Virgin Media fined £23.8m for putting vulnerable customers at risk

Virgin Media has been fined £23.8m for putting thousands of vulnerable people “at risk of harm” when switching them from an analogue to a digital landline.

The media watchdog, Ofcom, found the company failed to protect people who relied on telecare alarms to call for help, after Virgin Media self-reported a number of “serious incidents” in November and December 2023.

Telephone network owners have been switching millions of people to digital landlines in recent years, but the move can disrupt some telecare alarms that rely on the analogue system to communicate with call centres or carers.

Ofcom found “serious system failures” in Virgin Media’s process of moving its customers to a digital landline between August 2022 and December 2023, including failing to properly identify and record the status of people with telecare alarms.

Virgin Media’s approach to disconnecting telecare customers who did not engage with the switch process put thousands at harm and “prevented their devices from connecting to alarm monitoring centres while the disconnection was in place”, the regulator said.

Ian Strawhorne, the Ofcom 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.”

The £23.8m fine, which Virgin Media must pay within the next four weeks, will be passed on to the Treasury. It includes a 30% discount as Virgin self-reported the incident to Ofcom, admitted its failings and cooperated with the investigation.

The watchdog also noted the company had taken steps to fix the problem, including conducting manual reviews of its customer service records and contacting its almost 43,000 telecare users to support them in the switch.

A spokesperson for Virgin Media said: “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.

“Our customers’ safety is always our top priority and, following an end-to-end review which began in 2023, we have already introduced a comprehensive package of improvements and enhanced support for vulnerable customers including improved communications, additional in-home support and extensive post-migration checks, as well as working with the industry and government on a joint national awareness campaign.

“We’ve been working closely with Ofcom, telecare providers and local authorities to identify customers requiring additional support and are confident that the processes, policies and procedures we now have in place allow us to safely move customers to digital landlines.”