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24 April 2013updated 22 Oct 2020 3:55pm

Did Virgin Media just fine someone £10 for being dead?

The most heartless piece of admin you'll see all day.

By New Statesman

This image was posted on Facebook by Jim Boyden on Monday, and has since been shared 36,900 times. It appears to be a bill from Virgin Media, responding to the news of a customer’s death with a fine:

Boyden posted it alongside this message, which also notes that Virgin Media’s “infernal cable pipes” seem to come from the ground, which is coincidently the “same location as Hell”:

Dear Virgin Media,

I’m really sorry for my Father in Law not paying his bill last month, but what with him being dead and all, it’s probably slipped his mind. Some people, eh?

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THANK YOU

You, however, are to be publically commended for swooping in with all the sensitivity of a charging rhino and instantly fining him an extra ten pounds for having the unheard of nerve to be dead and therefore being unable to pay you (some people really have no idea of priorities do they? It’s your profit first, THEN anything else. The cheek!).

You also win extra points for noticing his bank had returned his Direct Debit informing you he had passed away, THEN still slapping on a fine anyway. That’s a special kind of meanness right there. Oh, and despite my wife telling you our sad news as well. I am intrigued – how exactly did you imagine him paying this extra fine from beyond the grave?

You also deserve a further honorable mention for promptly sending us next months bill as well. I’m simply not paying it, as ever since passing away, I have noticed a sharp decrease in the amount of television my Father in Law has been watching. I simply cannot think why that would be.

I might pay it if you can prove to me he’s been watching any of your channels in heaven, but given that www.facebook.com/pages/British-Sky-Broadcasting/107691862593307?group_id=0“>https://www.facebook.com/pages/British-Sky-Broadcasting/107691862593307?…”>British Sky Broadcasting is beamed in directly from the clouds I think he’s much more likely to be enjoying that. Your infernal cable pipes seem only to come up from the ground (same location as Hell – spooky coincidence) where I imagine your train people in the art of customer service.

I am bitterly disappointed in your attitude, probably automatically generated by machine and unchecked by any caring human heart. The only saving grace is that my Father in Law had an excellent sense of humour and is probably laughing his arse off about this as we type, giving you the Vs, waving ten pound notes around, planning to haunt you and enjoying the content of Sky TV.

Fail.

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