Virgin Media fined £23.8m after putting vulnerable customers at ‘risk of harm’

Virgin Media has been fined £23.8 million by Ofcom after putting thousands of vulnerable customers at “direct risk of harm” when moving them to digital landlines.

A number of serious incidents took place when Virgin was upgrading its customers’ home phone services in November and December 2023, the media and communications watchdog said.

Virgin failed to properly identify and record the status of its “telecare” customers, who have emergency alarm systems that connect to a monitoring service – meaning those affected did not receive the right amount of support.

This meant their devices were prevented from connecting to alarm monitoring centres while their networks were disconnected, Ofcom found.

The watchdog said this put thousands of vulnerable customers, who were not engaged in the process of having their phone lines upgraded, at direct risk of harm.

Virgin was fined £23.8 million for breaching Ofcom’s consumer protection rules.

Ian Strawhorne, Ofcom’s director of enforcement, said: “It’s unacceptable that vulnerable customers were put at direct risk of harm and left without appropriate support by Virgin Media during what should have been a safe and straightforward upgrade to their landline services.

“Today’s fine makes clear to companies that if they fail to protect their vulnerable customers, they can expect to face similar enforcement action.”

Virgin has four weeks to pay the fine, which will then be passed onto the Treasury.

The penalty took into account the seriousness of the breach and the vulnerability of the customers affected – as well as the fact that Virgin self-reported the incident and admitted its failings.

A spokesman for Virgin said it had updated its procedures since 2023 and introduced further safeguards to improve its treatment of vulnerable customers.

“While historically the majority of migrations were completed without issue, we recognise that we didn’t get everything right and have since addressed the migration issues identified by Ofcom,” the company said.

This includes a package of support for vulnerable customers including improved communications, additional at-home support and extensive checks following the switchover, as well as taking part in a national awareness campaign.

The firm also stressed that it was “essential we move our customers to digital services” from traditional analogue landlines which are “less reliable and difficult to maintain”.