Virgin Media Didn't Send Rights Info - Right to cancel?

twiga

I received an email from Virgin Media stating the they had never informed me of my rights after purchasing a service (See attached).

Key here is "you were not given all of the information that you needed to fully understand the rights and terms associated with the services you signed up to"

Is this grounds to be able to cancel my membership?


An RTE article from today seems to think so...


Virgin Media is obliged by law to provide its customers with a confirmation of their contract on a durable medium. Typically, this would be done by e-mail or hard copy in the post. This allows our customers to understand their rights and obligations associated with the services they have subscribed to.

During an investigation carried out by electronic communications regulator, ComReg, it was found by ComReg that in the period November 2015 - April 2016, 26,046 of our customers were not provided with such confirmations.

Unfortunately you are one of these customers. This means you were not given all of the information that you needed to fully understand the rights and terms associated with the services you signed up to. We unreservedly accept that this is a significant error on our part and should never have occurred.

This communication is being sent to you to rectify this error, please find below confirmation of your contract terms with Virgin Media and other relevant consumer information that you are legally entitled to.

You do not need to do anything however if you have any questions see virginmedia.ie/orderconfirmation. If you would like to discuss this further with a member of our dedicated team you can give us a call on 1908, the lines will be open 9-6, Monday to Friday.

Lux23

Yep, you should have 14 days to do so.

coylemj

I got that e-mail as well and found the wording to be completely bizarre. Here's the first two sentences again.....

Virgin Media is obliged by law to provide its customers with a confirmation of their contract on a durable medium. Typically, this would be done by e-mail or hard copy in the post

How can an e-mail be considered a 'durable' medium?

Unless I get my contract printed on laminated A4 sheets in a ring binder and delivered by courier in a carton padded with duck down feathers, I'm walking.

Winterlong

coylemj wrote: »

I got that e-mail as well and found the wording to be completely bizarre. Here's the first two sentences again.....

Virgin Media is obliged by law to provide its customers with a confirmation of their contract on a durable medium. Typically, this would be done by e-mail or hard copy in the post

How can an e-mail be considered a 'durable' medium?

Unless I get my contract printed on laminated A4 sheets in a ring binder and delivered by courier in a carton padded with duck down feathers, I'm walking.

I was wondering the same myself. But then I looked it up.

"Durable medium" is defined as “any instrument which enables the consumer to store information addressed personally to him in a way accessible for future reference for a period of time adequate for the purposes of the information and which allows the unchanged reproduction of the information stored”.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

coylemj wrote: »

I got that e-mail as well and found the wording to be completely bizarre. Here's the first two sentences again.....

Virgin Media is obliged by law to provide its customers with a confirmation of their contract on a durable medium. Typically, this would be done by e-mail or hard copy in the post

How can an e-mail be considered a 'durable' medium?

Unless I get my contract printed on laminated A4 sheets in a ring binder and delivered by courier in a carton padded with duck down feathers, I'm walking.

An Email is a perfectly durable medium. You may as well say a hardcopy can be torn up, bunted, thrown out etc.

coylemj

I see, so if a string of bits stored on magnetic disks at an unknown location is a 'durable medium', could someone give me an example of a medium which is not durable!

chillin117

If you are happy with the service why cancel it ? Are you just nitpicking for the sake of it ?

testicles

This post has been deleted.

Dodge

coylemj wrote: »

I see, so if a string of bits stored on magnetic disks at an unknown location is a 'durable medium', could someone give me an example of a medium which is not durable!

Web chat with their customer service team is an obvious one

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

coylemj wrote: »

I see, so if a string of bits stored on magnetic disks at an unknown location is a 'durable medium', could someone give me an example of a medium which is not durable!

You have the email to print or store as you wish. Word of mouth is not durable.

Penny Tration

Yes, you can cancel without penalty within 14 days. You now have a 14 day cooling off period, as confirmed by Virgin Media in their forum.

cml387

coylemj wrote: »

I see, so if a string of bits stored on magnetic disks at an unknown location is a 'durable medium', could someone give me an example of a medium which is not durable!

You are happy enough to accept that the money in your bank account is a string of bits stored on magnetic disks at an unknown location:D

Kings Inns or bust

A stupid regulation which only serves to help destroy the environment with papers no one will ever read, but if people needed to get out of a contract with Virgin for some reason happy days I suppose.

Penny Tration

Kings Inns or bust wrote: »

A stupid regulation which only serves to help destroy the environment with papers no one will ever read, but if people needed to get out of a contract with Virgin for some reason happy days I suppose.

Papers? They're allowed email the t&cs of the contract, they just didn't bother doing so. No need to destroy the environment, email is considered a durable format.

Kings Inns or bust

Penny Tration wrote: »

Papers? They're allowed email the t&cs of the contract, they just didn't bother doing so. No need to destroy the environment, email is considered a durable format.

Oh really - I wasn't ware of that. Could you point me in the direction of the source for that please?

EDIT: Sorry to put you to any trouble Penny - reading through the ESME's report now.

Kings Inns or bust

Khalid Salmon Coffee wrote: »

You have the email to print or store as you wish. Word of mouth is not durable.

What if it's recorded?

Penny Tration

Kings Inns or bust wrote: »

Oh really - I wasn't ware of that. Could you point me in the direction of the source for that please?

Post 3 or 4 in this thread, someone quoted it from a source.

Kings Inns or bust

Penny Tration wrote: »

Post 3 or 4 in this thread, someone quoted it from a source.

Just done some research there - it seems I'm not the only one confused. The issue is the actual directive delimits the two.

Communication of the contractual terms and conditions and of the prior information

1. The supplier shall communicate to the consumer all the contractual terms and conditions and the information referred to in Article 3(1) and Article 4 on paper or on another durable medium available and accessible to the consumer in good time before the consumer is bound by any distance contract or offer.

In an effort to move away from paper it seems the local law in Ireland and other jurisdictions has attempted to stretch the definition and avoid the paper requirement:

S.I. No. 853/2004 - European Communities (Distance Marketing of Consumer Financial Services) Regulations 2004


“durable medium” means any thing in which information is stored, or that enables information to be stored, in a way that—

(a) allows future access to the information for such time as is adequate for the purposes for which the information is to be used, and

(b) enables the information to be reproduced in an unchanged form, but does not include an Internet website unless it would otherwise be a durable medium as defined in this definition;

It seems that the European Securities Markets Expert Group are of the opinion that none of this is incompatible but that there must be an option for paper if the customer so requests it.

I return therefore to it being a stupid directive which wastes paper. Albeit with one that has received some sensible, but unfortunately not completely effective tweaking.

I suppose one must consider people that don't have email.

EDIT: Sorry to avoid confusion another directive (along with the DMD) looked at by ESME and the two compared etc. Sorry to throw anyone off with that and not saying it at the start of this post.

amtc

You do know that they got fined 255k by ComReg for this...

Kings Inns or bust

amtc wrote: »

You do know that they got fined 255k by ComReg for this...

Drop in the ocean for them though.