Virgin Media slapped with £28m fine for stopping customers cancelling deals
Virgin Media has been slapped with the media watchdog’s largest ever fine for direct harm to consumers after it was found to have mishandled millions of calls with users looking to switch away to a better deal
The telecoms giant has been hit with a £28m fine after it was found to have put customers through “unreasonable effort, hassle and difficulty when trying to switch to another provider”.
Communications regulator Ofcom said an investigation into the period of January 2022 to September 2024 had “uncovered systematic and repeated failings” in Virgin Media’s contract termination procedures.
Natalie Black, Ofcom’s group director of infrastructure and connectivity, said: “The facts are clear. Virgin Media made it harder for customers to cancel their contracts and then did not fully cooperate with our investigation.”
Black said the fine on Virgin Media – which merged with mobile giant O2 in 2021 to form Virgin Media O2 – sent a “clear message” to providers that they will “pay a heavy price” if they act against the interests of customers.
Virgin Media ‘pressured customers to stay’
Ofcom found the firm had split its retention team into two tiers of agents, with only those in the second tier permitted to grant cancellations. The regulator said this resulted in over a million callers being made to repeat their request in a bid to achieve the cancellation.
“We uncovered widespread and, in many cases, deliberate mishandling of calls by retention team agents,” the watchdog said.
The investigation found agents making “repeated attempts to pressure customers to stay” and “unnecessary or excessive call transfers to other departments”.
Virgin Media was also found to have “excessively, unnecessarily and repeatedly” kept customers on hold or deliberately dropped calls.
The penalty was reduced by 30 per cent after Virgin Media admitted to the failures and settled the case. The fee will be passed onto the Treasury.
Ofcom said the amount also reflect the fact the company had been previously fined for “a breach of the same rule in 2018”.
A Virgin Media spokesperson said: “We’re committed to giving all our customers great service and apologise to the small proportion who experienced an issue when contacting us to agree a new deal or cancel their service in the past.
“We have completely redesigned our customer services in recent years, addressing the historic shortfalls identified by Ofcom through a number of improvements, and have resolved all formal customer complaints from this period providing redress where appropriate.”
The spokesperson added the firm’s customer service strategy had been “transformational” following “significant investment”.