Terms and conditions

Terms and conditions for your residential customer service agreement

About your Virgin National Broadband and Virgin National Phone services

These terms and conditions set out the agreement between 'you' or 'the customer', Virgin Media Limited, ('us' or 'we') and Virgin Media Payments Limited ('Virgin Media Payments').

Your use of the services will be governed by the terms of this agreement. Please read through these terms and conditions carefully.

The words highlighted in bold throughout these terms and conditions have special meanings which can be found in the Glossary at the bottom of these terms and conditions.

A  Getting our services

1.  We will either send you all the equipment you need to connect to our services, or advise you of any equipment you need to have to connect to our services. Just to remind you, if applicable, it is your responsibility to purchase the equipment as notified to you. We will not be liable to you for any loss or damage caused by your installation of the equipment.

2.  Where we have recommended equipment for use with the services and you have chosen not to take our recommendation, we cannot guarantee compatibility of the equipment or provide ongoing support. Where equipment is purchased from our recommended partners, we are not responsible for them or for any equipment you purchase from them. If any equipment you have purchased from our recommended partners is faulty upon arrival, please contact the recommended partner for a replacement. We may need to provide our recommended partners with your name and order details in order for them to fulfil your order.

3.  To provide the services, any equipment we provide you must be connected to equipment belonging to you. We are not responsible for your equipment working properly. You agree to provide and pay for suitable facilities and all necessary electrical and other installations and fittings (including necessary power outlets or sockets) for the equipment. You must follow our instructions for this.

4.  Where you continue to pay line rental to a third party (such as BT), we cannot continue to provide the services to you if you choose to terminate your telephone line rental with your provider. Similarly, if your telephone service is suspended or cut off by your telephone line rental provider, we will be unable to provide you with the services. In the event that you terminate your telephone line rental service or you change the services on the telephone line, so that the minimum specifications are no longer met, it is your responsibility to cancel the services. If you do not, the charges will continue.

5.  You are responsible for applying for any consents and permissions necessary for us to activate the services at your home. We are not obliged to activate or provide the services unless all consents and permissions have been obtained.

6.  Our obligation to provide the services is also subject to survey. If a survey shows that the services cannot be activated at your home, we may cancel any activation date we have given you and terminate this agreement. We will do our best to notify you of this as soon as possible after the survey. We shall be under no liability whatsoever to you for any failure to provide the services in these circumstances but we will refund you for any payments you have already made to Virgin Media Payments for activation or the services. If the survey shows that the services can be activated at your home, we will send confirmation or otherwise prior to activation. If confirmed, the activation will proceed automatically. Where you are continuing to pay line rental to a third party (such as BT), there is a possibility that activation of services may result in you experiencing a temporary loss of your analogue telephone line. If this does occur, normal service is usually resumed within a few hours. The confirmation notification will contain your target activation date(s) and your personal user name.

7.  We do not have to provide the services at your home or to otherwise keep to this agreement if:

(a)  it is not practical to activate the services for health and safety reasons;

(b)  you do not qualify under our current credit policy;

(c)   you are not able to be a customer because you have previously misused our services;

(d)  your PC or network interface card does not meet our minimum specifications for Internet access;

(e)  your PC or its operating software does not work correctly or normally for Internet access; or

(f)   it is not practical to activate the services for any other reason.

8.   Where the services are successfully activated, but you are unable to use the services because either: (i) you have not met the minimum specifications we informed you of during the registration process; or (ii) you have not purchased or installed suitable equipment, which shall be determined solely by us, then:

9.  you will incur charges from the date the services are activated; and

10.  we shall not be responsible for any equipment or any other products that you have purchased but cannot use.

B  About our services

1. General

(a)  If you keep to the terms of this agreement, we will provide you with the services.

(b)  As well as these terms and conditions, our services have other legal stuff which applies to the services and their use, as published by us on the Virgin Media website. These may be updated by us from time to time so please check the Virgin Media website regularly. For example, for our Internet access, these include our 'acceptable use policy' and 'traffic management policy' which you can read on the Virgin Media website. The other legal stuff will apply to your use of the services so please read through them carefully.

(c)  In supplying the services we will always use our reasonable skill and care but are not able to guarantee fault-free performance.

(d)  To make sure we're always giving you best possible service, we may monitor and record phone conversations you have with our team. We'll use these to shape our training where we can.

(e)  From time to time, we may let you try certain services for free. We also have the right to withdraw these trial services at any time and without giving you notice.

(f)  From time to time, we may supply you with services as part of a promotion or for promotional purposes and whether for a charge or otherwise. We may at any time stop such supply or change the promotional services.

(g)  You agree that you are liable for any charges on your account regardless of whether you or anybody else (with or without your permission) runs up those charges (unless the charges result from fraud by someone else which you could have had no control over). For example, if someone who has access to your home uses the services, we would consider them to be within your control and you would be liable for those charges. If you do become aware of any fraud by someone else, you must tell us as quickly as you can. Under no circumstances should you give your PIN numbers and passwords to anybody else (unless you're happy for them to use your account and add charges on your account).

(h)  With your permission, we may monitor email and internet communications, including without limitation, any content or material transmitted over the services.

2. Virgin Phone

(a)  If you are keeping an existing phone number but taking the relevant phone line from us as part of the services (i.e. you pay line rental to us), you authorise us to cancel that part of your agreement with your telephone line rental provider (such as BT) which relates to renting that line. However, we cannot cancel any other agreements you may have with your telephone line rental provider, for example, for renting equipment or for extra lines. Although we are usually able to arrange for you to keep your existing phone number when you transfer your line to us, we cannot guarantee this.

(b)  If we provide you with a telephone line (i.e. you pay line rental to us), and you don't ask us to transfer your existing number, we will allocate a number to your telephone line. The telephone number and any rights in it belong to us and you may not sell or agree to transfer the number to any person.

(c)  You agree that we may give your name, address and phone number to the emergency services. Unless you tell us otherwise, we will also give these details to other authorised public communications operators and regulated directory service providers. This is so your details can be included in phone books and be obtained from publicly available directory enquiry services, including Internet and CD-ROM directories. We cannot accept any liability whatsoever for any failure by authorised public communications operators and regulated directory service providers to whom we provide information to comply with your listing request. We can tell you about other options that are available to protect and control how your information is used.

(d)  You accept that your telephone number must not be advertised in or on a public telephone box. If this happens, we may immediately suspend the services or end this agreement. However, we will use reasonable endeavours to contact you before we take this action.

(e)   If you continue to pay line rental to another telephone line rental provider, Virgin Media will arrange with that telephone line rental provider for CPS to be applied to your telephone line and we will send you a letter confirming the date of switchover. Your telephone number will not change. In the unlikely event that CPS is not available on your telephone line, we regret that you will not be eligible for any Virgin Media phone service. You will not incur any charges unless we are able to provide you, and you choose to take, stand-alone internet access instead. If you wish to take stand-alone internet access, our standard charges for that service will apply.

(f)  If you continue to pay line rental to another telephone line rental provider, we will:

(i)  arrange for your phone line to be enabled to support the services. This happens automatically when you complete and submit your registration online. You do not need to contact your telephone line rental provider directly;

(ii) arrange for CPS to be activated on your phone line to route your calls automatically via the services. You do not need to contact your telephone line rental provider; and

(iii)   if your application is successful, and subject to section A, provide you with access to: (a) the internet access service via a unique user name, which you can only use from the home telephone number you have registered with us; and (b) the phone service;

(g)  For customers who pay line rental to another telephone line rental provider, if we receive notification that CPS has been cancelled on your line, you will be given two options:

(i) you may take stand-alone internet access in which case our standard charges for that service will apply; or

(ii)  you may cancel your bundle of services in which case the cancellation terms set out in section J apply. Please note that if you make calls without using CPS, those calls will be made using that telephone line rental provider's network and will be charged to you by that telephone line rental provider or another service provider. Virgin Media accepts no liability for these call charges.

3. Virgin Broadband

(a) For Internet access you agree that your PC will meet the minimum specifications as detailed on the Virgin Media website. You also agree that you'll either have a USB port available that we can connect our modem to, or that you will install a network interface card on your PC. You also agree that you will carry out a virus check before the services are connected. If this is not the case, we will not be able to provide you with these services. From time to time we may change the minimum specifications needed to use the Internet access, which will appear in our published materials or on our Virgin Media website.

(b) In the case of Internet access, you will be liable for any charges from other organisations while using these services, as well as those billed by us as set out in our price guides.

(c) Due to the nature of the Internet, we cannot guarantee specific levels of performance for the Internet access.

(d) You confirm and warrant that you are the owner of, and that you have obtained all necessary consents to use, the domain name, mailbox name or any other name selected by you in connection with the Internet access.

(e)  You acknowledge that we cannot guarantee you will be able to have and use any name you request and we may require you to select a replacement name if we believe that your current choice of name is, or is likely to be, in breach of our acceptable use policy.

(f)  Any Internet address allocated by us to you will at all times belong to us and you may not sell or agree to transfer the number to any person. You will have a non-transferable licence to use such Internet address whilst you receive Internet access from us. In the event this agreement is terminated, for whatever reason, your licence to use the Internet address shall automatically terminate and thereafter you will not use the Internet address.

(g)  It is your responsibility to keep back-up copies of any data uploaded to our servers and you are responsible for any system you establish to monitor your webspace contents and use. If your use of storage allocation exceeds the amount allocated to you we will notify you and ask you to either reduce your use of webspace or move your website and pay for the additional webspace. If you do not respond within a reasonable time we may move your website and/or charge you for the additional webspace.

(h)  We reserve the right to remove by immediate notice material placed on our servers by you or other users which we, in our reasonable opinion, believe violates this agreement or is otherwise harmful to our interests or the interests of other users of the Internet access services.

(i)  We reserve the right to monitor and control data volume and/or types of traffic transmitted via Internet access. In the event that you exceed any usage allowance applicable to your Internet access or your use does not comply with the 'acceptable use policy' which you can read on the Virgin Media website, we reserve the right (at our sole discretion) to reduce, suspend or terminate your Internet access. During any time of reduction or suspension, you will remain liable for the payment of your original level of Internet access charge. We also reserve the right (at our sole discretion) to re-grade your Internet access to a different speed and/or usage allowance at the appropriate charge. If we make such changes we will notify you as soon as possible.

(j)  We cannot guarantee that maximum transmission speeds can be obtained at any time, nor can we guarantee that, where you are eligible to receive a speed upgrade, the upgrade can be successfully completed within the indicated timelines. However we will endeavour to inform you of any issues, and attempt to resolve them, as soon as is reasonably possible.

(k)   Due to contention on the telecommunications network and other factors outside Virgin Media's control your internet access speed may vary from time to time. In addition the speed and limitations of your equipment may affect the transmission speed that we can provide you.

C  Looking after your services

1.  We will always aim to provide you with the best service possible, but we can't guarantee that the services will be fault free. You agree that you will tell us about any fault in the services by phoning, emailing or writing to our Customer Care team, who will aim to respond as promptly as possible.

2.  You are responsible for maintaining any equipment that is relevant to the services, which you own (for example, phones, computers and so on).

3.  We are not responsible if you are not able to use the services because your equipment (for example, any PC, modem, network interface card, printer, or other equipment) does not work properly, is not compatible with the system or does not meet the minimum specifications or because of faults in any public communications provider's network (where applicable).

4.  Where we supply the services to you via your connection to another public communications provider's network it is your responsibility to maintain your connection to such public communications provider's network and we shall not be responsible or liable to you for failing to provide the services if such failure arises as a result of any interruption to or disconnection from the public communications provider's network or because of failure or inadequacy in any equipment for which we are not responsible.

D Using our services

1. You are responsible for the way the services are used. You must not use the services to do any of the following acts or allow anyone else to use the services to do such acts:

(a)  Send a message or communication that is offensive, abusive, defamatory (damages someone's reputation), obscene, menacing or illegal;

(b) Cause annoyance, nuisance, inconvenience or needless worry to, or break the rights of, any other person;

(c) Perform any illegal activity;

(d)  Break, or try to break, the security of anyone else's equipment, hardware or software;

(e)  Deliberately receive, use, own, post, transmit or publish obscene material (including, but not limited to, child pornography);

(f)  Upload, post, publish or transmit any information or software that is protected by copyright or other ownership rights without the permission of its owner;

(g)   Copy or distribute any software or services we provide (but you may make a backup copy of the software we provide for your personal use);

(h)  Use any services (including, but not limited to, phone services) for commercial or business purposes;

(i)   Use any Internet Protocol (IP) address that we have not assigned to you. Put simply, you may not use your Virgin Media internet connection to harm the service of another internet user or impersonate another user, whether on our network or external to our network. You acknowledge that we may change your Internet Protocol (IP) address from time to time without giving you notice;

(j)  Use the services in a way that (i) risks degradation of service levels to other customers, (ii) puts our system at risk and/or (iii) is not in keeping with that reasonably expected of a residential customer.

2.  If we believe that you are using the services in any of these ways, we are entitled to reduce, suspend and/or terminate any or all of the services without giving you notice.

3.  You must, at all times, make sure that the way you use the services does not break the law or the rights of any other person. You are not allowed to copy or record any of the services, or any third party audio-visual content contained in the services, except for your own private, domestic and non-commercial use (and if this kind of copying for personal use becomes illegal in the future, you must stop doing it). By law, you are not allowed to show the services, or any third party audio-visual content contained in the services, to the public where an admission fee is charged.

4.  You agree to take responsibility for all liabilities, claims and losses which are in any way connected with misusing the services supplied to you under this agreement, or with getting our services without our permission, and to fully repay us if we suffer any costs or losses of this kind. This also applies if you do not meet your responsibilities under this section D

5.  If you misuse the services or get services from us without our permission, or do not meet your responsibilities under this section D, we will be entitled to suspend the services or to end this agreement.

6.  It is up to you to make sure that if minimum age recommendations apply to any part of the services, those services are not used by anyone below that minimum age.

7.  For internet access, you are responsible for making sure that you do not use more than the storage you are allowed for web space and e-mail. We are not responsible for any negative consequences of your failure to do so.

8.  Information and material published on the webspace (Freespace) area of the www.virginmedia.com site provided to you shall remain owned by you. However, you hereby grant to Virgin Media a royalty-free, irrevocable licence to copy and distribute such information and material solely to the extent necessary to allow Virgin Media to make the same available via the services. For the avoidance of doubt, this licence does not transfer ownership of the whole or any part of such information or material or any copyright, idea, concept, know-how or technique contained in the same.

9.  All information and material submitted to and accepted by Virgin Media via the services or the site by way of contributions to chats, discussions and user reviews shall be deemed to be and shall remain your property. However, you hereby grant Virgin Media the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right to use, edit, copy, republish and distribute (for any purpose) any materials, data or other information that you submit to Virgin Media, and you will not submit any such content unless you are able to grant this right. Virgin Media shall not be subject to any obligations of confidence regarding such information, data or material except as required by law.

10. You will:

(a)  keep your user name and your password confidential and secure. You must not attempt to change your user name. If you think that your user name or any other Virgin Media user name or password has become known to any unauthorised person or may be used in an unauthorised way you must inform us immediately; and

(b) only use Freespace in accordance with Freespace Terms and Conditions published on the site.

11.  Virgin Media reserves the right to email service announcements to you as part of the services.

12. Virgin Media will monitor email box usage taking appropriate action within the following guidelines: when you register with us you are entitled to five email addresses. The email address you agreed to during the registration process is your "primary" account and the remaining four email addresses are your "secondary" accounts. Your primary and secondary Post Office Protocol (POP) mailboxes each have a disk quota. Quotas are set out on the Virgin Media website. Any emails received when the mailbox quota has been reached will be rejected.

(a)  Emails (whether read or unread) that are over 90 days old shall be automatically deleted.

(b)  Where data has been deleted or barred and mailboxes disconnected, we will not store or reserve either your data or your username.

(c)  Each email sent from your mailbox must not exceed the maximum email size in order to help customers manage their quota. Maximum sizes are set out on the site.

E  Using equipment

1. Any equipment which you own and which you connect to the system (for example, phones, fax machines, PCs) must meet with all relevant laws and regulations. We reserve the right to disconnect any equipment that does not meet these laws and regulations.

2. We will not be liable in any way for any loss or damage which is caused to your own equipment arising as a result of its use with equipment provided to you.

F  Paying for your services

1.  You must pay the charges for the services as set out in our price guides or as otherwise notified to you, together with any applicable value added tax or other applicable taxes. If you do not cancel the services, the charges will continue to be payable by you. We can change the charges as set out in paragraph H3, but if we do so, this may entitle you to end this agreement. You can read more about this in paragraph J6. All payments by you should be made to Virgin Media Payments which will provide you with all necessary payment handling services. Virgin Media Payments agrees to collect and process all payments made by you to it promptly and ensure that they are applied in settlement of the charges to which they relate. Virgin Media Payments may charge you a separate service fee for collecting and processing such payments as provided in paragraph F4(c) below.

2.  We may ask you to make initial payments and/or a deposit, either through a Virgin Media sales representative in person or over the phone through a Virgin Media telesales representative.

3.  You must ensure that your payments are received by Virgin Media Payments by the due date for payment shown on your bill. If you do not pay your bills on time, you will be liable to interest or other charges for your default. We may also charge you the full amount of any bill and you may lose any discount we have given you. We will also suspend or cancel the services and charge you the costs of debt-recovery proceedings to recover any debt you owe under this agreement.

4.  Bills

(a)  Under this agreement, if you ask for any changes to the services we provide, these changes will be reflected by adding proportionate amounts to your first bill after the change and to your payments every month after that.

(b) You may choose to pay your bills by credit card or by Direct Debit.

(c)  Virgin Media Payments will provide you with payment handling services and unless you pay by Direct Debit you agree that Virgin Media Payments may charge you a separate payment handling charge each month for processing your payment.

(d) If any payment of yours is cancelled or is not cleared by your bank or building society, we are entitled to charge you a default fee and the provisions of paragraphs F3 and F4(c) will also apply.

(e) You must provide us with a valid and current e-mail account to use E-billing. The accuracy of that e-mail address is entirely your responsibility. You shall remain fully liable for any bills of which notification has been sent to your e-mail address.

(f)   We reserve the right to modify the E-billing service at our discretion.

(g)  You shall remain fully responsible and liable to pay any bills of which notification has been sent to the e-mail address you have specified regardless of whether or not you access that e-mail account and read the relevant e-mail, are disconnected from your e-mail account (for any reason and whether by us or otherwise) or for any other reason (other than our negligence) fail to read the relevant notification.

(h) We cannot guarantee uninterrupted and/or reliable access to the E-billing service and make no guarantees whatsoever as to its operation, availability, functionality, that it will be free of error or disruption or otherwise.

(i)   You agree to use the E-billing service responsibly.

(j)  We normally send reminders for late bill payments. We may charge interest at the yearly equivalent of 4% over Barclays Bank plc's base rate for the whole period of any late payment. The interest is worked out daily.

(k)  If you want to change any of the services agreed to, we may charge you an administration fee. We will notify you of the amount of any such charge when you request the change.

(l)  We may ask for any deposit at any time (as we believe to be reasonable in the circumstances) as security in case you do not pay our bills. All or any part of this deposit may be used to pay any charges you owe under this agreement. We may (but do not have to) return your deposit after twelve months if we believe that you have a good payment history. We will usually (but not necessarily) consider you to have a good payment history if you have paid your account for twelve months in a row without your services having been restricted, suspended or disconnected and you are not having to pay under a payment plan.

5.  We are entitled to carry out a credit check on you at any time. We will do this by making searches about you at credit reference agencies who will supply us with credit information, as well as information from the Electoral Register. The agencies will record details of the search, whether or not the application goes ahead. We may use credit-scoring methods to assess the application and to confirm your identity. We and other companies may use credit searches and other information, which is provided to us or the credit reference agencies (or both), about you (and those you are linked financially to) if credit decisions are made about you, or other members of your household. We may also use this information to trace debt and manage your account. We may also reveal information on your payment history to the usual credit agencies. We will also check your details with fraud detection agencies and if false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified, details will be passed to fraud prevention agencies. Law enforcement agencies may access and use this information. We and other organisations may also access and use this information to prevent fraud and money laundering, for example, when:- checking details on applications for credit and credit related or other facilities; managing credit and credit related accounts and facilities; recovering debt; checking details of proposals and claims for all types of insurance; checking details of job applicants and employees. We and other organisations may access and use from other countries the information recorded by fraud prevention agencies. Please write to Virgin Media's Group Compliance Officer at Media House, Bartley Wood Business Park, Hook, Hampshire RG27 9UP if you want to receive details of the relevant fraud prevention agencies. You have a legal right to these details.

6.  If at any time before or during the term of this agreement you fail to meet our credit conditions, we may do the following:

(a)  Require you to make a payment (which shall be made to Virgin Media Payments) in advance for future charges;

(b) Enforce credit limits on you for any of our and/or Virgin Media Payments' charges (to the extent we believe is reasonable in the circumstances), restrict the level of services we provide to you, only allow certain methods of payment and/or suspend some or all of the services at any time when you reach the limits until we have received the full payment of any charges you owe under this agreement;

(c)  Demand a deposit from you as described in paragraph F4(l) above.

G                    Your details and how we look after them

1.  You must give us promptly and accurately all the information which may be needed so that we and Virgin Media Payments can perform our respective obligations under this agreement. You must also tell us immediately if any of your details change.

2.  By having the services we provide activated in your home and/or by using them you are giving us your consent to use your personal information together with other information for the purposes of providing you with our services, service information and updates, administration, credit scoring, customer services, training, tracking use of our services (including processing call, usage, billing, viewing and interactive data), profiling your usage and purchasing preferences for so long as you are a customer and for as long as is necessary for these specified purposes after you terminate your services. We may occasionally use third parties to process your personal information in the ways outlined above. These third parties are permitted to use the data only in accordance with our instructions.

3.  We may also, subject to your consent, use your personal information to contact you with information about our products and services, special offers and rewards, as well as those of selected third parties.  From time to time, we may contact you by mail, telephone, email, other electronic messaging services (such as text, voice, sound or image messages including using automated calling systems) or fax for these purposes.

4.  We may also disclose your personal information to other Virgin companies so that they can contact you with information about their products and services where you have given us your consent to do so. But don't worry, your details won't be shared with companies outside the Virgin group for marketing purposes without your consent.

5.  If you’ve not previously given us your consent and you’d like to receive this information from us let us know by calling Customer Care, writing to us at PO Box 333, Virgin Media, Matrix Court, Swansea, SA7 9BB or check out our privacy policy on our website for more information.

6.  If you change your mind at any time and no longer wish to receive this information from us, that's okay. Just let us know by calling Customer Care, writing to PO Box 333, Virgin Media, Matrix Court, Swansea, SA7 9BB or check out our privacy policy on the Virgin Media website for more information. If you opt out of receiving this information from us, we will not contact you for marketing purposes, nor will we share your information with other Virgin companies for them to market to you. Remember that if you say you don't wish to receive any promotional information from us, this will exclude you from receiving any of our special offers or promotions which may be of interest to you.  You can also opt out of receiving marketing information from other Virgin companies at any time by contacting them directly.

7.  By having our services activated in your home and/or by using them you consent to our transferring your information to countries which do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK if necessary for providing the services. If we do make such a transfer, we will put a contract in place to ensure your information is protected.

8. You have a right to ask for a copy of your information (for which we charge a small fee) and to correct any inaccuracies.

9.  If you do not pay your bills for the services then we reserve the right to transfer your debt to a third party in which case we will also transfer your personal information to that third party for them to use in connection with the recovery of your debt. Such third party will take such action to recover your debt as they consider appropriate and will not be acting on our behalf or to our instructions.

H  Changing this agreement

1.  You may add to or reduce the services you receive from time to time by contacting our Customer Care team. If you ask us to provide any extra services to you, you agree to accept those additional services for at least the minimum period that applies to them. If you ask us to reduce your tier of services within the minimum period for those services, we may ask you to pay a fee depending on the services being reduced and the remaining length of the minimum period.

2.  We and/or Virgin Media Payments may at any time improve, modify, amend or alter the terms of this agreement and/or the services and their content if:

(a)  there is any change or amendment to any law or regulation which applies to us or Virgin Media Payments or the services we provide to you;

(b)  we decide that the services should be altered for reasons of quality of service or otherwise for the benefit of our customers or, in our reasonable opinion, it is necessary to do so;

(c)  or security, technical or operational reasons;

(d)   if the changes or additions are minor and do not affect you significantly or we wish to have all our customers on the same terms and conditions; or

(e)  in all other events, where we reasonably determine that any modification to our system or change in our trading, operating or business practices or policy is necessary to maintain or improve the services which we provide to you.

However, you will have the right to cancel the affected services or end this agreement if the changes are significant, as described in paragraph J6.

3.  We and/or Virgin Media Payments may change our respective charges at any time. We will publish any change in the monthly charges made by us and/or Virgin Media Payments on our website and if the changes are significant we and Virgin Media Payments will do our best to give you notice of the change at least one month before the change takes effect. Any changes to our usage charges and tariffs will be published on our website and will be reflected on your next bill after the changes take effect.

I  Suspending our services

1.  We may suspend any or all of the services immediately without notice if:

(a)  you have broken this agreement (including the other legal stuff);

(b)  we (or our agents and/or contractors) need to carry out any maintenance, repairs or improvements to any part of the services or the system;

(c) we have to do so by law or in line with a contract;

(d) you go over any credit limit on your account;

(e) we have reason to believe that you have provided us with false, inaccurate or misleading information either for the purpose of obtaining the services from us or at any time during the provision of the services;

(f)  we believe that you have or another person at your home has committed, or may be committing, any fraud against us or against any other person or organisation by using the services;

(g)  we do not receive a signed copy of the contract document from you within 30 days of installing your services;

(h)  you or anyone you authorise to deal with us on your behalf acts in a way towards our staff or agents which we reasonably consider to be inappropriate; or

(i)   in our reasonable opinion it is necessary to do so.

2.  If we suspend the services because you have broken this agreement or if paragraphs I1(d), (e), (f) or (g) apply, we may make a charge to reflect our costs in connection with suspending and starting the services again. In normal circumstances you must pay this charge before you can use the services again. You may also be liable for all charges for services during this period of suspension.

3. For your and our protection we can suspend the services if the number of calls or charges for calls made by you has increased to such an extent that it appears, in our reasonable opinion, that the services are not being used in a manner consistent with your previous use. We will make reasonable efforts to contact you before suspending the services but we are not liable for any loss you may suffer through this suspension. We will not provide the services again until we are satisfied that you know of the increased usage and that you will pay the charges relating to that increased usage. We may also:

(a) ask you to make a payment of a deposit (which shall be made to Virgin Media Payments) as security for your charges; or

(b)  prevent you from making international calls and/or premium rated calls if in our reasonable opinion they form a significant proportion of your charges.

J  Ending this agreement

1. Cancellation refers to the cancellation of the services, whether you are switching to an alternative Virgin Media service, switching to another service provider or ceasing telecommunications services altogether.

(a) Pre-activation date:

(i) You have the right to cancel this Agreement

aa. within ten working days of entering into it (if you pay line rental to us); or

bb. within seven working days of entering into it (if you pay line rental to another  telephone line rental provider) (each, a "cooling-off period"). In the event of cancellation during the cooling-off period, this Agreement is treated as if it had not been made. Please be aware that you will lose your right to cancel under this section during the cooling-off period once we have commenced activation of the services or you use the services, whichever is the earlier.

(ii) We want you to be completely happy with your services so, as well as the cooling-off period under (a) above, you can also cancel your services during the CPS switchover period (if relevant) if you change your mind. The "switchover period" is the time between the confirmation of your order by us and activation of CPS on your telephone line. Please see our Sales and Marketing Code of Practice on the Virgin Media website, for further details.

(iii)  Where you cancel pre-activation and Virgin Media has provided equipment to you free of charge, you will be required to return the equipment to us (unused and in the same condition as when it was provided to you) within 15 working days at your cost. If you fail to return the equipment to us within such period, you will be charged the standard charge for that equipment.

(b) Post-activation date:

(i)   If you wish to cancel your services after activation ("account cancellation") you must notify the Virgin Media cancellation team by telephone (the "notification"). The telephone number for cancellations can be found on the site. To access the number you will need to log on using your Virgin Media email address and password.

(ii)  If you want to transfer your internet access service to another service provider, then you should contact us to request a Migration Authorisation Code ("MAC"). Your account will be cancelled if:

aa.  you provide the MAC to your new service provider and it uses the MAC to migrate your broadband service; or

bb.  you transfer your services to a new provider where your new provider does not use a MAC or another recognised transfer process. Please note that if your new provider does not use a MAC to transfer your services you will be charged a disconnection fee as set out in section D(6) below. Please contact us in advance to discuss your cancellation options and the charges that may apply on cancellation.

(iii)  We will continue to provide the services to you until your services have been transferred to your new service provider and you must pay all charges for your services until the date on which all your services have transferred.

(iv)  You acknowledge that cancellation of your services shall only be valid if notified to Virgin Media as set out in section J1(a) and (b) above. Except for cancellations made under section J1(a) above, the "effective cancellation date" is the day on which all your services have transferred to another provider or, if you are not transferring to another provider, the day on which all your services have terminated (usually 10 working days or so after account cancellation). You will be charged for your services during this period. If you change your mind and want to retain your services you may be able to reverse the cancellation without interruption to the services if you contact us within two working days after cancelling. Please call our Customer Support team as soon as possible and we can tell you whether this is possible.

2. You shall be responsible for all charges relating to your account up until the effective cancellation date. On account cancellation, any email and webspace (Freespace) data, all email addresses) both primary and secondary email addresses) and any other features provided as part of the services will be deleted and we regret that we will be unable to retrieve this data. We will not be able to reassign the same email addresses to you at a later date if you decide to re-register. In all cases without exception Virgin Media is not responsible for any equipment purchased by you and cannot offer reimbursement of any equipment upon cancellation.

3.  Consequences of cancellation

Equipment charge:  

(a)  If:

(i)   you cancel your services before the end of your minimum period (other than in the circumstances outlined in section J1(a) above); or

(ii)  you break this agreement and we end this agreement under section L within the minimum period (including for non-payment of charges),

and we have allowed you to defer payment of the price of any equipment provided to you by us, you will be required to pay the price of that equipment.  See our price guides for our equipment prices.  If you are moving address within your minimum period you may continue to defer payment of the price of your equipment provided that you transfer the services to your new address (although an administration fee may be payable in respect of your move). 

Disconnection fees: 

(b)  If you cancel your services and do not request and/or use a MAC to transfer your internet access service, or your new service provider does not use a MAC or another recognised transfer process to transfer your internet access service, you will have to pay us what is known as a “cease” charge. This is to cover the cease charges that we are required to pay to our wholesale service providers and associated administration costs. You will also be charged a disconnection fee if your services are terminated by us for non-payment of charges. The disconnection fee will not be payable where you are moving address and you have subscribed to Virgin Media's National or cable broadband services at your new address (although an administration fee may be payable in respect of your move). Please note that this disconnection fee applies during and after the end of the minimum period. Therefore, if your services are cancelled within the minimum period, this disconnection fee may be charged in addition to the price of your equipment under section J3(a) above.

4.  All charges for the services during the period up to the effective cancellation date will be available to view on your bill. We will notify you as to how you can access your bill during this period. Virgin Media reserves the right in its discretion to decide upon the means of access to your bill.

5.  Virgin Media reserves the right to email service announcements to you as part of the services.

6.   If:

(a)  we and/or Virgin Media Payments increase our charges under this agreement;

(b)  we make significant changes to the services so the services you are entitled to receive in return for the charges you pay are significantly altered or reduced; or

(c)  we and/or Virgin Media Payments make significant changes to the terms and conditions of this agreement (including the other legal stuff), you may cancel those services affected without penalty by giving us at least 30 days' notice in writing, such notice must be given within 30 days of the increase in charges or changes to the services or this agreement being notified to you.  If you were not notified of these changes in advance, you must give notice of cancellation of the services affected to us within 30 days of receipt of your first bill following such increase in charges.  If you do not give notice of cancellation within the specified period, you will be deemed to have accepted the increase in charges and/or the changes to the services and these agreements.  You will no longer be able to cancel your services under this paragraph. If you cancel any services in these circumstances, the increased charges will not apply to those services during the 30-day notice period and paragraph J3(a) will not apply if you cancel before the end of the minimum period.

7.  If we and/or Virgin Media Payments break the terms and conditions of this agreement, you're free to end this agreement. But we'd love the chance to put things right first. So we'd ask you to give us reasonable time to do that before you end this agreement.

8.  We may end this agreement immediately by giving you notice if our authority (or that of our agents and/or contractors) to operate as a public communications provider is suspended for any reason.

9.   If this agreement is ended for any reason, or if any of the services are cancelled, we and/or Virgin Media Payments will be entitled to keep any money we and/or Virgin Media Payments hold (including deposits and advance payments), and to use that money to pay any obligation or debt you may owe under this agreement. We'll get in touch with you to refund to you any money remaining after these deductions, unless our costs to administer that refund outweigh the actual account balance. If that's the case, we'll donate the account balance to charity. We may also donate your account balance to charity, whatever the amount, if any refund cheque we send you has not been presented for payment within six months of the date of that cheque or we have been otherwise unable to contact you within six months of our first attempt to do so regarding your refund.

K  Moving home

1.  If you move to another address within our service area, you may ask us to provide the services to your new address. You must give us at least one month's written notice to do this, but we cannot guarantee to provide you with the services at your new address.  We may charge an administration fee if you ask us to transfer the services to a new address.  See our price guides for the applicable fee.

2.  This agreement covers provision of the services to your current home and to the phone number you wish to access the services from that home. If you move from your home, it is your responsibility to notify us in advance, in order for us to try to arrange to change your services to your new home. Provision of the services at your new home is subject to survey.

3. If you move from your home during or after the minimum period and wish to transfer your services to your new property you will have to re-contract for a further minimum period which will commence when the services are activated. You will not be entitled to receive any new equipment from us.

4.  If you move during the minimum period and we are unable to activate the services for any reason at your new property, your services will be cancelled and you will be charged an early termination fee under paragraph J3(a).

L  If you break this agreement

1. We or Virgin Media Payments, as the case may be, may end this agreement immediately if:

(a)  you become insolvent or bankrupt, you enter into any arrangement with your creditors, or if any legal action is taken or threatened against your property;

(b)   we believe that you have or another person at your home has committed, or may be committing, any fraud against us or against any other person or organisation by using the services;

(c)  you have broken this agreement (including the other legal stuff) and, if you are able to put things right, you have not done so within seven days (or such other period as we specify) of us asking you to do so);

(d)  we have reason to believe that you have provided us with false, inaccurate or misleading information either for the purpose of obtaining the services from us or at any time during the provision of the services ;

(e)   required to comply with an order, instruction or request of Government, an emergency services organisation or other competent administration or regulatory authority;

(f)   you or anyone you authorise to deal with us on your behalf acts in a way towards our staff or agents which we reasonably consider to be inappropriate; or

(g)   we or Virgin Media Payments are specifically entitled to do so under any other section of this agreement.

2.  If you break this agreement and we choose to overlook it, we and/or Virgin Media Payments can still end this agreement if you break it again.

3.  If we end this agreement because you have broken these agreements as set out in this section L (including where you have not paid the charges which you are liable to pay under this agreement) during any relevant minimum period, we will be entitled to charge you an early termination charge as set out in paragraph J3a  on top of any other charges you are liable to pay under this agreement. Also, if we discover that you have got services from us without our permission at any time, we will also be entitled to charge you for any charges (including line rental or usage charges) relating to those services.

4. If you break this agreement by committing fraud or any other criminal activity, we will report you to the police, who may take legal action.

M  Visiting your home

1.  You agree that we and our employees, agents or contractors may (but are not obliged to) enter your home so that we can carry out any work that is necessary for us to supply the services you and others have asked for.

N Our liability to you

1. Our and Virgin Media Payments' liability to you is limited as set out in paragraphs N2 to N6.

2.   Neither we nor Virgin Media Payments will be liable to you for:

(a) any indirect loss or any loss which is not a reasonably foreseeable consequence of our or Virgin Media Payments' negligence or breach of this agreement (including loss of profits, business, revenue, contracts or anticipated savings, wasted expenses or any other purely financial losses);

(b)  lost or destroyed data or software;

(c)  any business loss (including loss of profits, business, revenue, contracts or anticipated savings, wasted expenses or any other purely financial losses) even if such loss was reasonably foreseeable or we and/or Virgin Media Payments had been advised of the possibility of you incurring such loss; or

(d)  direct physical damage to your property unless it has been caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or contractors while acting in the course of their employment with us (and even then our liability will not be more than £100,000 for any one event or series of connected events).

(e)  When we or Virgin Media Payments carry out any obligation under this agreement, our duty and that of Virgin Media Payments is only to exercise the reasonable care and skill of a competent service provider.

3.  We will not be liable to you for the accuracy, completeness, fitness for purpose or legality of any information accessed, received or transmitted using the services, or for transmitting or receiving, or failure to transmit or receive, any material through the services.

4.   If you deal with any other organisations using our services (for example, by buying or renting goods or services from them or ordering goods from other organisations using our Internet access), we will not be involved in the transactions and will not be liable in any way for any loss, cost or damage you have to pay for.

5. We accept no responsibility for the contents of any material from other organisations, which may be accessed through the services. We also reserve the right to block access to any such information (including newsgroups).

6.  Neither we nor Virgin Media Payments restricts or excludes liability to you for:

(a)  death or personal injury resulting from our own (or our agents' or contractors') negligent act or failure to act;

(b)  direct physical damage to your personal property up to £100,000 for any one event or series of connected events where the damage arises from our own (or our agents' or contractors') negligence; or

(c)           any of our and/or Virgin Media Payments' respective liabilities which, by law, either of us must cover you for, including any liability arising out of part 1 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 or from us and/or Virgin Media Payments breaking our respective duties under sections 4.1 or 11.4 of that Act.

O  Matters beyond our reasonable control

We and/or Virgin Media Payments will not be liable for failing to do what we and/or Virgin Media Payments promised under this agreement if we and/or Virgin Media Payments are prevented from doing so by something outside our or Virgin Media Payments' reasonable control which will include (but are not limited to): lightning; flood or severe weather conditions; fire or explosion; civil disorder; damage or vandalism to a system; terrorist activities; war; actions of local or national governments or other authorities; or industrial disputes.

P  Notices

Any notices we give or Virgin Media Payments gives to you must be in writing and be delivered by hand, or sent by fax or ordinary post to you at your home, or sent electronically. Any notices you give to us or Virgin Media Payments must be in writing and be delivered by hand, or sent by fax or ordinary post, to us or Virgin Media Payments at the address set out in your Welcome Pack. Any notice period will start from the day on which the notice is delivered if it is sent by hand, from two working days after the date it was posted, if sent by ordinary post, or from the date of successful transmission if it is sent by fax.

Q  Transfer of agreement

This agreement is personal to you and you may not transfer your account or any of your rights and responsibilities under this agreement without our and Virgin Media Payments' written agreement. For business reasons we and/or Virgin Media Payments may transfer any of our rights and responsibilities or those of Virgin Media Payments (as the case may be) under this agreement without your permission.

R  The Law and how we resolve your complaints

This agreement will be governed by English law.

We are fully committed to addressing all complaints, fully and fairly, and in a reasonable time frame. If you'd like to find out how we do this, please see our Complaints Resolution Code of Practice which is available within the ‘Legal Stuff’ on the Virgin Media website, or ask our team.

GLOSSARY

The words in bold throughout this agreement have the following special meanings:

"agreement"
the terms and conditions set out in this document, the other legal stuff, together with all the details set out in any contract document we ask you to sign.

"CPS" or "Carrier Pre-Select"
means the method used to allow Virgin Media to become the carrier of your telephone calls over the line provided to you by your line rental provider. You must continue to pay your line rental to your line rental provider.

"equipment"
any telecommunications or other equipment required to access the services

"home"
the residential address to which we agree to supply the services.

"Internet access"
us providing Internet access as part of the services

"minimum period"
the minimum period that you must keep a service, starting from the service start date. For example, unless you are told otherwise by us, you must keep a service for 12 months from its service start date. We may change the minimum period for any service but this will not affect you if you have already subscribed to that service.

"minimum specifications"
the minimum specifications required to use the services as set out on the Virgin Media website or as we tell you from time to time.

"order date"
the date you ordered the services from us.

"other legal stuff"
as well as the terms and conditions set out in this document, there are additional terms and conditions which apply to your services as published by us on the Virgin Media website or can be accessed through the services, as updated by us from time to time. If there is any conflict between the other legal stuff and the terms and conditions in this document, the other legal stuff will apply.

"price guides"
our current list of charges for each of the services.

"public communications provider"
means a public communications provider as set out in section 151 of the Communications Act 2003.

"service start date"
the first date on which each service is available for you to use or, where no installation is required, the earlier of the date your service is activated or seven days from the order date.

"service announcements"
means email bulletins and other correspondence which contain important information on the provision or price of the services, changes in the terms and conditions applicable to the services, changes in the nature of the services or any information which may affect your ability to use the services.

"service/services"
the service(s) you have ordered including any new, extra or substitute services which we agree to supply you at a later date.

"system"
an electronic communications system or network.

"target activation date(s)"
for customers who continue to pay telephone line rental to another line rental provider (such as BT), means the dates when Virgin Media will endeavour to activate the services. For the internet access this will normally be approximately ten days after the day of registration and seven days after you have received confirmation from Virgin Media. For the phone service, we will endeavour to activate CPS on your telephone line once activation of your internet access is completed. Activation of CPS on your telephone line will normally take around 8 to 10 days after internet access activation.

"transmission speed"
means the rate in terms of Mbps or Kbps that data is transferred using the internet access service. The transmission speed available to you will be affected by the operational and technical characteristics of your phone line, contention on the telecommunications network and your chosen equipment.

"Virgin Media website"
our website at www.virginmedia.com or any other website address we may tell you about.

"working days"
days other than Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.

Virgin Media Limited (company number 2591237) and Virgin Media Payments Limited (company number 6024812) are both registered in England. The registered office address for both companies is: Media House, Bartley Wood Business Park, Hook, Hampshire RG27 9UP. © Virgin Media