Nick Smith MP has written to Virgin Media’s Chief Executive for a second time after he failed to answer key questions asked about accountability following Ofcom’s record £28 million fine.
The latest letter follows a question Mr Smith raised in the House of Commons on July 9 and subsequent correspondence with Chief Executive Lutz Schüler, in which he sought answers on senior accountability.
The fine was imposed after Ofcom found that Virgin Media had repeatedly made it unnecessarily difficult for customers to cancel their contracts between January 2022 and September 2024.
The regulator found that customers were subjected to practices including excessive call transfers, lengthy holds and dropped calls designed to make it harder to cancel their contracts.
A response to Mr Smith’s initial letter highlighted changes the company has made to its customer service operation to address some of the issues raised but did not answer the specific questions put to the Chief Executive.
Mr Smith said Virgin Media’s response failed to answer his questions about what responsibility the Chief Executive accepts for the company’s culture and governance, what consideration he has given to his future in the role, and why previous Ofcom enforcement action in 2018 failed to prevent similar failings from recurring.
In his latest letter to Chief Executive Lutz Schüler, Mr Smith wrote: “My concern was not simply that failings occurred, but whether those at the highest levels of the company have been held accountable for conduct that resulted in Ofcom imposing a £28m fine, the largest ever issued under its consumer protection rules for direct harm to customers.”
He also challenged the company’s description of those affected as a “small proportion” of customers who experienced problems, writing: “This characterisation is difficult to reconcile with Ofcom’s published findings that ‘millions of calls were likely mishandled over nearly a three-year period, preventing or delaying customers from switching away to a better deal.'”
Mr Smith added that while he welcomed the improvements Virgin Media says it has implemented he did “not believe it is acceptable to minimise the scale of what the regulator found.”
Mr Smith has also written to the Chair of the Virgin Media Remuneration Committee asking whether executive bonuses and other performance-related awards covering the period investigated by Ofcom will be reviewed in light of the regulator’s findings.
