Text of an email I sent to the CEO of Virginmedia. Thank goodness the latest version of Word has voice recognition software…

Dear Mr Schuler,

I have a question for you. Do you want your company to be considered a market leader in provision of broadband and cable television? Is it your vision to be thought of as an organisation that is considerate to its customers, agile in its handling of complaints, and empowering of its employees?

Alternatively, are you content that Virgin Media is thought of as the kind of company that is completely unresponsive, unhelpful to the point of exploitative, and interested only in profit?

As you may have gathered by now, my view is that your company currently matches the second description, not the first. If you’re interested enough find out why, please read on.

When we first became Virgin Media customers is now lost in the mists of time. We used to live at [an address in Glenrothes]: you should be able to check that in your records, because in one of my many unsatisfactory telephone conversations with your staff, it was clear that you still retained that data some five years after we left that property. That was actually helpful in establishing the length of my tenure (or bondage if you prefer) with your company, although I suspect for data protection purposes you should have deleted it by now.  That is of course a matter for you.

Let’s say, however, that Virgin Media took over that contract from the previous provider in around 2005. That would make us your customers for over 20 years. It may be more than that.

In 2016, we took over the flat at [an address in Edinburgh], so that our daughter and her friend could occupy it as students. At that stage, as part of the renovation of the property, we installed Virgin Media cable and television. To be clear, therefore, we were between 2016 and 2021 your loyal customers for more than one property.

Time moves on. In 2021, my wife and I sold our house in Glenrothes, took over the flat from our daughter and continued to use your services until recently. The contract, incidentally, remained and remains in our daughter’s name because your company makes it infernally difficult to transfer the contract, even within families. We then had the chance to move house, and, utterly sick of the ridiculous rates that your company charged, often for services such as a telephone landline which did not actually exist, we decided to part company with Virginmedia and to terminate our existing contract.

At that stage, we were informed that the contract was subject to an early termination fee. That had no doubt been made clear to us when we last complained about the ridiculous level of charges and managed to ‘negotiate’ them down to a still ridiculous level last year. The only other option would have been to transfer the contract to our new property. As explained above, that was not something we were prepared to do.

However, we did not at that stage read your contract in detail. Of course we didn’t. Who does? What would have been the point? Were the terms open to negotiation? If we had, we might have been able to calculate the quantum of that early termination fee, which amounts to over £600.

At that stage, I contacted your online assistant, and was told that there was no room for any negotiation on the fee. We had signed the contract, and now we were due to pay the penalty charges. In fairness, the many telephone calls I have had with your staff have consistently given me this message. Some of them have been more helpful than others, and I would like to commend, in particular, Casey Jo, Derek, and Siraj, of the initial department that one is allowed to speak to, and Mary of your complaints department .

I had planned to give you a long narrative of the various phone calls and fruitless conversations I have had. However, I will spare both you and me a litany of complaints. Suffice to say that I have been consistently unable to receive any assistance whatsoever from anyone in your company.

I’m now at ‘deadlock’ with you, although I am awaiting a formal letter to that effect from your deadlock department: yes, yet another department . In the meantime, your payments department advise that they have to continue to pursue me with threatening emails, even though they can see we are in the process of trying to resolve the complaint, by negotiating a reduced amount. They cannot even change the email address they send the threatening emails to on my say so.

None of these four departments has been empowered to negotiate the level of payment at all. That is notwithstanding my long tenure as one of your customers; my years of paying more than I should have had to pay for your frequently inadequate services, and the sheer practicality of reaching an agreement which would be financially beneficial not just to me but also to you .

I say this without any rancour, but if necessary I intend to take this matter to court. I am a retired lawyer . I wish I had more time in my hands to pursue this as vigorously as I would like, but if I cannot get any satisfaction from you that appears to be the only solace I have, beyond an attempt to resolve matters through CISAS, the arbitration service. Even the issue of being able to speak to CISAS seems to me frankly byzantine, but again let’s leave that for the moment .

I’m writing to you as a last-ditch attempt to achieve some form of negotiated settlement to what, ultimately, would be a small claim in the Sheriff Court here. To take it as far as court action would be nonsensical from your company’s point of view. As I have said, I would take some pleasure, although not much, from defending it to the hilt, meantime broadcasting the whole sorry story across as many forms of social media as I feel inclined to sign up to. I’ve put this email up on my blog, incidentally, and would be happy to put your response there too if you choose to reply.

Here is my alternative suggestion. To show some good faith, and to convince me and the rest of the world of your intentions to be that company I set out in the first paragraph of this e-mail, rather than the second, I would ask you to get in touch with Casey Jo, of the initial department I spoke to, empower her to reach a negotiated settlement with me, and confirm to me that you have done so. Casey Jo, of the several employees I have dealt with so far, is a shining example of someone trying to help in the face of every company policy that tells her to be unhelpful.

The principal difficulty I have had throughout this sorry story is dealing with perfectly well-intentioned people who have absolutely no discretion whatsoever in their jobs . that must make what must be pretty dissatisfying jobs anyway incredibly unsatisfactory for them. I wonder what your staff turnover is?

I could go on about the difficulties of being able to access a human being to speak to in your company, but I suspect such a complaint would fall on deaf ears as, like any chief executive, you will be looking to trim costs by losing human beings as part of your company structure. I understand that that is the way of the world today.

However, to borrow a phrase, I have a dream. My dream is that Virgin Media might be the company that wanted to make a difference, and have a caring customer complaints department who actually have discretion to resolve matters rather than simply stick to a party line that they have no discretion but to charge me the full amount.

Thank you for reading this far, Mr Schuler. I would be grateful for some sort of reply, even if only to say that you, as Chief Executive Officer, have no discretion in the matter and must charge me the full amount. That would at least make me laugh.

Yours Sincerely

Andrew Ferguson