They say moving home is one of the most stressful things you can do, but moving home with a disability can be worse.
You have to contact energy companies, insurance, get your mail redirected, change address with Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), blue badge the list is never ending.
With most companies you have to give 30 days notices which is fair enough. However one company that has completely shocked me in this horribly stressful time is Virgin Media.
We have been with Virgin for two and a half years and the contract has rolled on. Having had very few problems and wanting to carry on using them.
To do this you have to contact the Moving Home team, and a lovely lady called Chloe was the victim of my annoyance this afternoon.
Chloe, being very nice and polite said Virgin Media does not provide the area we are moving to so I had no option other than to just cancel the contract, I mean we don’t choose a property depending on which broadband company’s going to provide TV and broadband.
Then the kicker, I was advised we have to give 30 days notice, which is fine, but then an extra £250 for early termination fee. Even through we wanted to stay with Virgin, they want to charge me, a loyal customer, £250 for something they can’t provide.
Of course I have raised a complaint and am awaiting a call back. I tweeted my frustration, to which they have already replied saying it’s in the reams of terms and conditions which no one ever reads.
It’s shocking that a company of Virgins’ size can treat loyal customers this way. It’s not like we had a six month rental agreement, or switched to another company and it would cost them nothing to let me out of the contract they are just punishing customers who are moving house and it’s very poor state of affairs when a business like Virgin punishes loyal customers when they have no option but to cancel as they are unable to provide a service to our new property.
What’s even more surprising is that Virgin Media is not signed up to the Ombudsman service meaning my complaint, and other people who want to raise an issue with Virgin can not get an independent voice.
I hope that raising this issue will change the way Virgin treat their current and leaving customers as if a customer leaves in this unsatisfied way, they will never return.
Ability Access 
Go to Martin Lewis’s website – Moneysavingexpert.com and look for Resolver. I had similar issues with VM where upgrading a package, meant they treated me as a new customer and terminated a previous 20 year contract with Telewest/Blueyonder/Virgin. Resolver threw the book at them and saved me £300 a year as well as termination fees.
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