Virgin Media’s UK Customers Plagued by Phantom Netflix Bills
Some existing and former customers of TV, phone and broadband provider Virgin Media (VMO2) are complaining that the ISP is continuing to hit them with wrongful Netflix subscription charges, which is despite those impacted having either never taken the service or cancelling it months ago. The problem has gone unresolved for months.
The situation, which appears to have been going on since earlier this year and possibly longer, first came to our attention last week after a number of the provider’s customers reported problems to ISPreview regarding phantom Netflix bills.
The customers complained that they were being billed £15.99 per month by Virgin Media for a Netflix service they didn’t have (even on some accounts that don’t have TV services), which they then had to constantly get the ISP to correct – every single month. Meanwhile, others say they started getting billed for Netflix months after they’d cancelled the service.
At this point we decided to check if we could find any other complaints online and, needless to say, it wasn’t too difficult as they’re spread across social media and Virgin Media’s own Community Forum (examples here, here, here, here and here etc.). We’ve pasted below some extracts from a few of the complaints ISPreview received directly last week:
Example Complaint 1:
“I have been a Virgin Customer for years when it was taken over from NTL in fact! I have to call Virgin every single month that has been for the the last 8months as I am being billed for £15.99 Netflix every month that I don’t have. My bill should be £83 but now it can be anything from £106 and upwards. Nobody answers the phone or is capable of correcting the issue.”
Example Complaint 2:
“I started getting billed for Netflix from Virgin 3 months after I left them! Had to ring up and wait on hold for ages to get them to cancel bill. They insisted I had signed up to Netflix from their TV box in the 3 months after the service had been cancelled – how that is possible I don’t know.”
Example Complaint 3:
“I have had the very same problem since March 2023 after they issued me a 360 controller since then I have been charged £15.99 every month for Netflix. I call them every month they promised they have sorted it but they still charge me the following month, this month they gave me another refund of £147 to cover the over charging for Netflix.”
Part of the problem may stem from the fact that Virgin Media are acting as somewhat of a middle man (i.e. limited oversight of Netflix itself) and normally just give customers the option to add the service to their bills. Clearly, something is going wrong at one or both ends of that agreement for some customers. However, other customers have continued to be billed correctly, so it’s certainly not impacting everybody.
Nevertheless, Virgin Media is still the one responsible for taking the payments, and thus ensuring they get it right should be paramount.
A Virgin Media spokesperson told ISPreview:
“We apologise to the small number of customers who have experienced an issue with their bill. Our team is working hard to resolve this issue and care agents are on hand to support customers.”
Sadly, the operator could not say when the problem will be resolved, although we understand from sources within the operator’s staff that it’s a known frustration for them too. In the meantime, customers will have to just keep raising the issue with Virgin Media’s support staff in the hope that, eventually, they may be able to implement a more permanent solution.
The other concern here is with respect to those customers who might be suffering from this without even realising (so far we’ve only heard from those that spotted it), since we know that many consumers don’t keep a close enough eye on their bank accounts and regular bills. We’d advise anybody with a Virgin Media account to just do a quick check to see if you’re being correctly billed.
Finally, Ofcom don’t investigate individual complaints, but they aren’t particularly fond of providers that suffer persistent billing errors either, thus it’s sometimes worth reporting such issues to the regulator directly (here).
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Personally I find unless it comes free or heavily discounted with a package I find its better to deal directly with the service. For example I can get a better deal with Now TV going direct rather than going via BT TV.
Mark, the image choice for this article is quite something.
Yes.. yes it is :). I think it’s fair to say that AI image generation still has its limitations.
I’ve been having the opposite problem with Virgin Media. I’ve been trying to add Netflix for months but after about a week the connection fails and Netflix gets cancelled without any payment being taken.
MaybeNetflix and Virgin using different indexes to the database? One using 0 based index the other 1 based. Every time you add Netflix “J Patterson” gets billed and has to get it cancelled!!! 🙂
If you’re trying to do it through virgin media you could always go direct to Netflix and setup an account directly.
A more appropriate banner in the image would surely have been “Notflix”.
Whilst from technical perspective I’ve been very happy with their services; correct billing is another matter. In August without my knowledge they added a £10 (ish?) HomeWorks service to my package. I know now what this is. Had no idea what it was at the time. Did not request it. They removed it AND including all three contractual discounts granted to me at the time of signing (18 month contract, still 4 months left). Now every month I get an email how much I am going to be charged and every month I have to call to reinstate the owned discounts and to correct the bill. If I don’t call every month, wait 40 minutes and request bill to be corrected, they will overcharge me.
Every time they say the next bill will be correct.
It is a loosing game. There is literally nothing apart from leaving in March’24 left for me to do.
I’ve been with virgin for years and although had many problems still stick with them. I’m currently having the opposite issue of this where virgin keeps cancelling our netflix subscription instead of taking the payment. Everytime I’ve been in contact with them I am just told to sign up again
I have had this issue vm and Netflix since July rang multiple times put a complaint I and still getting charged for services I don’t recieve
Any advice to sort would be appreciated
Anyone who is charged an incorrect direct debit can get their bank to refund it. No need to go to the supplier who made the mistake.
I tried once as per the DD guarantee (not in relation to VM) and Barclays refused it saying that this is not how DD works and I should be dealing with the supplier. That they did not have the power to claw back any money as far as DD is concerned. So I gave up
That was Barclays fobbing you off and avoiding their responsibility. Ask for their complaints procedure or threaten them with the ombudsman
So theyve set this up like the ‘charge to mobile’ / ‘payforit’ direct to mobile billing system. What could go wrong? lol
I have had this problem with Virgi n Media since 10th February when I noticed my b1ll had increased b £15.99 and tried to cancel this amount which I found out was for Netflix. I already pay Netflix via PayPal. Every month I have to phone VM to try and correct my bill which they tell me has been generated and will be corrected by the next bill.Never happens even though I have kept every email including the breakdown of my contract for £64 but this month’s bill is £103 this includes £15.99 and money I seemingly owe .It’s really frustrating and always told it will be corrected by next bill. I have tried to cancel this contract but need to pay £400 to leave this contract. Who do I need to contact to resolve these overpayment every month?
What a waste of money Netflix is just bittorent everything for £0 a month. At least with piracy you actually own the copy of digital media.
I’ve had this issue for months each month on the phone for hours never being called back when they promise they will then they say it’s sorted then same thing happens again awful company Virginmedia no one nos what they are doin made complaint they said but there fault but clearly is shocking
I had the same problem. My wife clicked the wrong button and joined our netflix and virgin subscription. We couldn’t get on it. Neither virgin or netflix could help us. After a few months and countless hours on the phone netflix managed to cancel it and I started up a new account. Virgin only gave us 2 months of money off. Not great
I had this problem from 8Feb 23, being charged for Netflix, I was sick of ringing VM every month. Problem was resolved via The Ombudsman, the service was amazing, professional quick. You all need to contact The Ombudsman as VM know it’s due to an anomaly in the system. I have 16 A4 pages of complaints over 8 months and I’ve never spoken to the same person twice.
Contact The Ombudsman
The correct sanction for Ofcom to apply for persistent failure to bill correctly would be
( to declare all contractual lock in dates to be no longer in force (i.e. all customers can leave with usual rolling notice period),
* disallow any future lockin dates on current contracts forever, and preventing other changes to T&C on current contracts (i.e same amount per month for same speed/directly provided services/max usages)
* and also to disallow any future contractual lock in dates from being applied until provider can prove they can bill accurately and provide a service with improved reliability countrywide, with a minimum period before lockin ca be applied to new contracts of 12 months.
And since VMo2 coves mobile as well from a single customer account, the sanctions would apply to o2 bills also, if the customer has a linked Vm account.
That would make VMo2 wake up, lots of people leaving, and also taking a chunk of profitability away from customers who choose to stay.