Which? asks Ofcom to investigate Virgin Media contracts over fears they could break the law
Which? asks Ofcom to investigate Virgin Media contracts over fears they could break the law
Terms around price rises could unfairly disadvantage customers
Earlier this year, Virgin Media announced it would make a change to its terms and conditions – from April 2024 it will introduce inflation-based price rises that mean the amount its customers pay for their broadband will increase every year.
But we’re concerned Virgin Media’s terms are an attempt by the firm to both have its cake and eat it. As well as applying aggressive inflation-linked annual mid-contract price rises, it’s also maintaining the right to hike bills further at any time.
That discretionary price rise clause has been part of Virgin Media contracts for some time, but the new terms also allow for annual price rises based on the retail price index (RPI) rate of inflation plus an additional 3.9% while removing the right for affected customers to cancel without paying substantial exit fees.
We believe these clauses amount to unfair contract terms and could be in breach of the Consumer Rights Act by creating a ‘significant imbalance’ between the rights Virgin Media has granted itself and those of its customers.
Business that changes price during contract can fuck off. It literally doesn't make sense, I signed a contract agreed to pay discussed price for the duration of the contract. If you gonna fucking change the price make it non contract where customer can leave without exit fee. This should be illegal.
It also means you can't trust the deal you sign up to with them. I'd have thought that this was a binding contract for the agreed upon duration but apparently not.
They are cheeky gits - I got a good deal from them but it's only got a few months to run now...
After the City Fibre rollout, Virgin just doesn't make sense anymore.
Looking forward to signing up for citifibre once we're out of contract, we didn't have virgin in our area when we moved here so we've been on traditional 74mb vdsl2.
Yah, I jumped ship recently to No One Broadband. Holy upload speed on 900mb is massively noticeable!
No One also don't crank up prices mid contract. Been massively impressed with them.
I'm seeing this more and more, with phone contracts mainly. I hate it why can't they just increase the price once the contract period is up then at least you can make an informed decision.
I just signed up to them. I have a cool off period to cancel but the offer was so good. Found it through uSwitch. £90 credit and free installation and setup. They're 60% cheaper than what I was paying with BT. Figure that even with RPI increase it'll still be cheaper over the life of the contract .
Yeah, I got a great deal (it was £100 in Amazon vouchers but they gave me it in credit upfront, so I was in profit for the first couple of months) and if they can get close to that again it still might be worth it but the calculations are trickier.