Does an online contract upgrade mean anything?

I believe it.

Nothing much to report so far - The chap I spoke to the other day opened a complaint case on my behalf and the complaints team are due to contact me within 7 days. He advised that it would likely be next week that I hear from them.

I've gone and re-looked at the document they sent me initially. The contract they emailed me says nothing itself about errors, although there is a link to a T's and C's web page in it - (I won't post the actual wording on the terms web page so as not to fall foul of the naming and shaming).

Online, it does say something about them being able to refuse to accept an order if a pricing error is made - Although here, I would say they haven't refused the order as they have gone on and delivered the service to me with no further input required? (so I am going to say this bit can't therefore apply)

It then goes on to say that they are not legally obliged to supply services before the contract is completed and that the contract is completed only when the products are dispatched.

Being as this was broadband using my existing equipment and it went live on Friday morning, and nothing new was needed to be dispatched to achieve this, I'm not sure what that means in terms of when the contract was formed. An argument could be made that it might be formed when the service goes live?

On Friday morning, they sent me an email at 6.55am with the new price in the body of the email, and they sent the different contract (pdf) with the more expensive pricing at 9am on the 26th - i.e. the day the BB was upgraded.


BUT the 900MB package had already been enabled before either of the emails landed in my inbox - I was up early that day and knowing that it was due to go live, I ran a speed test at 5.52AM and got 932.57/932.51.down/up .....My internet history / cache on my work machine proves this.... See attached screenshot (Thankyou Chrome on Apple) :



I am obviously not a lawyer, and only really in this for the enjoyment value, but on my reading of the paperwork, and the order of things happening, I think they might have messed up....

At least that is what I am going to try and say if I speak to the complaints team and they look to play hardball....

Just spoke to a lovely lady in the complaints team - They didn't try and wriggle out of it at all.

They confirmed that it had been an error on their part and not mine, and that they would do the right thing and honour the deal.

i.e. I now have 900MB Fibre broadband for £2 per month for the next 24 months.
Which works out as a saving of £1392 to me off the standard price, or £696 less than what they should have charged me without their pricing error

The £2 will go up by CPI so at some point, but I can probably live with that!

So I guess the outcome is that the online contract did mean something in this case, and it was worth me saying no the first offer of an extended cooling off period in order to hold them to their word. Beyond that, I didn't have to argue at all.

Lots of companies could learn a thing or two in terms of customer service - The way they have handled it has been pretty damn good to be honest. I always spoke to the same person - they called me back exactly when they said they would, and they did what I wanted. A good experience all round.

Fantastic outcome fat80 - I wonder how many other people ended up in the same way or have you just got the cheapest broadband deal in the UK ?!

It wasn't Virgin Media from the information given.

Correct. It wasn’t Virgin media

(I’m interpreting the name and shame to mean I shouldn’t really identify the company even though they’ve been quite good in this case otherwise I’d just say who they are)

Ha brilliant. I missed that - silly me