Investigation into Virgin Media’s compliance with rules relating to vulnerable consumers and access to emergency organisations

Following our investigation, Ofcom has today issued a Confirmation Decision to Virgin Media Limited (trading as ‘Virgin Media’) under section 96C of the Communications Act 2003 for contravening General Condition C5.2 between August 2022 – December 2023.

Our investigation was opened following notifications by Virgin Media to Ofcom of a number of serious incidents relating to customers with telecare devices (Telecare Customers). These incidents occurred as part of Virgin Media’s programme to migrate customers from the analogue PSTN (traditional copper lines) to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) (digital landlines). Our investigation has focused on whether there were systemic issues with Virgin Media’s approach to migrating Telecare Customers.   

As a result of our investigation, we have found that Virgin Media contravened General Condition C5.2 by failing to comply with its own policies and procedures for the fair and appropriate treatment of vulnerable consumers.

Specifically, we have found that Virgin Media failed to comply with its obligations under General Condition C5.2 based on the following contraventions:

1. Virgin Media failed to properly identify and record the status of Telecare Customers. Virgin Media’s methodology for recording the status of telecare customers was inadequate and inconsistent with its own policy. We also consider there were significant gaps in Virgin Media’s screening process to identify Telecare Customers. This meant that those affected did not receive the appropriate level of support.
2. Virgin Media’s approach to disconnecting known Telecare Customers: despite being reasonably aware of the risks, Virgin Media took decisions in designing and then implementing an approach to disconnecting known Telecare Customers that did not comply with its own vulnerability policy. In doing so, Virgin Media exposed vulnerable consumers to a direct risk of harm and prevented their devices from connecting to alarm monitoring centres while the disconnection was in place.

We consider these to be serious breaches of our rules to protect vulnerable consumers. In particular, due to (i) the known vulnerabilities of the consumers affected; (ii) the significant duration of Virgin Media’s contraventions; (iii) the seriousness of the breaches; and (iv) the significant degree of potential harm caused by Virgin Media’s contraventions.

As a result, we are imposing a financial penalty of £23.8 million on Virgin Media. This penalty was set having regard to our Penalty Guidelines and includes a 30% discount as a result of Virgin Media’s admission of liability and its completion of Ofcom’s settlement process. We have also taken into account the action that Virgin Media has taken to date to address our concerns regarding General Condition C5.2, as well as the fact that Virgin Media reported the serious incidents to Ofcom and fully cooperated with our investigation.

As part of this investigation, we also considered Virgin Media’s compliance with General Conditions A3.2(b), which requires providers to ensure uninterrupted access to emergency organisations, and  C5.3 which specifies what should be included – as a minimum – in policies and procedures for vulnerable consumers. As a matter of administrative priority, our investigation has prioritised considering breaches of Virgin Media’s obligations to meet the needs of vulnerable consumers, specifically Telecare Customers. For this reason, we have not made any findings in relation to General Condition A3.2(b) or C5.3 in this investigation.

A non-confidential version of the Confirmation Decision will be published in due course.