Ofcom Hit Virgin Media UK with £28m Fine for Preventing Contract Cancellations UPDATE
Broadband, phone and TV provider Virgin Media (O2) has today been fined £28 million by Ofcom after the UK telecoms regulator found that they had made it difficult for customers to cancel their contracts. Millions of customer calls were said to have been “deliberately mishandled, creating unnecessary barriers to switching or cancelling“.
Readers with long memories might recall that this investigation started all the way back in 2023 (here), after some customers who tried to leave said Virgin Media had made it difficult. Some struggled to get through to an agent on the phone, while others found their call was dropped mid-way through or were put on hold for long periods. And many said they had to make lengthy and repeated requests to cancel, as their initial request was not actioned.
At the time Ofcom warned that such an approach could conflict with their rules (e.g. General Conditions C1.8 and C4), which clearly 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“.
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The regulator’s investigation was also setup to examine whether the ISP had failed to meet their requirements on complaints handling, such as whether customers were appropriately informed of their right to escalate their complaint to an independent ombudsman (Alternative Dispute Resolution – ADR – provider, such as Ombudsman Services or CISAS).
Ofcom’s Verdict
The regulator said they had received “significant volumes of complaints” (1,881) over the issue and that their investigation uncovered “systemic and repeated failings” in Virgin Media’s contract termination procedures. Millions of calls made by customers between 1st January 2022 to 11th September 2024 were “likely to have been mishandled by call agents in order to delay or prevent customers from cancelling and switching to a competitor“. This was just before Ofcom’s new One Touch Switching (OTS) process was introduced for broadband and phone migrations.
Ofcoms Full Statement
We opened our investigation following significant numbers of complaints from Virgin Media customers about difficulties cancelling in calls with agents. As a result of our investigation, we have found that during the Relevant Period Virgin Media had in place procedures for contract termination which likely acted as a disincentive to switch for customers on millions of calls by delaying or preventing them from taking advantage of a competitor’s offer. Specifically:
Under Virgin Media’s procedures, callers who wanted to cancel were put through to its retention team, which it split into two ‘tiers’ of agents. Only agents in the second tier were able to process cancellations. This meant that callers who were initially put through to an agent in the first tier would then need to repeat their request to cancel in another similar conversation with an agent in the second tier, in order to stand a chance of having their cancellation processed.
Virgin Media’s internal processes or procedures involved or resulted in agents engaging in the following behaviours:
a. repeated attempts to try to retain customers including by offering deals and discounts, when they had made it clear they wanted to cancel.
b. unnecessary and/or excessive transfers to agents in departments outside of the retention team.
c. excessive and/or repeated use of hold (in each case, where it was not necessary and/or used to delay or avoid a disconnection).
d. deliberately dropping calls.
e. failures to put through cancellations on the system.
We found that Virgin Media’s procedures allowed and encouraged these agent behaviours by having:
➤ a commission scheme which effectively encouraged and financially rewarded agents for preventing customers from switching by using the above behaviours, only reducing payouts in limited circumstances;
➤ training and guidance which failed to prevent the above behaviours, including by not setting clear behavioural expectations or instructing against the use of these behaviours in mandatory training;
➤ quality assurance and monitoring processes which were highly selective and narrow in their approach such that the above behaviours were often overlooked. Even where these behaviours were identified, follow-up action was often very limited; and
➤ insufficient control, visibility and/or oversight over the third-party partners it used to operate its call centre and quality assurance monitoring functions.
We consider this to be a serious breach of our rules, resulting in customers suffering harm as a result of being disincentivised from switching. This harm took a number of forms, including financial loss, inconvenience, frustration, and increased stress and/or anxiety. Taking account of all relevant factors, we are imposing a financial penalty of £28 million on Virgin Media. This penalty was set having regard to our Penalty Guidelines and includes a 30% discount as a result of Virgin Media’s admission of liability and its completion of Ofcom’s settlement process
As if to make matters worse, Ofcom took into account the fact that Virgin Media had “[repeatedly failed] to act to identify and prevent the harm” and that it had also repeatedly failed to comply with their information gathering process during the investigation. Not to mention that Virgin had been fined previously for a breach of the same rule in 2018.
Natalie Black, Ofcom’s Group Director, Infrastructure and Connectivity, 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. As a result, we are levelling our largest ever fine under our consumer protection rules for direct harm to consumers.
Today, we are sending a clear message that any provider who wilfully acts against the interests of their customers will pay a heavy price. And by introducing the One Touch Switch Process, we‘ve put in place further safeguards to prevent this from happening again.”
Ofcom’s financial penalty is said to include a 30% reduction after Virgin Media “admitted its failing and agreed to settle the case“. The regulator highlights that Virgin Media has made a number of important changes since the issues, including to improve its commission scheme, training and quality assurance and monitoring. In 2025, complaints to Ofcom relating to ‘difficulties leaving’ fell by 89% compared with 2023.
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However, as part of their decision, Ofcom are now requiring Virgin Media to check that every affected customer who complained has received the compensation or other remedies they were entitled to. The company must complete this in six months. The operator must pay the £28m fine within two months of this decision, and as usual it will then be passed on to HM Treasury.
Finally, in terms of the complaints handling (ADR) side of this investigation, Ofcom opted to engage Virgin Media separately over those aspects and this engagement is said to have secured a number of improvements, “including to ensure appropriate recording of and closure of complaints, and ensure vulnerable customers who make complaints are treated fairly“.
UPDATE 8:33am
Virgin Media has responded to today’s decision and highlighted how the investigation relates to historic failings that have since been addressed. The operator added that all formal complaints from his period have been resolved, and their customer service is in a very different place today.
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The operator also noted how Ofcom’s findings referenced millions of calls where customers “likely” experienced difficulties when trying to cancel. But they highlight how this is an extrapolation largely based on 649 core complaints, while many of these millions of customers may have simply been looking to discuss a new deal etc.
A Virgin Media spokesperson said:
“We’re committed to giving all our customers great service and apologise to the small proportion who experienced an issue when contacting us to agree a new deal or cancel their service in the past.
We have completely redesigned our customer services in recent years, addressing the historic shortfalls identified by Ofcom through a number of improvements, and have resolved all formal customer complaints from this period providing redress where appropriate.
Our customer service turnaround strategy, underpinned by significant investment, has been transformational. Ofcom’s latest data shows that Virgin Media is now the least-complained-about broadband provider with complaints at record lows, and complaints specifically relating to ‘difficulties leaving’ were 89% lower last year than in 2023.
With One Touch Switch now in operation across the industry, and a wide range of competitive deals and services available, it’s never been easier for customers to choose the right package for them.”
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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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A lot of this type of thing would be fixed by amending consumer law to mandate that every sign-up flow must have an equivalent for cancellation. So if you can sign up for a service online in five minutes it should be cancellable in that online portal, if you can take a phone contract out in a store then you should be able to go back into that store and cancel etc.
Totally agree. If you sign up online you should be able to cancel online. This is the same with Sky. If you can take movies out online why to do i have to phone to cancel?
Netflix, Disney and Apple TV all allow you to do this so quickly no wonder everyone has moved over to their services.
Unfortunately with respect to broadband, the ship has sailed. The DMCC Act will mean that by spring 2027 we will have one-click cancellation for many subscription services. But unfortunately telecoms are excluded from this legislation.
But that doesn’t stop OFCOM doing something on their own. Just needs a regulatory change.
I experienced this first hand and was passed around for an hour and a half until my contract was cancelled. I was clear from the outset I wanted to leave and it was not a negotiating tactic to reduce my bill. This is shocking but sadly unsurprising news.
Did you try cancelling by post? In my mind that’s the easiest way to deal with these sorts of things – it costs a few pounds but well worth it to save time!
Totally deserved.
A few years ago we phoned up to cancel and it was a nightmare. We were passed from pillar to post between departments. Each time they totally refused to acknowledge the cancellation request. The process was designed to wear you down. Eventually we conceded to a final offer and stayed.
One Touch Switch changed things. After that was introduced, we didn’t even bother contacting Virgin Media. We just let our new ISP handle the whole thing, which went flawlessly.
I still don’t believe their customer service is in a better place by the way; their 2025 customer service was just as appalling as it has been in previous years.
I didn’t have any issues cancelling VM towards the end of 2024. I was a bit surprised as I’d psyched myself up for a battle lol. Ofcom should take a look at Sky TV cancellations they were an absolute nightmare and I will never go back to the main Sky brand because of it. At least NOW TV is good and easy to cancel.
Sky absolutely needs looking into – going through it with my parents and Sky Ireland now….they do not clearly explain on calls that changes = contract renewal / extension for another 12 months and all these random discounts ending on different days/months make it difficult to unpick.
Geared up to fight with Sky UK come November for my MIL – broadband + Stream.
Also – https://www.independent.ie/business/irish-business/sky-pays-fine-of-250000-to-comreg-for-making-it-difficult-for-customers-to-cancel-their-contracts/a/158427617.html
I think in general this is a problem. I have an issue with needing to actually phone or communicate in some form to cancel. I don’t know why everyone can’t have a system in place where you request to cancel using an online form much like 1p Mobile, and that’s it.
I admit they don’t want to lose you, but it’s a test of your patience as they want to know why, who you are changing to, and how they may be able to match the price if you stay with them. Just let me leave!
It’s a detrament overall because if they make the process difficult, you are unlikely to go back or recommend them to anyone else.
We moved from virgin media to another broadband provider and on one instance we managed to cancel within 30 minutes.
On another instance where we was helping a family member cancel it took 1hr or so to process. Passed from pillar to post and around the wrekin.
Good thing one touch switch is now active.
Do you think they should take a look at SKY now! They seem to have similar policy of never loose a customer!
We had one call handler at Virgin Media who said he was at risk of losing his job if we didn’t stay and sounded like he was about to start crying. What a despicable company.
To be honest, and not defending VM, but all VM calls centres are out sourced and this is what caused he issue in the first place.
Serves them right for outsourcing the CS to that awful company Accentra who doesn’t even give sick pay. Hope they lose the contract and take it back in-house.
I find it astonishing that OFCOM have caught VM at it before, and VM initially obstructed the investigation. Yet they get a 30% discount on the fine, which is already quite low.
And then VM defend themselves by saying that the numbers are extrapolated from the number of core complaints. However, one would expect the real numbers to therefore be even higher not lower given that many people don’t complain about a poor experience.
The fine should be put towards funding high speed broadband rollout in difficult areas and/or 4G/5G multi network coverage improvements in “not spots” (shared transmitters)
I too would like to see a cancel option in our VM online account, even if that comes with a warning message that says, cancelling today will with xx months remaining on your contract will incur a £xxx.xx early termination feel.
For some time it has appeared processing a customer instruction that lowers the monthly fees or terminates the service appears to be a sacking offence at VM.
It took me near three hours to cancel my contract, it was a terrible experience. I don’t understand why their apps and this goes for any provider you have signed up with whatever it maybe why you can’t just submit your notice on the app.
They want you to download it for everything else except when you want to leave. I appreciate they probably want to entice you to stay with Virgin it wasn’t even that they wanted to wear you down lol so you’d give up.
Simply put there should be a cancellation route on the app and with advancements in AI they should be able to offer you extra to stay if that’s still not what you want then let them leave. You can always call after the cancellation and offer something better.
One thing i really disliked as a former VM customer was disconnecting. They would keep you on the phone for hours, telling you that your new ISP “can’t guarantee speed, but VM can”. or that they have this or that special offer. Now ok, retention is one thing and is fine but you would be kept on the call for hours and have to tell the operator multiple times no deals, just disconnect the service. This absolutely had to have been approved company policy because they would always do it no matter who you spoke to.
I had exactly the same experience, a manager rang me my new ISP Internet delivery is unreliable. When I mentioned that it was full FTTP he had no answer. Then the bs continued, your new deal from us is 1 gig down and 200 mbit up for “only” £63. Told them I am getting 1 gig symmetrical and full fttp with an ont, he said you will be paying $83 in a years time. Luckily I have my own domain and use Yahoo mail for general emails. So no longer reliant on any ISP email service. Their indian CS and tech, are beyond a joke.
They made my life hell when I tried to cancel a few years ago. I spoke to 8 (Yes 8) Different advisors before eventually the request was granted. Every exxcuse under the sun was given to me systems we’re down phone back in 72 hours (which was a blatant lie) tried to offer me a incentive to stay I refused (and this was all UK advisors too)
Everyone else is saying 28bn! I am glad they got it wrong.
I might be one of the few to say Virgin Media have been very good IMHO,last January this year 2026 I called to say if I upgraded my speed could I add TNT Sports to our package at first they said no as it would be £30 a month cancel anytime for TNT! alone I thought no too much we already have Sky Sports And Movies, Netflix standard I was put on hold for about 5 mins or so the lady said they would included TNT
Sports if I agreed to re contract I said yes I would yes I know it’s a two year contract not too happy about that but there you, The discount we got was IMHO very good the lady said she would call back the next day to see if everything was ok as they had to do an update software so TNT Sports would come through
all was ok within a few hours all working fine, the same lady from India I’m sure did call back the next day to see if everything was working I said yes fine. I can understand people can get frustrated hanging on the phone for a long time, I have worked in customer relations in the past so I guess I can sort of sweet talk to get what you want.
Ofcom is trying to extort $1million from American platform 4chan even though they do not operate in the UK
Ofcom needs disbanding. It is not fit for purpose
Ridiculous what-aboutery. 4chan is accessible in the UK therefore they have to abide by UK law. If they don’t like it they can implement geo-blocking
Can’t blame Ofcom for doing what they’ve been mandated to do by Parliament. The fact it’s a badly flawed piece of legislation is not their fault.
” 4chan is accessible in the UK therefore they have to abide by UK law ”
no this is the ridiculous statement. whicch could be re-written as “UK has complete total sovereignty over all websites on the internet by the simple virtue of the fact you can access it from the UK”.
grow up. OFCOM are way out of their depth here, which is why their pathetic attempts at extortion have gone unresolved.
Ridiculous is them thinking they have the power to rob money from foreign companies
At some point they had geoblocking but ofcom still went ahead with the fine so it just proved ofcom does not care about compliance, they care about being thieves
Companies need to start growing some balls because this slippery slope will only go towards making it completely unprofitable and unsafe to operate in communist countries
Preston Byrne’s response on this is brilliant
“Hi, I’m their lawyer. It will be a cold day in Hell before my client pays that fine. Ofcom won’t be collecting it unless they’re prepared to land ground troops in America, overthrow our government, and rescind our constitutional order by force.
Hope that helps!”
Companies that don’t have UK offices should all go the same route. The only way to apply censorship in one country is to apply it for everyone which will eventually render the internet mostly useless so it needs to stop
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but 4chan is an American company. 4chan servers, as I understand it, are hosted in America.
You don’t get to create a law in your country, and expect it to apply in other countries just because you have the capability of accessing their servers.
To put it into perspective, this is a bit like some random country sending you an official government letter telling you that you broke one of their laws which says you’re not allowed to walk on the cracks in the pavement and demanding you pay a $1,000 fine.
Since you don’t live in their country, and have never been there, you have no reason to care about their cracks in the pavement law and their “fine” is nothing more than toilet paper.
Gosh….
A lot of the commenters have never heard of Universal Jurisdiction….
Others haven’t heard of contract being formed in the jurisdiction of licensing…..
Others haven’t heard of contract being formed in the jurisdiction of payment…..
Worth flagging for anyone reading this: the CMA is currently running a Phase 2 investigation into Virgin Media O2’s parent companies acquiring Substantial (Netomnia/YouFibre/Brsk) — the case page is on gov.uk under “nexfibre/Substantial merger inquiry.” They’re taking submissions from anyone affected, and the current window (responding to their “Areas of focus” document) closes 5pm Monday 20th July 2026.
I’ve submitted my own experience — a billing dispute and complaint-handling failures with Virgin Media that ended up independently upheld by two separate adjudicators. This latest £28m Ofcom fine is one more data point in a pattern, and if you’ve had genuine experience relevant to Virgin Media’s conduct or to competition in your area, it’s worth telling the CMA directly rather than just venting in comments — email [email protected]. Doesn’t need to be lengthy or formal, just your actual experience.
Good shout, I’ve sent an email to the address you’ve provided with my first hand experience plus also noting VMO2 lost a load of customers from mid contract price hikes at the end of last year. I hope the CMA look properly at this.
I’m glad this has happenedto Virgin Media. They rolled out Nextfibre infrastructure at a similar time that openreach FTTP was bring rolled out in my area.
I took nextfibre with the 1gb/1gb package and it was fab, super low latency and above 1gb bandwidth.
Then 18 months came and my contract was up for renewal. Online chat was a joke, to condense it all the best I got was; ‘I’ve got a really good offer for you, £60 a month’. Whilst I was only paying £43 by the end of it I didn’t see it jumping up to £60 a month being a good offer, knowing that new customers were getting it for less than £30.
I tried a few times on the online chat and by the time the retentions team reached out, with two days left on my contract I’d already signed up to EE for £25.
A few weeks alter, someone from VM came knocking on my door asking who I am with and I told them they were 2 weeks too late. They said if we don’t get on with EE, they’d be able to get me the best deal.
The funny thing is, I was willing to pay more as I wanted to upgrade to the 2gb / 2gb service. The customer service at the end of the contract though has left a sour taste in my mouth. I’m lucky to have FTTP available, so VM and their new Next fibre rollout can do one. I’ve also informed all my neighbors of the bad experience and told them not to bother either!
This fine is a piece of piss for VM to pay because they will use it to increase bills next April anyway. They will be fined for the same reason in a few years time like they last did in 2018. If only they seriously make relevant directors threaten to be disqualified, bonus ban (like water companies even though they’ve loopholed that well already) or even community service (in streets of Hampstead, not Cayman Islands!). Just a thought as made up fines amount never immediately make the company improve ethics and morals nowadays.
It’s considerably more than the £17 million they fined BT for the 999 service failure and lives were at risk then. A moratorium on signing new customers may have been more appropriate.
Why is anyone surprised?
All BigCo systems are cynically designed.
One major issue is the exemption from postal instructions: although this is dubious wrt HMCTS as they cling to the belief that postage is effective service.
True, but VM seem particularly egregious in their practices.
That is one hell of a fine. I agree that people should be able to cancel easily and should not have to phone. Even trying to stop some services online is a pain, amazon for a start with the music and audible service, but I think they are better now.
@Big Dave, the 999 service could certainly be better, trying to tell them where you are can be hit and miss as they don’t know the city.
Sky are even worse always Indian call centers always abusing me forcing me into things I don’t want and If I say no they get angry and huff luckily after 8 times I finally got an English person to help upgrade me nightmare once contract is up im Definitely leaving it’s only because they gave me a really good deal for the hassle I’ve had plus 10 pound credit
I have a voice recording of my experience with virgin media.
Not a pleasant one, finally got shot, not without a huge amount of stress.
I cancelled my VM about 5 years ago and it was lots of waiting in phone queues – the usual crap customer service experience.
I foolishly didn’t cancel my direct debit and they billed me for another month after my contract was finished.
I then had to phone them to query it and they said not to worry it was standard procedure at the end of the contract and I would get a cheque in the post. I got it 6 weeks later. The amount was for the extra month that they took for no reason and another half a month because of when the contract had originally finished.
Totally nonsense – Hi tech company can refund money via you bank account that they took the money out of in the first place.
Makes me laugh the VN response saying that they have stopped these practices, when in reality they are still doing it now.
Nexfibre rollout happened in our area right on Black Friday deals back in November 2024. We originally signed up for their basic 1Gb service, but didn’t sign up for the symmetrical bolt on initially. It was a major palaver to get the symmetrical upload speed added.
The 18 month contract came to an end a few months ago in May 2026 and we went through all the things they’ve just been fined for to try and negotiate a sensible deal to stay.
We ensured 3 attempts to renegotiate a price similar to what we had been paying, not nearly double which is what they tried to charge initially.
In the end I did manage to cancel because I was fed up with their practices.
Surprise surprise, the next day, someone from VM called me and offered a cheaper deal than we first signed up with 19 months ago.
Why they couldn’t have done this in the first place beggars belief.
The first few attempts to renew came close to our original price until after several times pushing them to confirm it included our existing symmetrical 1Gbps upload speed, they kept saying that the symmetrical package wasn’t available, it would be just their standard 110 Mbps we would be recontracting for.
We do a lot of data uploading and it was the symmetrical upload speed was the whole reason we joined them in the first place.
TBH, their actual product has been very good, always fast and reliable, but I’m wondering if the now new contract length of 2 years is long enough to psych myself up ready for the next renewal debacle. We might have more choice by then as OR might have caught up on the symmetrical package front or Cityfibre might actually connect up the fibre they installed in our street about 3 years ago now.