2 Weeks with Virgin Media, they inform me of price hike, charging £180 to cancel?!

UberTiger · 12 Feb 2010 at 18:29

Right, been with Virgin for about a year. Both phone and broadband. Came to renewing a few weeks back and decided to go for L size, 10MB and M phone, 12 month contract with 2 months free.

We re-signed about 2 weeks ago then received a letter today saying the prices were increasing from April 1st, according to the leaflet it should just be a 50p increase, but when talking to the guy on the phone he says it's going to be 99p :confused:

Anyway, the amount isn't important, it's the principle as we weren't informed about this when we renewed. So I asked if we were within our cooling off period to cancel, as we were planning on cancelling and re-ordering using the name of someone else in the house to take advantage of cashback and new customer deals (2 months free).

He said it was only 7 days, so we were past that and if we wanted to cancel at this point it would cost us £180 for the privilege! Surely there's some kind of consumer law to prevent this seeing as we signed up so recently, is there anything we can do or where do we stand? Anyone with constructive advice would be appreciated!

Raymond Lin · 12 Feb 2010 at 18:34

Not read their small prints but normally, contract = contract.

You signed so to get out of it, you have to pay up the rest of the contract.

MowyTone · 12 Feb 2010 at 18:40

Agreed sounds like they have you to rights on this. the T&Cs are agreed to when you go into a contract so you have told them you agree with this

Glaucus · 12 Feb 2010 at 18:42

Raymond Lin said:
Not read their small prints but normally, contract = contract.

You signed so to get out of it, you have to pay up the rest of the contract.

but usually if there is a price hike, you can cancel for nothing. Just like when orange changed there T&C loads of people left whilst in a contract for nothing.
Just phone up again and say you want to cancel, due to change in T&C (price hike) and see what they say.

Darg · 12 Feb 2010 at 18:48

It is ridiculous to allow a company to sign someone up for 12 months at a certain price then let them hike the price up 2 months later. 99p isn't a lot but what if they hiked the price by £10 a month? What then?

There has to be a clause allowing you to nullify your contract if they change the terms which they have.

In the end you signed up to a contract stating you would pay x amount over 12 months. They can't expect to be allowed to change the amount without atleast allowing you to exit the contract.

UberTiger · 12 Feb 2010 at 18:50

Yeah, I can understand being past the 7 days to a certain extent as that was in the contract. But I was wondering if there was any kind of superior consumer law that extended that time at all?

If not, the other thing that really ground our gears was the mandatory price hike, which we were not informed about when re-signing. The guy said 'Well, the guy who we spoke with a few weeks ago might not have known about it', how on earth is that relevant? We weren't informed that the price could have been increased without our consent. This is where I think we might have a get out clause but I'm not sure how to approach it, what to quote etc.

chriscpritchard · 12 Feb 2010 at 18:52

Raymond Lin said:
Not read their small prints but normally, contract = contract.

You signed so to get out of it, you have to pay up the rest of the contract.

But... contract specifies prices, if (and the OP will have to check) the price increases weren't mentioned, then he should be able to cancel without penalty!

Glaucus · 12 Feb 2010 at 18:52

You shouldn't need anything like the cooling off period. It is a change of T&C just phone back up and say you want to cancel due to T&C you probably confused the matter by stating cooling off period.

UberTiger · 12 Feb 2010 at 18:54

The annoying thing is that we'd like to actually order the 50Mb, but they won't let us upgrade using the same deal as a new customer (ie. two months free, which is £78) as they consider it a 'Premium Product'. If we were to cancel and sign up again using a different house mates name we could get that deal plus another 60 odd quid cashback. They treat their current customers like ****.

Glaucus · 12 Feb 2010 at 18:55

Sky is no better.

Darg · 12 Feb 2010 at 19:03

brainiac ghost said:
But... contract specifies prices, if (and the OP will have to check) the price increases weren't mentioned, then he should be able to cancel without penalty!

This, terms and conditions were changed. They can't go around willy nilly changing the terms of a contract and still expect to force you to agree to it.

Steeps · 12 Feb 2010 at 19:12

When cineworld hiked my contract from 11.99 to 13.50 they said the price hike wouldn't take effect until the minimum contract time had been completed. You might not be able to cancel easily but you should be able to stop them applying the price increase until the contract ends.

wannabedamned · 12 Feb 2010 at 19:17

Virgin could have turned around and increased it by £5, £10, £100 and there'd be no way to fight it? That cannot be correct. You must beable to cancel and surely there must be a law in place to protect the consumer from companies raising prices after a contract is signed

Amnesia · 12 Feb 2010 at 19:18

they have changed the contract that you agreed to...you havent signed or agreed to the new contract so how can they force you to stay with them?

Macro · 12 Feb 2010 at 19:20

The contract T&Cs could quite easily state you agree that Virgin Media can vary the price of the service at any time with 30days notice.

Did you actually check what you signed and agreed to?

chriscpritchard · 12 Feb 2010 at 19:23

Athanor said:
The contract T&Cs could quite easily state you agree that Virgin Media can vary the price of the service at any time with 30days notice.

Did you actually check what you signed and agreed to?

But... it can't, as they are then materially changing the terms of the contract (would be deemed unfair in a court), they would say "we can change the price with 30 days notice, during which you may cancel without penalty" or similar

UberTiger · 12 Feb 2010 at 19:24

Athanor said:
The contract T&Cs could quite easily state you agree that Virgin Media can vary the price of the service at any time with 30days notice.

Did you actually check what you signed and agreed to?

If that's the case surely I can also cancel within those 30 days if they do that? It was a renewal by phone, so no new T&C were actually seen at the time and nothing of this nature was mentioned on the phone. It was my housemate that sorted it. We will be digging out any paperwork we have and calling back to see if another operator takes a different viewpoint on it.

unclelonghair · 12 Feb 2010 at 19:27

Their T&C's will state how much they are allowed to increase prices by. Some of the mobile phone companies got caught because their T&C's stated they couldn't increase their prices by more than the RPI. The changes they made amounted to more than that, giving people a loophole to get out. I would imagine that Virgin's price increase is within the limits they have in their T&C's.

UberTiger · 12 Feb 2010 at 19:38

unclelonghair said:
Some of the mobile phone companies got caught because their T&C's stated they couldn't increase their prices by more than the RPI...

I had a quick google about RPI but I'm not sure how to interpret the figures, it seems the RPI for some stuff has decreased over the past few months and some has increased by a few percent.

Our contract is for £22 at the mo, so a 99p increase would be 4.5%, which isn't negligable.

unclelonghair · 12 Feb 2010 at 19:49

UberTiger said:
I had a quick google about RPI but I'm not sure how to interpret the figures, it seems the RPI for some stuff has decreased over the past few months and some has increased by a few percent.

Our contract is for £22 at the mo, so a 99p increase would be 4.5%, which isn't negligable.

That would only be relevant if Virgin referenced it in their T&C's. The mobile phone companies did which is how they got caught out.