Excessive Data Charges - Virgin

ellisplace

Hi
I need help, I went on Holiday to Cornwall and towards the back end of the trip I found that my phone had been cut off. When I enquired about this upon my return home I found that due to my data usage I had reached my credit limit of nearly £200.

Now I am stuck with a phone bill of £198 usually £30. Problem is I recently upgraded my phone to a HTC desire. And I am locked into the contract for another 22 months.

The data charges seem to occur on my bill at around 14 mins past midnight every night. I was tucked up inside my tent at this time. So this is clearly impossible. I pay for unlimited internet but I am aware that the fair usage policy (whatever that means, fair to whom?) which means I have 1Gb of unlimited internet. I have looked at my charges and seen that nearly 650Mb of data was exchanged at exactly midnight on the 18th July. I do not use my internet very much the occasional check of the BBC news website, some streaming on Spotify (although I use it mostly in offline mode). And as a sat nav.

My total data charges occur for 1.35Gb, so virgin are trying to charge me £167 for 350Mb of data that I am sure I haven't used.

Please please tell me where I can go with this. I am locked in for 22 Months. I do not want to pay £200 for data I haven't benefited from.

Help!

9217niall

Hmm, someone else will offer better advice than me.
If you're not doing it and Virgin aren't providing a fair service then there must be a clause that allows you to leave?
Could you not turn your phone off at night.
Hope it gets resolved for you anyway.

The_Cappuccino_Kid

Could you not go down the line of not being aware that unlimited didn't mean unlimited? Have you got much of a history with them?

I would just ask them to cut you some slack.

DarkConvict

650MB is a hell of alot for background activities. Have you added on lots of additional applications.
The more apps you have the odds are they will start connecting to the internet and update themselves.
But still 650MB is a difficult figure to reach in a day over mobile network connection speeds.

lucylucky

Can Virgin provide more of a breakdown of the bill to help you see what on earth it is that was using all that data?

You can set the desire up so that it can not access data at all if you wish.
You can use tools like juicedefender to help and something like 3G monitor will show you how much data you are using over 3G on a daily basis if you wish.

Not much use now, but perhaps for the future.

ellisplace

Thanks Guys!

Virgin got back to me, they said their technical team took a look at it and said that it was highly suspicious that the data came off at midnight every night. They admitted liability and are refunding me £167 so my bill is back to normal.

I now have an app that monitors my 3G activity and warns me when I am getting close.

If anyone is interested the free android app (unsure if other platforms are available) is called 3G Watchdog and works like a charm.

Cheers
Ellis

lucylucky

ellisplace wrote: »

Thanks Guys!

Virgin got back to me, they said their technical team took a look at it and said that it was highly suspicious that the data came off at midnight every night. They admitted liability and are refunding me £167 so my bill is back to normal.

I now have an app that monitors my 3G activity and warns me when I am getting close.

If anyone is interested the free android app (unsure if other platforms are available) is called 3G Watchdog and works like a charm.

Cheers
Ellis

That is a result. Well done Virgin.

Some programmes can switch off your data connection at certain times, for example you can set it to be off between midnight and 7 am should you wish.

ellisplace

Guys

An update:

Despite promising me over the phone that my bill had been reduced, I requested that they send email confirmation of this and they promised they would.

No Email. and guess what. My direct debit was nearly £200.
Rang virgin up and they are goinf to give me a refund direct to my bank.
I specifically stated that I could not afford that amount to come out but they went ahead anyway.

I wish I could get out of my contract but I have just signed up for 24 months. Two Mobiles and a new homephone, broadband and TV package. Typical. It has been over the stipulated pull out time of 1 month. Is there anything I can do?

sporedude

ellisplace wrote: »

Guys

An update:

Despite promising me over the phone that my bill had been reduced, I requested that they send email confirmation of this and they promised they would.

No Email. and guess what. My direct debit was nearly £200.
Rang virgin up and they are goinf to give me a refund direct to my bank.
I specifically stated that I could not afford that amount to come out but they went ahead anyway.

I wish I could get out of my contract but I have just signed up for 24 months. Two Mobiles and a new homephone, broadband and TV package. Typical. It has been over the stipulated pull out time of 1 month. Is there anything I can do?

Well your getting your money back, So no.

Guys_Dad

sporedude wrote: »

Well your getting your money back, So no.

Is there any more certainty in "getting your money back" than "they admitted liability and are refunding me £167 so my bill is back to normal."

The fact is that they have acknowledged a problem in their system and that resulted in a huge overcharge. They promised to wipe that off the bill and didn't.

OP could have incurred bank charges.

I would demand a written confirmation and apology along with some compensation (say a month's free connection). I would then demand assurances that the glitch is sorted out in their system, plus assurances that no such excess charges will be taken again .

Personally, I would be very, very wary of any push email systems that you may have or any data apps that run silently. Try switching your phone off for a week at night to double check it is definitely their systems.