Dispute with virgin media advice please?

[MalNichol]

I have been a customer with virgin for many years. Primarily with their cable Internet service.
Last June I retired from my job and moved back to the North East of England. Unfortunately where I moved to did not have the excellent Virgin cable Internet services.
As I always had a good service from them I decided to stay with virgin and use the national service. I was informed by them that I could transfer across but would have to enter into a new12 month contract. Although I did not see why as I had paid virgin a substantial amount of money over about 10 years and only had to change the type of service as they could not provide me with the cable service?
Eventually they wore me down and I agreed to a 12 month contract. Unfortunately from the off their has been nothing but problems with the national service with slow speeds and being cut off every time my phone rings. I have tried several times to have this fixed without success.
I eventually after several months rang up to find the soonest date I could leave virgin to be told that they now had me down for a 18 month contract and not12?
I questioned this and asked if they could provide proof of this agreement including any recorded phone conversation which they always tell us they are doing when you ring them? After being passed to several people I was informed that I had made a verbal agreement over the phone and the phone recording was no longer held by them. I asked to speak to a supervisor and was told that someone would ring me back that day. No one rang back?
Can anyone advise me what is the legal position on this?

Many thanks
Malcolm:confused::D:confused:

[boroboi]

If it isn't in writing then it isn't legal. They will have to provide proof either through a phone recording or on paper in order to enforce this as there is no hard evidence, which it is their responsiblity to keep.

[thenry]

send the CEO an email...

neil.berkett@virginmedia.co.uk

can you get BT infinity where you are?

[danielf]

I have been a customer with virgin for many years. Primarily with their cable Internet service.
Last June I retired from my job and moved back to the North East of England. Unfortunately where I moved to did not have the excellent Virgin cable Internet services.
As I always had a good service from them I decided to stay with virgin and use the national service. I was informed by them that I could transfer across but would have to enter into a new12 month contract. Although I did not see why as I had paid virgin a substantial amount of money over about 10 years and only had to change the type of service as they could not provide me with the cable service?
Eventually they wore me down and I agreed to a 12 month contract. Unfortunately from the off their has been nothing but problems with the national service with slow speeds and being cut off every time my phone rings. I have tried several times to have this fixed without success.
I eventually after several months rang up to find the soonest date I could leave virgin to be told that they now had me down for a 18 month contract and not12?
I questioned this and asked if they could provide proof of this agreement including any recorded phone conversation which they always tell us they are doing when you ring them? After being passed to several people I was informed that I had made a verbal agreement over the phone and the phone recording was no longer held by them. I asked to speak to a supervisor and was told that someone would ring me back that day. No one rang back?
Can anyone advise me what is the legal position on this?

Many thanks
Malcolm:confused::D:confused:

Sounds like they're trying to pull a fast one. Call them again, and call their bluff. A verbal agreement has no standing whatsoever. It's your word against theirs, and standard VM contracts are 12 months, not 18 (if I'm not mistaken).

[MalNichol]

Many thanks for the very quick replies I think a letter to their head offic is called for.

[danielf]

Many thanks for the very quick replies I think a letter to their head offic is called for.

Personally, I wouldn't send a letter (yet). You'd just be giving them ammo in that you're acknowledging (but disputing) their claim if they stick to their guns. I'd try another phone call first. You might get through to someone more reasonable than you did last time. Also: have a look on their website to see what the standard contracts and prices are. If you're paying standard prices, you'd expect a standard contract. Just ask them why you would even consider verbally agreeing to an 18 month contract.

[Tim Deegan]

Sounds like they're trying to pull a fast one. Call them again, and call their bluff. A verbal agreement has no standing whatsoever. It's your word against theirs, and standard VM contracts are 12 months, not 18 (if I'm not mistaken).

I'm sure that there was something in the news recently, saying that mobile companies can't enforce 18 month contracts legally.

[Milambar]

I'm sure that there was something in the news recently, saying that mobile companies can't enforce 18 month contracts legally.

Almost. They can't force an 18 month minimum, they have to offer a 12 month minimum as well, which may be at a different pricing level.

Also, I thought the change in rules hadn't come into force yet, and only applied to cellular phone contracts.

[MalNichol]

Many thanks again for the replies will try ringing again but spoke to several staff last time all of whom were pretty poor with the not my decision answer. Asked to Speak to a manager and was told one would ring me back, still waiting?

[ZrByte]

I notice everybody has given advice of how to get out of your contract but none have addressed the obvious problem in your first post whereby you say it disconnects every time the phone rings. You do have your micro filter correctly installed don't you? And if you have are you sure? Has it been checked by someone else? Have you tried another? Is your adsl plugged into your main phone line or an extension? If the latter what condition is this in?
Problems with that part of the setup is the most likely cause for the disconnects during a phone call and could also be causing your slow speeds. Out of interest what speeds are you getting and how far do you live from your exchange?

[qasdfdsaq]

Yeah, what he said.

Virgin National is a BT Wholesale provider so use BT's network from end to end. Any fault will be with your BT line or equipment and nothing to do with Virgin, and the same problem will happen with any other provider until BT fix the problem.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Whilst it may be provided over the BT network and if there is a fault in that part of the service BT would need to address it, that request for a repair should come from Virgin Media as the ADSL provider. If VM are not taking the fault seriously, send them a formal letter, on top of the persistent calls to the faults centre.

Assuming you are absolutely convinced that there is no issue with the equipment within your property, as indicated by ZrByte's post, then whilst no telecoms provider agrees to provide a truly fault free service, if there are no reasonable efforts being made to repair, and the fault is as persistent as you say then I would consider it a simple breach of contract by Vrigin Media. I would simply give them, in writing, a notice of termination. Check your terms of service as I'm not sure whether that might be 30 days.

But, there is a problem if you do terminate early. If you want to reuse your existing phone line with another provider, you could be in all sorts of difficulty getting VM to actually release the telephone and ADSL provisioning.

[qasdfdsaq]

Assuming you are absolutely convinced that there is no issue with the equipment within your property, as indicated by ZrByte's post, then whilst no telecoms provider agrees to provide a truly fault free service, if there are no reasonable efforts being made to repair, and the fault is as persistent as you say then I would consider it a simple breach of contract by Vrigin Media
Perhaps not 100% fault free but there are some ISPs that do guarantee that they will get any existing line fault fixed if you move to them.

And yes, as you say it's VM's responsibility as BT's customer to get BT to fix the fault(s) but in the end it's up to BT to do the actual work.

[kwikbreaks]

being cut off every time my phone rings
This in particular suggests there may be a line fault. It could also be a fault with your internal wiring. There is a wealth of information and help available with deciding whether or not it's your internal wiring/equipment or the line over on http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/ BT are responsible up to the master socket so if you have no extensions connected (hard wired from the master or plugin ones) then the only equipment of yours involved is the router or filter and of those only the filter is remotely likely so if you have another try swapping it. If you do have lots of extensions consider debugging by disconnecting them all and testing just using the master socket.

As has been said it's up to the ISP to communicate with BT Openreach to get such faults fixed. Most are decidedly poor at this plus BT are not too good at finding and fixing faults either. It is a situation very like yours which is why I'm on cable now and the ISP was useless in even calling BT out. I'd had them out 5 times reporting the noise on my line as a voice fault and they couldn't find the dodgy joint causing it - just about all phone line faults are bad joints of one sort or another.

Try VM again and see if you can get them to call out BT or at least take you through some debugging of your internal wiring.

[MalNichol]

Sorry did not go into the tech side as it was quite a long winded scenario. But update spoke to a chap at Virgin customer service called Mel who has agreed change in contract back to 12 months.
Tech side from day 1 every time had a call on my home phone the internet would drop out. Rang customer service who were polite and did a number of checks. They decided a site visit from a BT engineer was required and was subsequently contacted by BT to do this. BT did not turn up on the day after waiting in between 10am and 6pm. Rang BT who stated that the engineer had been tied up on a job and had been unable to attend. Made a further appointment and same thing happened again.
Rang virgin to see if they could help and was told "it is not for us to chase up BT engineers" was sick of the hassle and decided to live with the problem (now retired do not get many phone calls 'bliss').
In the mean time tried changing ADSL filter, the lead between the wall and modem and even changed my router to an upgraded version, after taking advice through forums such as this.
The problem seemed to be livable with until 2 weeks ago when the drop offs become more frequent and the speed of my broadband slower.
Re-contacted Virgin 3 times to fix it with the last time going through the process of the engineer remotely connecting to my machine and going through some trace route and ping tests. This took about 2 hours at which the end was told he would have to escalate the problem and someone would ring me back?
Recieved a text the next day asking to call a 0845 number where I was told that the engineer from the previous day had not recorded the trace route data correctly and I would need to go back to the step of the remote connection to do this all over again.
Thats when I decided enough was enough and ring the retention team and part 2 of the saga started in relation to the 18 month contract.
Can I say had been with Virgin Media cable service since they took over from NTL about 5 years ago and NTL for about 10 years prior to that without problem.

[Kymmy]

Question: What happens when you unplug the house phone and then attempt to call it (from a mobile for example) does the connection still drop out?

Just trying to discount the house phone itself..

[kwikbreaks]

I can understand your frustration. I lost my temper with the BS the O2 blokes were putting me through when I knew with absolute certainty that the problem was a line fault so I just cancelled it and got cable instead taking the hit on early termination which, as it happened, the cashback paid for.

The problem you will get is that all these drops in connection will result in the line management routines increasing your target noise margin and causing your connection speed to fall. Even if it gets fixed it will take ages to recover unless they also reset your line profile which rarely if ever gets done.

Do you have phone extensions or is it just the master socket?

---------- Post added at 10:25 ---------- Previous post was at 10:23 ----------

Question: What happens when you unplug the house phone and then attempt to call it (from a mobile for example) does the connection still drop out?

Just trying to discount the house phone itself..
The reason the ADSL gets dropped is because of the additional ring current the line carries passing through the duff joint and creating RF noise. It most likely won't drop with no phone in but that doesn't necessarily indicate that the phone is faulty.

[MalNichol]

Kymmy - I have to reset my modem every time I get a drop out, have spent hours on different sites trying to find work around without success.
kwikbreaks - Was with cable service for a long time. Unfortunately when I moved the area we went to does not have cable. Hoping that infinity will make a difference when it is implemented later this year?

Thanks again for all your help on this.

Malcolm

[qasdfdsaq]

Infinity won't fix a broken phone line, it only makes it shorter.

[kwikbreaks]

Yes I swapped to cable on what would have been a permanent move but for the fact that VM seem to spend more on marketing than they do on their network so my area is now massively oversubscribed and I too will be looking to Infinity.

Going to Infinity cuts out all the joints between the exchange and the local cabinet for the broadband so I'm hoping it will bypass the duff joint that caused me to dump ADSL. Even if it doesn't Infinity is a manned install so with luck they may sort out any problem between the cab and me.

You still haven't said whether or not you have any extensions - it could be that the fault is in your extension wiring. Plus your fault is different from the one I had. I'm not sure if RF noise created by a bad joint upstream of the cab from the ring current could leak into your Infinity signal and cause issues - if you do go that way it's certainly something to test during the install. In my case it was the ADSL signal causing audible noise on the line.

[Kymmy]

Kymmy - I have to reset my modem every time I get a drop out, have spent hours on different sites trying to find work around without success.

Not what I asked.. I asked are you suffering the same ring drop-outs with the home phone disconnected..

[Tim Deegan]

If it is a network problem, and you can't get cable in your area, then what alternatives do you have??

Whoever you go with you will still be on the BT phone line that has the problem.

[Chrysalis]

sounds like a classic joints fault trying to remember the name of it.

High resistance fault I think its called.

Getting it diagnosed and fixed can be a nightmare tho.

[MalNichol]

The main problem has allways been when we made or received calls from our landline so I guess that disconnecting the phone would help. My strategy is to go worth BT hopefully via infinity and then go straight to the source to fix the problem. From what I gather their is no love losses between BT and Virgin and BT treat them a bit shabby when fixing Virgin customer faults. I will see out the rest of my contract with virgin and work around the line drops when calls are made and received then as with kwickbreaks hope that the installation of the BT connection (please infinity) this may iron out the kinks.
Kwickbreaks only extension I have is to serve the upstairs computer via a electic plug extender which comes out of my router. No extensions on my phone.

[Kymmy]

The main problem has allways been when we made or received calls from our landline so I guess that disconnecting the phone would help.

Never said it would help..:rolleyes: instead I'm just trying to diagnose the issue..

If the system is fine when you disconnect the phone and try to call then the next step would be to try another phone and do a test.. Some phones faulty or not can take too much current from the line or they can introduce problems to the line when the ring signal comes through. If the fault persists with another phone then likely to be the issue that Chrysalis says which will need an engineer to trace back the fault from your home to the exchange (they'll measure the signal at your home, at the pole, at the cab then at the exchange and try to work out where the fault is)

[qasdfdsaq]

BT is supposed to treat all customers equally when fixing faults. They are legally bound to give no preferential treatment to their own retail division or anyone else.

[Chrysalis]

yep and to confirm what others have said the way faults work on BT lines is this.

Voice fault via your voice provider (usually BT but may be someone else).
Voice faults are generally easier to get fixed as they treated much higher priority by BT, I reported a voice fault on a fri night and I had an engineer turn up sunday morning to fix it. Previous to that I had a fault which had halved my upload sync speed which had dragged on for months, the fault that messed up the voice service was related to it and the voice engineer fixed both.

Adsl fauls, via your broadband provider in this case virgin media, who then if they decent report it to openreach/BTw for you. You will likely get threatened with a fee if they find your equipment at fault etc. and have to agree to it before they send the engineer out. Then its a case of hoping the fault occurs whilst the engineer is there.

IF you can find a way it negatively affects the phone service then use that to report it as a voice fault as you will have a much easier time of it, if not then you have to report to VM as a broadband fault :(

[qasdfdsaq]

If it reliably disconnects broadband every time the phone rings it should be easy enough to prove when the engineer arrives. If he arrives.

[kwikbreaks]

If he arrives... and he'll only arrive if VM ask for an engineer to call. Many ISPs are reluctant to do that - you need one with good tech support who know enough about the product they support to go through some diagnostic steps with the customer (not traceroutes either) to determine whether the fault lies with the line or with the customers kit. It takes a bit more nous than reading out the line about rebooting the router.

[qasdfdsaq]

Did you miss this post?

Rang customer service who were polite and did a number of checks. They decided a site visit from a BT engineer was required and was subsequently contacted by BT to do this. BT did not turn up on the day after waiting in between 10am and 6pm. Rang BT who stated that the engineer had been tied up on a job and had been unable to attend. Made a further appointment and same thing happened again.
Rang virgin to see if they could help and was told "it is not for us to chase up BT engineers"

[MalNichol]

Kymmy just tried it with another phone and still the same signal drop. Just saw on the BT site when when i checked my postcode that they expect the upgrade to infinity in Sept 2012. Hope that this upgrade will solve the problem and if it doesnt will then be complaining direct to BT. Cheers.

[qasdfdsaq]

No such thing. You can only ever complain to your ISP who have to relay the request to Openreach, exactly the same as VM do now.

[kwikbreaks]

Did you miss this post?I probably didn't read it properly because it does indeed say VM had contacted BT and there was a no-show. The follow up indicates that the VM rep on that occasion was at fault because it most certainly is up to VM to chase up OpenReach because they will not talk directly to customers.

[ferretuk]

Kymmy just tried it with another phone and still the same signal drop.

As Kymmy has suggested, have you tried with no phone connected at all yet?

[MalNichol]

Ferretuk tried disconnecting the phone then ringing our number and the router disconnected it has to be some fault on the line?

[Chrysalis]

yes the fault I said, its a common well known one.

[Sephiroth]

I haven't seen anything more about the suggestion earlier concerning the ring wire (orange & white).

If you go into the BT box and if that wire is connected to a terminal on the block, cut it right back as far as you can. That will stop the RF coming from the Ring Wire. The Kitz web site tells you more about this and it's quite OK to do.

On the ADSL service side, VM have touted for and got your business. It is for them to get the fault rectified. The phone works, the internet doesn't. You can report VM to the various professional bodies (I've forgotten their names). VM seem to be sensitive to such complaints. Someone else will doubtless provide the names (like ISPA).

[Tim Deegan]

As Seph says, report it to OFCOM. Then hopefully they will give BT a kick up the backside, so that they have to carry out the repair work.

It appears from what some people have said, that BT drag their feet when it comes to VM National lines, as it gives VM a bad name.

[Chrysalis]

BT drag their feet on all adsl faults, its not specific to VM.

In fact most adsl isps also drag their feet trying all sorts of tricks before sending an engineer out like bumping up the noise margin and swapping routers.

This all frustrated me and I ended up on VM cable.

[kwikbreaks]

In fact most adsl isps also drag their feet trying all sorts of tricks before sending an engineer out like bumping up the noise margin and swapping routers.

This all frustrated me and I ended up on VM cable.

SNAP.

[qasdfdsaq]

Strangely they're pretty good on Fibre faults. Reported a minor problem 11pm on Sunday (that I wanted interleaving turned off), offered an engineer 8am Monday.

[Chrysalis]

if you mean the VM network that's because they dont have to goto BTw/openreach. its BTw policy that if they find a fault they charge the isp who will in turn have to charge their customer. (unless they take the hit, £100+ big hit to take tho when margins so low).

AAISP actually advise their customers to hide the modem/routers, cables etc. so its harder for BT to blame equipment, that gives an idea how big a problem it is. This is the reason why adsl isp's drag their feet.

--edit-- I see you meant FTTC faults. Its possible policy is different on FTTC services. Although not sure why they need an engineer to toggle interleaving. Also I suspect its probably easier to get engineers on BT retail broadband as its the same company so any fees to them are just paper charges.

[qasdfdsaq]

Yeah I meant FTTC.

Interleaving cannot be toggled on FTTC DLM, if it gets stuck on when it shouldn't, it can only be reset at the request of an engineer. OR require physical line checks to be done every time, hence sending an engineer out to make a phone call to OR and get my line profile reset... Tsk ;)

The dragging their feet business certainly appears different on FTTC, but then again it's BT's flagship product and they're investing a huge amount into it.

[kwikbreaks]

.. it's BT's flagship product and they're investing a huge amount into it.I imagine they see it as making deep inroads into VM's market. Certainly I see it that way as all VM can offer is higher headline speeds which people don't really need - under any other measure xDSL is a better technology. If FTTP ever gets widely offered cable will follow the dinosaurs and the dodo but I reckon Infinity can already do that with FTTC.

Of course BT have goofed big time in the past and their BTw ADSL offerings are derisible compared to their LLU competitors. I don't think they'll make that mistake again.

[Sephiroth]

The challenge to VM will be BT's early ability to provide FTTP via their ducting or poles to a wider estate than VM. As I understand matters, I can pay BT next year to give me fibre and I'll get 100/30. I don't know the exact price, but say £300. That will pay for itself in year 1 when (if) I give up my VM broadband circuit.

I'm not sure what Kwikkie meant by "following the dinosaurs and the dodo", but it'll require higher investment for VM to put FTTH out to existing cable homes.

[qasdfdsaq]

BT's FTTP will be 300/30 next year. FoD is expected to cost £500 to £1500 for installation.

[Chrysalis]

that install cost will go down eventually as well, as once a pols has a fiber feed then it should be cheaper to connect later customers to it.

[The PIT]

Dodgy filters and if present it maybe a good idea to disconnect the bell wire.
Also what are the modem stats they would be worth looking at.

[slopps]

I have been a customer with virgin for many years. Primarily with their cable Internet service.
Last June I retired from my job and moved back to the North East of England. Unfortunately where I moved to did not have the excellent Virgin cable Internet services.
As I always had a good service from them I decided to stay with virgin and use the national service. I was informed by them that I could transfer across but would have to enter into a new12 month contract. Although I did not see why as I had paid virgin a substantial amount of money over about 10 years and only had to change the type of service as they could not provide me with the cable service?
Eventually they wore me down and I agreed to a 12 month contract. Unfortunately from the off their has been nothing but problems with the national service with slow speeds and being cut off every time my phone rings. I have tried several times to have this fixed without success.
I eventually after several months rang up to find the soonest date I could leave virgin to be told that they now had me down for a 18 month contract and not12?
I questioned this and asked if they could provide proof of this agreement including any recorded phone conversation which they always tell us they are doing when you ring them? After being passed to several people I was informed that I had made a verbal agreement over the phone and the phone recording was no longer held by them. I asked to speak to a supervisor and was told that someone would ring me back that day. No one rang back?
Can anyone advise me what is the legal position on this?

Many thanks
Malcolm:confused::D:confused:


DUDE - Im going through the EXACT SAME PROBLEM TODAY - I'm absolutely FURIOUS.

EXACTLY the same issue. I left virgin media cable services in July 2011, because I was moving to an area which only had national service - which was fine. I was told on the phone that the old contract would be torn up, and that it would be a new 12 month contract, starting from August 2011 onwards. Fine.

I call up today to confirm how much it would cost to terminate early, because BT are offering infinity 2 in my area. The agent on the phone said 'nope says on the system your contract ends Feb 2013, its an 18 month contract'.

After several minutes of spluttering and extremely high blood pressure, he just gave me a M22 0WJ address to write to (write, in this day and age), because I (yes me, not the customer service) have to run about and chase up the Proof, which would be in the form of the recorded telephone conversation I had with the agent, back in August 2011.

Its UNBELIEVABLE. It even says in their T's & C's clearly on the website

‘"minimum period"
the minimum period that you must keep a service, starting from the service start date. For example, unless you are told otherwise by us, you must keep a service for 12 months from its service start date. We may change the minimum period for anyservice but this will not affect you if you have already subscribed to that service.’

I asked the agent 'so imagine I was a new customer now, and wanted to order the national service product, would it be a 12 month or 18 month contract?'

He said '18 months'. I said.....'well that goes against the legal stipulations under the T's & C's on the website. He went 'ooooh yea.....um...well I'll forward that onto the legal department'.

My contract ends on August 3rd 2012. I've already paid in advance the month of June. I bet you ANYTHING this will drag on over 2 months, and this is yet another thing I have to waste time and effort on, fighting a company.

Unbelievable. In the mean time, I've emailed that 'neil.berkett@virginmedia.co.uk'

Does anyone have a phone number or anything I can call as well?

Whats even more ridiculous is - I called up about 3 months ago, and asked them how much it'd cost to leave. The guy did the calculations and said 'Okay you'v got 5 months left on the contract, that'll be £120'. I said....'No....that cannot be right. OFCOM came out with new prices for terminating contracts, it should be £9 a month = £45'. After a long pause he said 'Yes sorry sir, you are right'.

I didn't terminate it then, because I was happy to wait. Now I have to go through this rigmarole.

[jempalmer]

If you've emailed the CEO's office then you can expect a prompt response. You should get a return email followed by a phone call soon.

[MalNichol]

Slopps
Rang virgin back and spoke to a manager who said he would show my contract as a 12 month contract and not 18. He also said he would e-mail a confirmation which never came. Have decided to wait till 12 months is up and ring back to no doubt get the original 18 month garbage.
Can you let me know how you get on with the CEO?

Cheers

[slopps]

Slopps
Rang virgin back and spoke to a manager who said he would show my contract as a 12 month contract and not 18. He also said he would e-mail a confirmation which never came. Have decided to wait till 12 months is up and ring back to no doubt get the original 18 month garbage.
Can you let me know how you get on with the CEO?

Cheers

Well for the first time ever, in my lifetime of dealing with corporations.....this actually went smoothly, quickly, hassle free, and with zero fuss. Unbelievable. Well done virginmedia (though it should never have got to this stage).

I emailed Neil. He immediately responded (didn't even question where i'd got his email from.....because no one at virgin media phone customer service game me it lol). I then got a call today from an apologetic woman who told me the following:

'we only record and keep calls for training purposes. we wouldnt have a copy of your particular call last year. i will put a memo on the system under your account, and clearly state its 12 months, and for the hassle caused I'll credit you 1 month of use'.

she went on to agree that the website itself does say 12 months, but they have moved to a policy of 18 months, and that they clearly need to update the website or the legal wording of it.

i recommended to her that the customer service agents need to....be aware of company policy. and not lead me on a wild goose chase.
If i hadn't had the common sense to type in google the keywords 'virgin media national 12 months 18 months' - I'd never have found this forum, and never have stumbled across the email address of that Neil bloke.

quite unbelievable really.
but anyway, i'll call that a success story, in some weird way.

If i were you MalNichol, i wouldnt wait 12 months only to find out that they might not have made the adjustment in the system.....you ought to call again and just ask 'how long youve got to go' and make sure they give the answer you expect, as a test.

[paul.hadley]

I didn't read all the posts here but I think I got the jist of it all.

The first point.

A contract does not have to be in writing to be legally binding, a verbal contract is just as good in law and a written one. The only reason you insist on a written contract is, in the event of a dispute it is much easier to prove your point when it is in writing rather just verbal. If you agreed to a 12 month contract then you have a twelve month contract.

Terms of Contract

Within the contract there will be specific terms and conditions that both parties are bound by, in this case virgin media's terms and conditions.

In addition to these terms and conditions there are also conditions the law applies, implied terms and conditions. One of these will be that the product is fit for its purpose. As technology is concerned no one can expect a perfect service all of the time, however for most of the time it should be usable. It sounds like yours is not. To that effect virgin are in breach of contract and you would be perfectly entitled to take action against that breach. The most obvious would be to terminate the contract, seeking compensation for loss might be another.

In regard to you having to sort out the problem with BT yourself this is utter rubbish. BT are a subcontractor to Virgin, if their service has failed then they are in breach of contract to Virgin. It is for Virgin to deal with their contractors, it is no concern of yours.

Remedy

It seems to me the best remedy would be to give Virgin written notice that their service is failing and give them a set period to remedy the fault. Make it clear to them that if it is still not working past your dead line then you consider them in breach of contract and the remedy you will be taking is to terminate the contract.

Fixed

If all is fixed in good time then great, problem solved

Not fixed

If not then you should inform them that you are terminating the contract. Make sure you give a specific time that the contract is to end. Stop all your payments to them. Just as importantly make sure you unplug your modem before the date so there is no way you can be using the service. You might be considered to be stealing their service or starting a new contract if you continue to use it. In addition if the equipment is their property ask them to arrange to collect it from you, and keep it safe.

Next Provider

Do bear in mind that if it comes to this you will still have a problem on your line and your next ADSL service will probable be just as bad. So make sure you get a very reputable provider otherwise you might end up were you started.