Virgin Media wrongly defaulted me, what should I do?

[gavandcarly]

Hello me again guys,

 

Well I have just got a copy of my credit report so I am going through all the discrepancies on there and trying to get advice on how to proceed to clean up my credit file.

 

With this one Virgin Media have well and truely screwed up.

 

Back in 2010 I was in contact with a team leader via email due to a complaint that I made for such poor service, I asked to close my account.

 

The team leader agreed to close the account and remove any outstanding balance.

 

Months later I received a letter from a DCA stating they are going to issue me with a CCJ if I don't pay the outstanding balance on the Virgin Media account.

 

I therefore emailed the same team leader again and asked him what was going on, I thought he has sorted everything. I also said I hope mine and my partners credit ratings wont be affected by this. He replied stating he was unsure as to why it had bene passed on to a DCA however he would sort it, and our credit ratings would not be affected.

 

Anyway after getting my credit report last night I can see that they did indeed issue a default!

 

I emailed the CEO and requested that the default be removed and asked for compensation.

 

Can someone give me some advice as to how bad this actually is?

 

Below is the correspondence I had from start to finish with Virgin Media:

 

Dear Neil,

 

I am emailing in regards to the below correspondance in which I had with one of your employees Daniel Scullion, a Customer Service Team Leader.

 

As you can see I originally made a complaint back on 11/08/10 in regards to appalling service that i had received from your company.

 

I was promised to be contacted within 7 days, however nobody responded to me.

 

I waited 31 days and I still had no response!

 

Therefore on 10/09/10 I spoke called your call centre and managed to speak with a lady in your customer relations team.

 

She advised me to forward a copy of my complaint to Daniel Scullion as she was unable to locate my original complaint.

 

I therefore emailed Daniel on 10/09/10 as you will see below.

 

Daniel replied to me on 10/09/10 apologising for the service received and confirming that he had not cleared any outstanding balance and closed the account.

 

I was happy with this and left it at that.

 

However on 11/02/11 I received a letter from a debt collection agency called S.R.J Debt Recoveries stating that we owe Virgin media £78.23!!!!!

 

It also stated that a CCJ would be obtained against us!

 

I therefore emailed Daniel again confirming what I received and I stated: I seriously hope that mine or my partners credit ratings have not been affected by this.

 

I am thinking about taking this further, I would like a satisfactory response to as to why the below email was not actioned, a resolution, and some sort of compensation due to the distress that this has caused.

 

Daniel replied on 12/02/11 stating: Hi

 

please once again accept my apologies, The account was disconnected and the balance processed for this to be cleared at the time of the previous conversation.

 

I am unsure as yo why the credit applied has not cleared your balance but will have our back office team look at this.

 

In term of the current account stauts our resolution team have cancelled the debt on the account and recovered from the debt agency.

 

I can confirm that this will not impact your credit rating or that of your partner in the future.

 

I replied to Daniel on 13/02/11 stating that I would like written confirmation of this on letter headed paper as I no longer trusted his word.

 

I also requested an explanation as to why the action was not actioned originally, and what sort of compensation would I be receiveing due to the stress that this has caused.

 

Daniel did NOT reply to me.

 

I therefore emailed Daniel yet again on 01/03/11 stating that I have waited 15 days and not received a reply from him.

 

He did not reply to this email either!

 

I therefore left it at the fact from his last email to me he had confirmed that our credit ratings would not be affected and that the account was closed and balance cleared.

 

Today my husband took out a credit rating report with Equifax as we are in the process of purchasing our first house however there seemed to be a problem with his credit rating.....

 

On the credit report it states the following!!!

 

September 2010: 1 payment late

October 2010: 2 payments late

20th November 2010: DEFAULT!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I am absolutly livid firstly by the terrible customer service that your company provides, not to mention from a team leader who can not be bothered to chase up requests and check that they have been actioned correctly.

 

Never mind not bothering to respond to customer emails.

 

And now we have been issued with a default!!!! When we were promised that our credit ratings would not be affected!

 

We are going to start court proceedings if you can not provide us with an amicable solution to this within 24 hours!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From:

To:

Subject: FW: Your Fault Complaint Ref

Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 15:04:33 +0000

 

I am yet to receive a response to the below email which was sent 15 days ago.........

 

Regards

 

 

 

From:

To:

Subject: RE: Your Fault Complaint Ref

Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 16:53:41 +0000

 

Dear Daniel,

 

Thank you for your reply.

 

I would like the confirmation of below sent to me in writing on letter headed paper please, as you can understand I do not trust Virgin Media.

 

We have now moved house, our new address is: .

 

You also did not reply to all the points in my original email "I am thinking about taking this further, I would like a satisfactory response to as to why the below email was not actioned, a resolution, and some sort of compensation due to the distress that this has caused."

 

I await your response

 

Regards

 

 

Subject: RE: Your Fault Complaint Ref

Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2011 08:54:13 +0000

From:

To:

 

Hi

 

please once again accept my apologies, The account was disconnected and the balance processed for this to be cleared at the time of the previous conversation.

 

I am unsure as yo why the credit applied has not cleared your balance but will have our back office team look at this.

 

In term of the current account stauts our resolution team have cancelled the debt on the account and recovered from the debt agency.

 

I can confirm that this will not impact your credit rating or that of your partner in the future.

 

Once again please accept my sincere apologies and hope that you will now be able to bring this matter to a close.

 

Regards

 

Danny Scullion

 

Danny Scullion | Customer Service Team Manager

Virgin Media | 1 Dove Wynd, Strathclyde Business Park, Bellshill, ML4 3 AL Telephone 01698 5657558

 

From:

Sent: 11 February 2011 20:30

To: Scullion, Daniel

Subject: FW: Your Fault Complaint Ref

Importance: High

 

 

 

 

Hello Daniel,

 

I am not sure if you remember me or not but a few months ago I made a formal complaint to Virgin and you responded with the response as shown below agreeing to remove any outstanding balance and to close the account without any early disconnection fee.

 

Today we have received a letter from S.R.J Debt Recoveries stating that we owe Virgin £78.23.

 

It also states that a court judgement is going to be obtained against us.

 

I have just had a baby and really do not need all of this, I cannot believe it.

 

Yet again Virgin shows its true colours.

 

I seriously hope that mine or my partners credit ratings have not been affected by this.

 

I am thinking about taking this further, I would like a satisfactory response to as to why the below email was not actioned, a resolution, and some sort of compensation due to the distress that this has caused.

 

 

 

Subject: RE: Your Fault Complaint Ref

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 18:02:50 +0100

From:

To:

 

Hi Carly

 

thank you so much for your prompt response to the request for information.

 

I have located your complaint and have read through this.

 

I would like to begin by asking yourself to please accept my sincere apologies for both our failure to respond within the indicated timeframe and also for any upset caused by this situation,

 

I am unsure of your expectation in relation to type of response you were expecting and certainly if you wish I will respond to each independent points documented within in your complaint.

 

Please correct me if I am wrong but the solution that I see to this issue would be that we remove any balance left on the account and disconnect the account with immediate effect not incurring any early disconnection penalties.

 

Should you require further action on the account then please contact myself using the email address attached.

 

Please once again accept my apologies and to summarise I have removed the balance from the account and disconnected from today's date.

 

Regards

 

Danny Scullion

 

Danny Scullion | Customer Service Team Manager

Virgin Media | 1 Dove Wynd, Strathclyde Business Park, Bellshill, ML4 3AL

 

 

From:

Sent: 10 September 2010 16:13

To: Scullion, Daniel

Subject: FW:

 

Dear Daniel,

 

I spoke to a lady today in customer relations and she advised me to forward you a copy of complaint email that I had sent to Virgin media. I agreed to do so however I have just realised that I do not have a copy of the email in my sent folder due to your complaints procedure being a complaints form via the virgin media site.

I can however confirm that I have indeed forwarded the automated response that I recieved once sending the complaint.

 

I would appreciate if you could locate the complaint by your complaint reference, in which I took time to type out to you.

 

Please respond to me today as I have been waiting 31 days for a response.

 

I have also logged this complaint with Ofcom who are also waiting for the response from Virgin media.

 

Regards,

 

 

> Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:58:21 +0100

> From:

> To:

> Subject: Your Fault Complaint Ref

>

> Hi,

>

> Thanks for the email you sent to us on 11 August 2010. We're on the case

> and a member of our team will get back to you as quickly as possible,

> usually within 7 days.

>

> Don't forget - if there's anything else you'd like to know, just log on

> to our website. It's at http://www.virginmedia.com

>

> Kind regards,

>

> The Fault Complaints team at Virgin Media

 

 

 

[gavandcarly]

Can anyone offer any advice on this please?

[locutus]

I'd have a read of this thread (similar situation, defaulted although not the customers fault)

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?302670-Vodafone-Incorrect-Default-*WON-out-of-court-settlement*

 

Keep at them, Maybe try a letter to the CEO [email protected]

 

Registered Office:

VIRGIN MEDIA LIMITED

MEDIA HOUSE

BARTLEY WOOD BUSINESS PARK

HOOK

HAMPSHIRE

RG27 9UP

[dx100uk]

compensation typically flys at £1000 per incorrect entry

 

dx

[gavandcarly]

Thanks guys.

 

Both Virgin media, and carphone warehouse have admitted that they have defaulted me by mistake!

 

The have now removed the defaults, but are not willing to give any compensation at all....

 

I am in the process of getting an SAR once this is done I shall be taking them to court.

[locutus]

Can you prove you are financially worse off? were you declined for anything or did you have to apply for a higher interest credit card?

 

 

If yes, then you have a very strong case, and if you show them any paperwork supporting this, I'd expect them to cave quickly.

 

Also read this court case http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/A187_04.html

[gavandcarly]

Hello again,

 

I received the SAR back from Virgin Media, but it doesn't show any transaction history, it just shows notes that employees have put on the account.

 

Is this correct?

 

I asked for:

 

please supply me with copies of all the data in which you hold on me in relation to any matter and in any form and for any period of time.

 

Please note that I require disclosure of any personal data which you hold on me for the entire period of my dealings with you.

 

The Subject Access is not limited to my transaction history and it is not limited merely to 6 years of historical information.

 

Additionally, where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any member of your staff, or any other person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my banking business with you.

 

If you are unable to supply this data because there has been no such manual intervention, then please be so kind as to confirm this in your response.

[locutus]

email the CEO tell him the SAR is missing the transaction and billing data, and the 40 day timescale is still ticking.

[gavandcarly]

I have never had a SAR before therefore I am not sure if it is a full SAR or not, could I send it to you to for your advice?

[locutus]

Did you also incude £10?

 

If you asked for all the info in your list, you are entitled to all that info. Email the CEO as I said. Tell him the 40 day timescale is still counting down.

[gavandcarly]

Can someone give me some advice please? I have never had a SAR before, and therefore am unsure as to what I should be looking for.

 

Here is what I was sent from Virgin media as attached.

vm stuff.pdf

[dx100uk]

i've shung the 8 pages of text from 7meg to 8700kb

 

they mention payment history in the text

 

write and ask where is it please

it was not in the sar reply

 

i take it the 40 days have passed?

 

dx

[gavandcarly]

Thanks for that! I didn't have a clue how to shrink it.

 

I did email them back asking for the billing/transaction history and they sent me a excel spreadsheet as attached.

Virgin Media Bill Breakdown.xls

[dx100uk]

ok so theyhave clreared the file as you wanted

 

what is your outstanding issue?

 

dx

[gavandcarly]

I requested compensation from them for firstly issuing me with a default by their error which was on my file for 2 years, and secondly for very poor customer service, however they are not willing to give me anything.

 

There is also 2 late payment marks on my credit file from them for august 2010 and September 2010 in which the account should of been closed in August 2010 as this is when I spoke with a team leader via email and he confirmed that the account was now closed and any outstanding balance removed.

 

I have asked Virgin to remove them however they haven't done so as they state it is a true reflection of my account...