Problems with Virgin Mobile overcharging

savers_united

Hi all

No doubt someone else has been in the same position who may be able to help.

I took a new 18mth contract with Virgin in January which included 500min 3000txt and unlimited web.

For the past 9 months I have had no problems except the odd month they would charge me 30p for web access even though I was on unlimited tariff (Something to do with the 1 day of the month the new allowance is applied) so I would phone up and they would refund 3 months worth at a time (90p).

However last month I was looking at my online account and noticed my credit limit was showing £132 used.
So I phones Virgin CS and explains, asking why I owe £132, the lady had a look at my account and said that for some reason my web access bundle had not been added for August / September and possibly that's where the charges had come from but would need to wait until 23rd September when bill is produced to find out but not to worry any moneys owed will be return and someone will call on the 23rd from Virgin CS.

As no one phoned I forgot all about it until I got my bank statement through today and they have in fact charged me £132 for the month, I quickly checked my online Virgin account and can see from the bill that because a Web access bundle had not been applied to the account I was being charged 30p every day I accessed the web and on the 2 days I went over 25mb was charged a whopping £105.

I have read the T&Cs and if you are on unlimted web bundle its 1GB per month and not 25mb per day.

I have not rushed into phoning them back yet, just want to get a feel if others have experienced the same and what are the outcomes, I also will now have for certain an overdraft charge on my bank account because of the amount that's been withdrawn on the DD.

Do I have a case to cancel the contract?? They have withdrawn excessive funds from my account and put me overdrawn, I had made them aware of it and they promised to phone back before this all happened, I have never missed a payment with them.

Their T&Cs basically state you can cancel if things are not sorted within 7 days, its a service (Unlimted web access) I had paid for and they removed it and then started charging me excessive amounts for no web access and have failed to return the overcharged amounts.

Sorry for the rant.. Anyone??

£note

Billing errors are not normally grounds for cancellation but they have made a mistake and should refund the overcharge. On the issue of your account being overdrawn, if this occurred because they took funds from your account erroneously then you have every right to ask them to reimburse the costs you have incurred from your bank as a result of their error.

smcaul

If it was a direct debit then claim it back via the DD guarantee at the bank, this is the quickest way!! Then you will need to get it sorted at Virgins end, I always find that if you are getting nowhere fast with the off shore call ctr then press the option to leave in the call menu and you will get a UK call ctr who will normally always sort it out for you.

Just last week I had an overcharge on data to the tune of £60, had to cancel DD before it went out and then had a few "discussions" with the CS reps to get it resolved, only when it went to the retentions team did they actually spot that there must have been a serious error their end and then refund the charges onto the account!!!

But if you don't get anywhere with the problem drop me a private message as I have a couple of very useful mobile numbers for this sort of issue, picked up from having to sort out my own issues with VM recently (had 3 problems in 7 days!!!) when it works they are great, but the offshore call ctrs are the worst!!!!

PatNunn

I experienced months of similar hassle from Virgin and despite leaving them, they just sent me more 'other' charges that are outside of the monthly allowance. These 'other' charges are the odd 30p daily charge for internet which they have told me is down to their own technical error (although a previous customer service officer told me I had gone over my allowance of 1Gb - WRONG! I had actually only used up 26Mb!). It costs me 10p each time to call their 789 help line. They say they will reimburse me yet never do. I called them today as my contract ended last week and STILL they tried to bill me including these 'other' charges. At least this time the guy said he would sort it out once and for all - and this time it cost me 30p from a landline to call their customer services. Either way, Virgin will end up taking you for a ride! Best advice? Avoid!

dhrillsah

I'm on an old £10 a month tariff which I've had for 3 years including 300 texts and 300 minutes which I never use up. I paid off my bill in full 2 weeks ago as usual. Now they have blocked my phone and I am almost £50 into my "credit limit", when this was zero two weeks ago. Looked at the bill and there is nothing I can see itemised in recent usage to anywhere near this amoun but they had charged me for a couple of calls that should have been included in my minutes. My handset is so old I can't even access the internet so it can't be connecting by accident or anything. I sent them an email and am waiting for a reply.
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