Virgin Media and the ASA round two
Wednesday 09 May 2012 09:55:21 by Andrew Ferguson

Virgin Media has been taken to task over the lack of prominence for its voice line rental when it is required to qualify for a promotional offer. Some eighteen complaints were received by the ASA about a TV ad, press ad and circular which promoted a bundle of services all including calls.

Virgin Media said that it was following advice from CAP on the positioning of the requirement to pay line rental, and what they had done was in line with industry practice. The ASA seemed not to agree and had the following to say:

"We noted that the Code required quoted prices to include non-optional charges that applied to buyers. We understood that the line rental was a compulsory monthly charge, which consumers were required to pay in order to obtain the bundle, and because it had not been included in the quoted headline price, we concluded that the ads were misleading."

Extract from ASA adjudication

It seems because people buying a Virgin Media cable service have no option to take their line rental or calls with another provider on that network, that in bundles that include calls, the line rental will have to be included in the headline price.