Virgin Media has been fined £28m for repeatedly preventing customers from cancelling contracts, Ofcom said.
The communications regulator said it uncovered tactics including agents deliberately hanging up calls, and customers being put on hold “for no reason”.
It said millions of calls from customers were “likely mishandled” over a three-year period which prevented or delayed them from switching to a better broadband, landline or pay-TV deal.
The penalty was reduced by 30% as Virgin Media admitted its failing and agreed to settle, Ofcom added. Virgin Media apologised to the “small proportion who experienced an issue when contacting us to agree a new deal or cancel their service in the past”.
Ofcom’s investigation uncovered behaviour including: excessive and unnecessary call transfers, deliberately hanging up calls, repeated attempts to pressure customers to stay, and unnecessarily and repeatedly keeping customers on hold.
It said Virgin Media’s commission scheme “effectively encouraged” and financially rewarded call centre agents for “behaving in this way”.
Virgin Media said it had “resolved all formal customer complaints from this period providing redress where appropriate”.
Ofcom said Virgin Media would need to check every affected customer who complained has received compensation or other remedies they were entitled to within six months.
It said its rules “are clear that the conditions or procedures telecoms providers have in place must not act as a disincentive for customers who wish to cancel their contract” – and that Virgin Media’s failings likely acted as a disincentive for customers in million of calls.
The calls investigated were between 1 January 2022 and 11 September 2024 and were found to have likely been mishandled by call agents “in order to delay or prevent customers from cancelling and switching to a competitor”.
Natalie Black, Ofcom’s group director for infrastructure and connectivity, told the BBC’s Today programme that Virgin Media’s actions were “pretty shocking” and showed “poor behaviour”.
“Right at the beginning of this problem, a number of years ago in 2022, we tried to resolve this informally. There wasn’t the will to do that,” she said.
She added in a statement: “The facts are clear. Virgin Media made it harder for customers to cancel their contracts and then did not fully cooperate with our investigation.
