired.
If your company is so risk-averse, we could if you wish provide advance payment, but only if you provide a bank guarantee for the pre-payments, and credit us with interest at LIBOR rates or higher. Alternatively if you wish to check the credit rating of the writer or my company, we believe it is probably more positive than that of your own company, despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that we rarely seek any substantial amount of credit from any of our major suppliers, preferring to pay promptly in cleared funds.
During one of the periods I was on call-held, I attempted to check the cost of your 0845 telephone numbers using the link "For details about how much it costs to call our team, visit our website at virginmedia.com/callcosts", but received the message "This web page is not available". We believe failure to provide this information may be a breach of the terms under which you use this service under the relevant telecommunications acts. Please provide this information.