Virgin Mobile - Credit towards a new mobile phone cancelled

Sherbet.Lemon_2

For the last two years, I have built up a significant amount of 'credit' towards a new phone with Virgin Mobile pay as you go. The deal they run is that for every £100 spent on their products, you earn £10 towards the cost of a new phone, which must be spent in one go. This is something that every Virgin Mobile customer receives as a 'reward'.

I had kept an eye on this amount and intended to use it towards the cost of a new phone for Christmas. However, I checked the system yesterday and found that this credit has been deleted.

On phoning Virgin today, I discovered that the credit that every Virgin customer had built up was deleted on 29/11/2010. When asked, they refused to reinstate it.

I was told by someone who didn't seem to know what they were talking about that customers should have been informed of this. However, I have certainly not been informed, either by email, post or text message. Is anyone else able to confirm this? I would be very interested to hear from anyone who can confirm or deny this, as clearly if the the rest of their customers have not been informed, as I haven't, then they have been very unscrupulous.

Thanks

pardal51

My upgrade allowance (£10) is still showing on my account. I am a very low user and this credit has been there for ages.

Hope this helps.

Nessynoo

I am with Virgin Mobile and certainly haven't been informed of this.

Sherbet.Lemon_2

Thanks for both of your replies. What pardal says seems to suggest they were wrong when they told me others had had their deleted. Has anyone else had it removed from their account? Have you, Nessy?

JJ_Egan

This is something that every Virgin Mobile customer receives as a 'reward'.

Never been available on my long standing PAYG account and no sign of it under my account details and never has been .
probably take me a long long time to spend that much on phone calls anyway .



jje

Sherbet.Lemon_2

I'm happy to be shown to be wrong, but it suggests that you don't spend more than £100 every two years, which you would need to do. Otherwise it would say "Right now, you don't have any money off your next mobile."

If you go into your account and click on 'Your rewards' you should see it there. I know that pay monthly contracts and pay as you go offer these rewards, though perhaps other Virgin contracts do not.

This is the wording about the offer from the site:
"For every £100 you spend on calls and messages or bundles, we'll give you £10 towards your next phone. Earn up to £100 off any new phone in our range. Just watch out for the little green monster in your mates. Use your discount after being with us for 3 months. It builds up over 2 years. When you spend it, you'll need to spend your entire discount in one go. Once you've used your discount up the whole cycle starts again."


And here is an interesting section from the terms and conditions:
"Promoter may alter or end the promotion at any time and will give as much notice as Promoter is reasonably able. Promoter: Virgin Mobile Telecoms Ltd, 160 Great Portland Street, London, W1W 5QA ."

bcron66

Same thing happened to me, had £40 removed. I checked my account to see if they had any phones worth buying, saw the credit was gone. I gave Virgin a ring and was told all rewards had been removed for direct debit customers. She said I should have had a letter or text to let me know which of course I hadnt. I was then told that if I wanted to use the credit I would have to buy a phone through the phone department. I said I would and she told me they would contact me in the next few hours, no call came.
Rang again today, was told again rewards had been removed but that I had 3 months to use the credit against a new phone. I was given a number to ring and told they are dealing with all reward credit requests. When I rang I was told my credit couldn`t be used but as a "lovely customer" I would be given free minutes instead. I refused. I repeated that Virgin customer service had told me I could buy a phone with the credit but they wouldn`t budge.
Cancelling peoples credit without any notice just before Christmas is a very underhand move by Virgin.

Sherbet.Lemon_2

I completely agree. In fact, they have broken their terms of service if they have done this without informing us. I'm glad someone else has experienced it. It leads me to wonder whether there's an interesting story for a watchdog.

In my case, £60 was removed, which I had intended to spend on a phone this month. I was not told I could use the lost credit at all and in fact told them that I would leave if they did not offer the credit back. They told me they wouldn't and I have cancelled this contract, which will take effect at the end of the month.

noelphobic

This has happened to me also and I am fuming! I had £40 credit towards a new phone and it has completely disappeared with no warning and without me being informed even after the event.

I am annoyed with them anyway, even before this happened! My contract came to an end in October so I asked to go on PAYG as I hadn't been using my phone much. They said I could have a £6.50 per month rolling 30 day SIM only contract which gave me 100 minutes and unlimited texts. I agreed to this as it seemed like a good deal. Then I got a text about my new £8.50 deal. I phoned them straight back (which cost me 10p!) and was told that it was normally £8.50 but I would only be charged £6.50. The first month I was charged £6.50 but this month I am being charged £8.50. I have a student card and that is supposed to give me 15% discount, but I only applied for that recently. Next month I am being charged £6.77 and £1.73 is not a percentage of either £8.50 or £6.50 so don't know how they worked that out!

I tried to send them a message about all this on their website and it crashed and the message didn't go through! If I don't get my bill back down to £6.50 minus 15% AND get £40 discount off a new mobile then I am also going to cancel my contract. If I am going to be paying £8.50 per month I might as well go elsewhere and pay £10 per month for the same amount of minutes AND get a new handset!

noelphobic

Sherbet.Lemon wrote: »

This is the wording about the offer from the site:
"For every £100 you spend on calls and messages or bundles, we'll give you £10 towards your next phone. Earn up to £100 off any new phone in our range. Just watch out for the little green monster in your mates. Use your discount after being with us for 3 months. It builds up over 2 years. When you spend it, you'll need to spend your entire discount in one go. Once you've used your discount up the whole cycle starts again."

When I first saw that my credit had been removed I did wonder whether it only lasts a certain length of time, similar to the way that Tesco Clubcard vouchers have expiry dates. However, if that was the case I would expect you to lose it £10 at a time, not all in one fell swoop. Plus they should at least let you know when it was due to expire.

No point in me phoning them tonight though, as last time I tried I found customer services are only there until around 7 or 8pm. I will try to send a message through their website again but will not be a happy bunny if it crashes again!

noelphobic

I just tried to send an email on their website again and got a similar message to the one I got yesterday, which is:

Sorry but your request could not be processed due to some error.
Please try again later.
Look at the server logs to find the reason for this error.

javax.servlet.jsp.JspException: String index out of range: -2 at tags.templates.GetTag.doStartTag(tags/templates/GetTag.java:50) at _com._egain._web._view._selfservice._templates._virgin.__template._jsp__tag3(__template.java:2862) at _com._egain._web._view._selfservice._templates._virgin.__template._jspService(__template.java:2663) at weblogic.servlet.jsp.JspBase.service(JspBase.java:34) at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper$ServletServiceAction.run(StubSecurityHelper.java:227) at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper.invokeServlet(StubSecurityHelper.java:125) at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.execute(ServletStubImpl.java:283) at weblogic.servlet.internal.TailFilter.doFilter(TailFilter.java:26) at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:42) at com.egain.platform.client.ResponseCacheFilter.doFilter(ResponseCacheFilter.java:68) at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:42) at weblogic.servlet.internal.RequestDispatcherImpl.invokeServlet(RequestDispatcherImpl.java:526) at weblogic.servlet.internal.RequestDispatcherImpl.include(RequestDispatcherImpl.java:454) at weblogic.servlet.jsp.PageContextImpl.include(PageContextImpl.java:152) at tags.templates.InsertTag.doEndTag(tags/templates/InsertTag.java:23) at _com._egain._web._view._selfservice._templates._virgin.__suggestedarticles._jsp__tag0(__suggestedarticles.java:1528) at _com._egain._web._view._selfservice._templates._virgin.__suggestedarticles._jspService(__suggestedarticles.java:1487) at weblogic.servlet.jsp.JspBase.service(JspBase.java:34) at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper$ServletServiceAction.run(StubSecurityHelper.java:227) at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper.invokeServlet(StubSecurityHelper.java:125) at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.execute(ServletStubImpl.java:283) at weblogic.servlet.internal.TailFilter.doFilter(TailFilter.java:26) at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:42) at com.egain.platform.client.ResponseCacheFilter.doFilter(ResponseCacheFilter.java:68) at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:42) at weblogic.servlet.internal.RequestDispatcherImpl.invokeServlet(RequestDispatcherImpl.java:526) at weblogic.servlet.internal.RequestDispatcherImpl.forward(RequestDispatcherImpl.java:261) at com.egain.selfservice.servlet.ControllerServlet.dispatchRequestToTemplate(ControllerServlet.java:6213) at com.egain.selfservice.servlet.ControllerServlet.process(ControllerServlet.java:876) at com.egain.selfservice.servlet.ControllerServlet.processRequest(ControllerServlet.java:426) at com.egain.selfservice.servlet.ControllerServlet.handlePost(ControllerServlet.java:287) at com.egain.selfservice.servlet.BaseServlet.doPost(BaseServlet.java:51) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:763) at com.egain.selfservice.servlet.BaseServlet.service(BaseServlet.java:58) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:856) at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper$ServletServiceAction.run(StubSecurityHelper.java:227) at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper.invokeServlet(StubSecurityHelper.java:125) at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.execute(ServletStubImpl.java:283) at weblogic.servlet.internal.TailFilter.doFilter(TailFilter.java:26) at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:42) at com.egain.custom.SSInvalidDataFilter.doFilter(SSInvalidDataFilter.java:99) at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:42) at com.egain.platform.client.ResponseCacheFilter.doFilter(ResponseCacheFilter.java:68) at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:42) at weblogic.servlet.internal.RequestDispatcherImpl.invokeServlet(RequestDispatcherImpl.java:526) at weblogic.servlet.internal.RequestDispatcherImpl.forward(RequestDispatcherImpl.java:261) at com.egain.selfservice.servlet.ControllerServlet.dispatchRequestToTemplate(ControllerServlet.java:5345) at com.egain.selfservice.servlet.ControllerServlet.process(ControllerServlet.java:876) at com.egain.selfservice.servlet.ControllerServlet.processRequest(ControllerServlet.java:426) at com.egain.selfservice.servlet.ControllerServlet.handlePost(ControllerServlet.java:287) at com.egain.selfservice.servlet.BaseServlet.doPost(BaseServlet.java:51) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:763) at com.egain.selfservice.servlet.BaseServlet.service(BaseServlet.java:58) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:856) at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper$ServletServiceAction.run(StubSecurityHelper.java:227) at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper.invokeServlet(StubSecurityHelper.java:125) at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.execute(ServletStubImpl.java:283) at weblogic.servlet.internal.TailFilter.doFilter(TailFilter.java:26) at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:42) at com.egain.custom.SSInvalidDataFilter.doFilter(SSInvalidDataFilter.java:99) at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:42) at com.egain.platform.client.ResponseCacheFilter.doFilter(ResponseCacheFilter.java:68) at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:42) at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext$ServletInvocationAction.run(WebAppServletContext.java:3229) at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:321) at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:121) at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.securedExecute(WebAppServletContext.java:2002) at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.execute(WebAppServletContext.java:1908) at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletRequestImpl.run(ServletRequestImpl.java:1362) at weblogic.work.ExecuteRequestAdapter.execute(ExecuteRequestAdapter.java:21) at weblogic.kernel.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:145) at weblogic.kernel.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:117)

I can now add to my complaint the fact that you can't send them a message when you want to complain! I will either have to phone them or send them a letter tomorrow. I may resort to snail mail as I am on the phone all day in work and just don't have the patience!