A close relative is terminally ill and I urgently need to relocate to support them. However, my credit rating is preventing me getting a mortgage because O2 has registered three defaults. My account should have been closed in June 2023 when I cancelled my Virgin Media O2 Volt package, but O2 continued to issue bills for a further three months.
I have repeatedly asked O2 to correct my credit file but have had no reply. The irony is, I only had the O2 contract because it formed part of the cheapest broadband package Virgin could offer. The next time a baby boomer berates millennials preferring avocado toast to mortgages, tell them that sometimes millennials with dying relatives try to get mortgages but can’t because large corporations don’t give a shit about us.
CB, London
You are not the only one to have been confused by Virgin Media O2’s Volt package, which promises “supercharged” wifi to customers who sign up to broadband with Virgin Media and an O2 sim. The deal is advertised as a package, and is set up in a single call and many customers therefore fail to realise that it involves two contracts which must be cancelled separately. This crucial detail is tucked in the small print. TM in Liverpool has also had his credit rating damaged after cancelling his Virgin Media O2 Volt package last year.
“I have been a TV and broadband customer of Virgin Media for 12 years,” he writes. “As part of my most recent 18-month deal I was given an 02 sim which I never used. I have received no correspondence from O2 during my contract and, when I queried the defaults, O2 claimed it couldn’t access my account because the email address it has on record is different to the one on my contract. It promised to reconcile them but never got back to me. In the meantime more defaults have been registered and no one can tell me what these missed payments are for.”
Although Virgin Media and O2 merged in 2021, from similar tales on online forums it seems their systems still do not communicate effectively with each other. And Virgin Media does not appear to warn customers who call to cancel that they must also contact O2.
When CB and TM cancelled their direct debits, their O2 accounts, which, unbeknownst to them, were still active, defaulted. Virgin Media O2 says customers are informed by phone when they agree to the deal that two direct debits will be set up and must be cancelled separately.
Nonetheless, it has updated TM and CB’s credit file, cleared the debts and paid compensation. It blamed “agent error” in CB’s case and an incorrectly recorded email address for delaying TM’s cancellation.
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