Virgin Media has been fined £28m after call centre agents deliberately hung up on customers trying to cancel their contracts, Ofcom said. The communications regulator uncovered a catalogue of tactics over nearly three years, including excessive transfers, unnecessary holds and repeated pressure to stay – all designed to prevent or delay customers from switching to a better broadband, landline or pay-TV deal.
Ofcom said millions of calls were “likely mishandled” between 1 January 2022 and 11 September 2024. Agents were financially rewarded for the behaviour through a commission scheme that “effectively encouraged” them to block cancellations. “The facts are clear,” said Natalie Black, Ofcom’s group director for infrastructure and connectivity. “Virgin Media made it harder for customers to cancel their contracts and then did not fully cooperate with our investigation.”
“Virgin Media fined £28m after Ofcom found agents hung up on customers trying to cancel contracts.”
Virgin Media admitted its failings and agreed to settle, which reduced the penalty by 30%. It apologised to “the small proportion who experienced an issue when contacting us to agree a new deal or cancel their service in the past”. The company said it had “resolved all formal customer complaints from this period providing redress where appropriate”.
Among those affected was Anthony, a 58-year-old from Brighton who had been a Virgin customer for a decade. He tried to cancel his TV package last August, just before renewal, because he felt prices “were going up astronomically for the last three or four years”. When he phoned, he said the call was…
Ofcom said Virgin Media must now check every affected customer who complained has received compensation or other remedies within six months. Black told the BBC’s Today programme that the company’s actions were “pretty shocking” and showed “poor behaviour”, adding: “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.”
The regulator’s rules state that conditions or procedures telecoms providers have in place “must not act as a disincentive for customers who wish to cancel their contract”. Virgin Media’s failings likely acted as such a disincentive in millions of calls. What remains unclear is how many customers were ultimately deterred from switching – and whether the fine will prompt a lasting change in behaviour.