Virgin Media has been fined £28m after Ofcom found agents deliberately hung up on customers trying to cancel their contracts, putting them on hold “for no reason” and repeatedly pressuring them to stay.
The communications regulator said millions of calls were “likely mishandled” over nearly three years – from January 2022 to September 2024 – in a campaign that prevented or delayed customers from switching to a better broadband, landline or pay-TV deal. The penalty was reduced by 30% because Virgin Media admitted its failings and agreed to settle.
“Virgin Media fined £28m for deliberately hanging up on customers trying to cancel contracts, Ofcom found.”
Ofcom’s investigation uncovered a pattern of behaviour: excessive and unnecessary call transfers, deliberately ending calls, repeated attempts to pressure customers to stay, and unnecessarily keeping them on hold. The regulator found that Virgin Media’s commission scheme “effectively encouraged” and financially rewarded call centre agents for behaving in this way.
Virgin Media apologised to the “small proportion who experienced an issue when contacting us to agree a new deal or cancel their service in the past”. It said it had resolved all formal customer complaints from the period, providing redress where appropriate.
But Ofcom’s group director for infrastructure and connectivity, Natalie Black, said the company’s actions were “pretty shocking” and showed “poor behaviour”. Speaking to the BBC’s Today programme, she added: “Right at the beginning of this problem, a number of years ago in 2022, we tried to resolve this informally. There wasn’t the will to do that.” In a statement, she said: “The facts are clear. Virgin Media made it harder for customers to cancel their contracts and then did not fully cooperate with our investigation.”
Anthony, a 58-year-old from Brighton, tried to cancel his TV package with Virgin last August, just before it was up for renewal. A customer for a decade, he said the company’s prices “were going up astronomically for the last three or four years”. When he phoned, he said the call was…
Ofcom has ordered Virgin Media to check every affected customer who complained has received compensation or other remedies within six months. The regulator’s rules state that “the conditions or procedures telecoms providers have in place must not act as a disincentive for customers who wish to cancel their contract” – and Virgin Media’s failings likely acted as such a disincentive in millions of calls.
The fine sends a clear signal to the telecoms industry that obstructing customers from switching will not be tolerated, though Ofcom noted Virgin Media’s cooperation in settling reduced the penalty by a third.