Virgin Mobile

Tammer

Hi,

Does anyone have any experience of negotiating with Virgin Mobile to match a competitor's deal?

I see Virgin do the HTC Wildfire for £20 a month but on T mobile you can get it for £99 and £10 a month for unlimited web. Would Virgin match or beat the T mobile deal?

Oscar_The_Grouch

I doubt it - they piggyback the T-mobile network so are unlikely to be able to alter their deals.

LDR28

Tammer wrote: »

I see Virgin do the HTC Wildfire for £20 a month but on T mobile you can get it for £99 and £10 a month for unlimited web. Would Virgin match or beat the T mobile deal?

Out of interest, how long are the 2 contracts with VM and Tmob?

Tammer

Hi,

The contracts are both for 24 months.

LDR28

Virgin Mobile - 24months x £20 = £480
Tmobile - 24months x £10 (+£99 handset) = £339

That's quite a big difference between the two providers. From what I've read on this site VM aren't the most generous company for deals and retentions offers so it's unlikely they'd match the TMob price. Also, Tmobile have a FYP of 3gb compared to just 1gb (I believe) from Virgin Mobile.

Tammer

Thanks, I'll post results here when I eventually get through to them.

The deals aren't exactly the same. The Virgin deal comes with 500 minutes and unlimited texts (which I don't need) compared to 100 mins and 100 texts from T-mobile.

LDR28

Tammer wrote: »

The Virgin deal comes with 500 minutes and unlimited texts (which I don't need) compared to 100 mins and 100 texts from T-mobile.

So the T-mobile deal is cheaper, has a more realistic amount of mins/text/internet and, from my own personal experience at least, CS that is as good as, if not better than VM. Sounds like you've answered your own question

Tammer

Hi,

Thought I should tell you about my experience in as concise a way as possible.

1. Phoned virgin mobile (vm) and got a message saying very busy and could take 15 mins to answer. Was at work so hung up.

2. Called vm and when pressing "3" to cancel, got "you've dialled an incorrect number". Did that a few more times before realised that you have to listen to all the options fully before selecting one or it will give you an error.:cool:

3. Called vm and selected 3 at the right time and got a message saying very busy and could take 30 mins to answer. Persevered and someone answered after 5 mins. They said "all our systems are down, you'll have to call back".

4 Phoned vm the next day and after 51 mins (!) someone answered. They offered an ok deal 200 mins and texts, unlimited web, free HTC wildfire for £15 a month (24 month contract). I said I would have gone for it if hadn't been on the phone for 50 mins. I asked if they could better the deal but they could not. I got my PAC number and cancelled my contract.

5. Bought an HTC wildfire from T mobile shop on £99 handset plus £10 a month for 100 mins / texts, unlimited web. PAC code was invalid :mad: I need this to keep my existing number.

6. That night, I phoned vm (to get a working PAC). After 1hr and 5 mins, someone answered. They asked why I was cancelling. They then said they could offer some great deals. I said "whatever" the guy earlier couldn't beat the t-mobile deal. The guy said he had access to a different system and could do my phone for £42 handset and £10 a month. I said shame that the guy earlier hadn't mentioned that and asked for a working PAC. The guy went on to offer a range of other market-leading deals such as HTC Desire for £179 and £10 a month for 18 month contract. I could be wrong, but I guessed he was making this up. He said he'd put in a call to the tech team who'd investigate my PAC and reply within 72 hours.

7. I'm not holding my breath. I plan to complain to OFCOM if they don't sort out my PAC within 5 days as I understand that's an OFCOM requirement. I'm raging at vm.

LDR28

Thanks for sharing Tammer

Sounds like you've had a jolly old time of it. No wonder people switch providers when you read stories like these. If you do need to speak to VM again try emailing them a question instead; I did this last weekend, asking a genuine question about the end date of my current contract, ten minutes later they called me with the info I'd requested.

I'll be phoning VM this weekend to request my PAC so will post here on my experiences.

Tammer

Hi,

An update from me.

Not wanting to wait an hour on the phone again, I emailed Virgin Mobile via their website to request a working PAC. I mentioned that OFCOM oblige firms to provide these promptly.

Someone phoned me within 10 minutes with a new PAC. The PAC worked with T-mobile - hurrah!