Why is it so difficult to cancel a service in Kafkaesque modern Britain?

’Tis the season when political parties are looking for the next big thing; the banner headline to announce at conference; that fizzing new policy initiative to ingratiate them with an exhausted British public. It’s also a time when politicians get a little desperate for new ideas. They end up proposing bridges to Norway, outlawing dyspepsia, and cancelling HS2 in order to use the money to tile the White Cliffs in an attractive James Martin kitchen anthracite…

Well, in the spirit of helpfulness, here’s the top policy I’d like to see our next government introduce, be they red, blue, green, or yellow. It’s the one-touch, no-fuss, immediate service cancellation.

With the standard of living crisis and a change in my circumstances, I’ve been in the process of downgrading my life to the point where it’s questionable if it should even be called “a life”. That started with my TV package in that I now no longer have a TV package. I was previously with Virgin Media and had been with them since the Stone Age when they were known as Cableinet. Then they became Blueyonder before settling on Virgin Media. For a long time, we went steady. Yet in recent years, I’d harboured a creeping doubt about them. Mainly I doubted if it was even possible to cancel.

I’d come close to moving to a different broadband provider on a few occasions. I was paying for a TV and landline package I didn’t use. Streaming suits my lifestyle and since my mobile contract included more minutes than I’d ever need per month (about 10), I had all the telephone I needed in my pocket. Yet each time I rang to cancel, the Virgin Media agents/hostage negotiators managed to talk me around. They convinced me that broadband alone would cost more than a “bundle” and so (probably because I’d lost the will to live, let alone argue), I would agree to a package costing £40 less a month.

Recently, however, something odd happened. I’d negotiated a new deal and I felt satisfied, walked away, and started to get on with my life and, somehow, before I knew it, the monthly bill was back to where it started. Which Magazine recently investigated this practice and concluded that Virgin has been “applying aggressive inflation-linked annual mid-contract price increases while removing the right for affected customers to cancel without paying substantial exit fees”. 

Ofcom are also said to be investigating the company for “making it difficult for [customers] to cancel their services”. For me, however, it was the end. No matter what “good deal” they offered me for a TV package I never used and a telephone I didn’t want, I was going to cancel.

Three Mobile were offering a broadband router that operated on 5G and it was only £20 a month, so I signed up. The broadband modem arrived the next day. Zero effort plugging it in and connecting it to my home network. Suddenly internet was coming over the airwaves. I was delighted.

Until the network went down that afternoon.

And then again that evening.

The following lunchtime, a particularly large wood pigeon decided to roost on the nearby church roof and blocked the signal. In fact, there was no end to the reasons why the network seemed to go down. Changes in wind direction. Next door using their microwave. Sunspots. Russell Brand’s absence of shame…

After a couple of days, I realised that 5G coverage here in the semi-rural NW wasn’t really 5G. It was “4G and a bit” and not even enough to turn me into a shill for the globalist elite out to consume human brains whilst implanting Bill Gates’ chips in the world’s cat population. I contacted Three Mobile and told them that it wasn’t working. They agreed. The technology was too new. They promised to send me a returns label.

To cut a long tedious story into a short tedious story: it took them a month to send me the label, by which time they wanted to charge me £58 for the two days I’d used the modem. I started to get threatening text messages. I felt like I was being watched. There was a van parked outside the house for a whole day. I started to scour the Yellow Pages for The Equalizer’s number.

In the meantime, I’d taken up a deal with TalkTalk. Again, it was effortless. Once I’d clicked the button online, an engineer was dispatched to install fibre into the house. Since then, I’ve enjoyed weeks of absolutely rock-sold, fast, and relatively cheap broadband.

Time, then, to cancel Virgin Media. And also to ask Three Mobile to cancel the contract they’d taken out on me with international assassins.

First, I experienced how customer service should be done.

Three Mobile picked up the phone quickly. I explained my problem. They said they’d connect me to the finance department. When they weren’t picking up, the helpline assistant said she’d phone back. There’d be no long hours listening to music. Eventually, they rang. I spoke to their troubleshooter who contacted the Hotel Continental and told John Wick to stand down. All was good.

In fairness, except for the poor 5G service and the month it took them to send me a postage label, my experience with Three was decent. It reminded me of peak experiences with the competitive free market. Here was a company that seemed eager to get my business and, to that end, give me a good service. They were polite, formal, and helpful. Good on you Three Mobile.

And then there was Virgin Media…

Somebody on Twitter told me that he puts aside a day every year just to get through to Virgin and negotiate a new contract. I admire his stamina. Their helplines are not helpful. I rang them on the landline I only use to contact Virgin Media in my periodic attempts to cancel the landline. I waited on the phone for about 50 minutes, listening to a repeating playlist that made me want to turn my rage into a global war involving cluster munitions and other inhumane weapons. Nearly an hour of OneRepublic telling you “I Ain’t Worried” and George Ezra trying to convince you that you’re in “Paradise” will do that to a person.

Finally, I got through to the helpline. I told them I wanted to cancel. No problem, they said (or read from a script), but let’s see what packages we can offer you…

No, no, I said. It’s too late. I’m walking out with TalkTalk now. Can I just cancel?

Sure, they said. Let me just pass you over to our cancellation team.

At which point the phone went dead and then a voice started to read out options from the main menu.

I’d been kicked back to the start.

I stayed on the line for 20 minutes until my George Ezra rage threatened mainland Europe.

In the following days, I tried to raise the courage to try again but failed. I would dial the number and soon become OneRepubliced out and give up. In the end, I sent them a text message, which they didn’t reply to. Finally, I sought advice on an internet forum for the many people going through the same as me. The general tip was to send a letter the old-fashioned way, involving a stamp and post box. Like we used to cancel our broadband contracts back when we had an empire and Victoria was Queen.

Anyway, this week, Virgin Media finally cancelled my account… and they still charged me another £100+ for the next month.

Why? Well, according to the corporate shill I spoke to – clearly in a job where she is paid to concede no ground, be cold and indifferent to your pain, and leave you with a really bad taste about the whole experience – it was because the terms and conditions stated that I have to give them 30 days notice, even though I was out of contract back in the 1990s.

But, of course, if they keep their fingers in their ears, make life very difficult for you, ensure it takes an hour to get through to them and then terminate the call when you do, then those 30 days can be delayed by days, weeks, perhaps even months if you haven’t got the personal fortitude of a samurai.

If they don’t hear you say “Please cancel” they get more time to charge you for services you no longer use.

Because terms and conditions rarely work in the favour of the customer, do they? It never takes 30 days to enable a contract, upgrade a service, or take money out of our accounts.

So, come on, Keir! Are you listening, Rishi? How about it, Ed? Do something about the one-sided business model by which companies treat us like we’ve been chained to a radiator. If technology makes it possible to sign up for a service and have it activated in seconds, shouldn’t it also be possible to press a button on a website or app to cancel that service within the day? Why force people to go through a helpline that’s only there to provide the opposite of help? Why subject us to the hard sell and “terms and conditions” that never fall in our favour? This isn’t about rolling back capitalism or subjecting these billion-pound corporations to hardships. It’s just about treating people fairly rather than fleecing them.

You know: the way the free market operated back when good customer service mattered.

@DavidWaywell

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