h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Most of you will now know that my father-in-law died recently, in fact his funeral will take place next week, so there have been *things* that have needed to be done sooner rather than later.

One of these is that the executors (Hubby and his brother) are required to notify all creditors as the bank account has now been closed due to probate.

British Gas were marvelous and couldn't be more helpful. No difficulties with the electricity and water companies. The Council even completed the necessary forms for my brother-in-law, as he will be staying in the property for the next few months, or until the property is sold.

Now, we come to Virgin Media... Yes..


Brother-in-law contacted them and informed them of what had happened and that the account needed to be closed. 'David' took all the particulars and input them to their pc... then said:

'How can we encourage you to stay with us?'

'Errrr... Go back to the beginning of the conversation, David.'

'Ah, yes. But, if he hadn't died, would he have remained a customer with us?'



To add insult to injury, two days later a bill arrived for £55 because the terms require 1 month's notice of termination!




Don't forget folks, if you are feeling under the weather please notify Virgin before it is too late!!!

*shakes her snowglobe*



lil xx

After my dad died, a few week later "he" received an official letter of sorts? - 1st line of said letter = "sorry to hear you have died". Mam threw it away. It could not be found as recycle had been collected -I would have wrote a lovely reply


the words "insensitive person's" don't cover it

*Rolls eyes*

Honestly.. some people. I worked in a call centre for a while, and we did have a reasonable amount of training on the 'the customer has died' sort of thing.

Not in the same scale but.. I took my cat to the the vet, then they recommended I take her to to the teaching vet hospital to see the Prof of Feline Medicine and spend a lot of money on tests, nothing could be done and I decided to provide palliative care at home. Prof of Feline Medicine wrote a letter to the vet explaining this, and sent a copy to me, (along with a 'sorry your cat has died card'). My vet kept sending me reminders to get my dead cat vaccinated.

Z, we are going to be in a similar position shortly. Tammy is on paliative care, and I also know how upset you were at the time (hug)


As for Virgin, we are aware they have a 'script' and it's difficult to think beyond that script after a while, but to make charges for something nobody is able to prevent is rather ghoulish.

By the time I got the reminder I was mainly embarrassed by how much money I'd spent on a cat that hadn't lived. At a large bank we had a script as well, well more a list of items we had to cover. We also had training in how to do it sensitively.

That sounds like David hasn't followed the correct procedure for closing the account. The question he asked will have popped up on his screen as the next step of the conversation, which must have been going down the wrong track. The letter is an inappropriate one too.

Companies like this will have well defined procedures for dealing with this. I used to sit near the 'deceased accounts' team when I worked at British Gas, and I know they had different procedures to the rest of us. A far more relaxed view of data security too - they argued that it had to be because it was fairly unlikely that they would be speaking to the actual account holder.

So, something went wrong here. It's worth getting in touch with them again, because you really shouldn't have to pay that bill.


Geggs

Lil I am very sorry to hear that you have had so mo many problems with Virgin Media closing your late father-in-law's account. I wonder if the Citizen's Advice Bureau could give you any help.

When my niece was 18, she had a terrible accident. She was a new driver, alone in the car at night, and hit a tree at full speed (she has no recollection of what happened so we'll never know). She was very badly injured; she had to be revived several times on the way to the hospital, and almost lost her leg.

Four or five days after the accident, while she was still in intensive care and the outcome was very uncertain, her parents received a large bill... for the tree she had damaged.

Also, we had problems for years with our dog's liability insurance because they wouldn't let us cancel - they refused to believe the dog was really dead!

I know I mentioned this last night when we were chatting, but one more reason to dislike Bank of America was the way they hassled my dad about closing my mom's credit card account after she died. Whoever he spoke to on the phone was insistent that if my mother didn't request the closure herself, they would require a written affidavit from her permitting him to do so. He asked for a supervisor, and they had one call him back. The supervisor kept taking the conversation around and around in the same stupid circle, my poor dad getting more and more upset. Finally, she asked him "well, can I just speak with [my mom] and make sure she agrees to close the account?" To which my dad, at the end of his rope, replied "only if you have a Ouija board".

(You all see where I get my sarcasm from...)

that might be one to write to watchdog about, I'm sure virgin would love to have ann robinson asking them how the dead are meant to give a months notice, it's absolutely unacceptable.

You just gotta love virgins customer service. They left me without broadband,tv or telephone thru christmas and new year in 2010. TV and broadband wasn't of concern, just inconvenient, the loss of the phone however was potentially life threatening. It meant my lifeline alarm system was inoperative. If I'd needed to summon help thru an unstable angina attack I was frankly stuffed, I couldn't. Virgin didn't give a monkeys frankly so I terminated the contract. They tried to charge me a penalty for doing so without notice till it was pointed out that it was them in breach of contract by failing to maintain the most vital part of the service, ie the phone line.
Since then they've tried to get me back by undercutting current suppliers by as much as £25.00 a mth but my answer is, not a ing chance.
Their broadband was rubbish anyway, when it did work I would have got faster speeds via dialup. Their 20mb service used to give me an average of 3 to 4mb on a good day.
Currently I get a consistent 14.5 mb via copper cable with no visible loss for wireless either. Says it all really

Is there a British equivalent to http://consumerist.com/ ?

Quote..."You just gotta love virgins customer service they left me without broadband,tv or telephone thru christmas and new year in 2010".

Aye! we made the mistake of returning back to Virgin in a bid to save money, we had Sky TV and phone and Virgin Internet.

The change over was nightmare, left us with no Internet for 4 days, and no phone for 2 days, and on top of that, they made us lose our phone number
----------------------------------------------------------------
As for bad taste, I was sent to pick up a patient 4 times! After I had told them that he in fact had died a few weeks earlier.

Seems that management didn't listen, but I knew that before


Smudger.

Lil, I won't bore you with all the hoops I had to jump through to get the financial stuff sorted when my husband died. I had clear, legitimate and legal title to everything but you would have thought I was trying to gain something fraudulently.

It is not something you need, or can cope with, after a bereavement. They all say that the 'hoops' are to prevent 'money laundering'.

Good luck with Virgin, and don't let them bully BIL or anyone else. If all else fails then the Watchdog suggestion is a good idea. Or local radio. Give 'em a

Websailor

Hi lil, sorry to hear about this nonsense. I didn't have this sort of trouble but I still occasionally get letters telling my mom or dad that it's time for their eye checks or dental appointments.

Lil, and several others, I'm sorry to hear about your struggles. I'm sure there's a coffee table book in this lot. I should be furious, and sad, but some of these stories are so outrageous they made me laugh!

Here you go, Vestie. Write the book!


I feel much better this morning

I spoke to a lovely lady called Chris, who has assured me this bill was sent in error. It is actually the normal monthly statement and should have been stopped once my brother-in-law had notified them of the situation.

Also, there is to be a £5 + credit to be repaid.

The new statement should be in the post now.


Bloody computers, they cause more trouble than they are worth and should be outlawed


*snuggles up with her Matt*


lil xx

Hi lil.
Maybe someone at http://www.cableforum.co.uk/index.php can help.

It's the original ntlhellworld rant site which eventually has morphed into a help site.There is a lot of info about VM since NTL morphed into VM.

I'm a moderator there and we do have some VM insiders as members who in their spare time try to sort out some issues.

Of course a letter to the VM CEO might get a better reaction?

Hi Incog!

Post 17 all seems to have been resolved, but that link is great, thanks!


lil xx

If it doesn't turn out to be solved(and quite often VM do drop the ball) Cable Forum maybe helpful in getting a resolution.