Virgin rip off!!!

Maybeanotherday

Hi there,

Thanks for your email to Virgin Media.
We'll look into the details and get back to you as quickly as we can. Just to let you know, it may take us up to 5 days to reply.

If your enquiry is urgent please give us a call on 789 from your Virgin Mobile phone, this costs just 10p, no matter how long you talk. If your phone's been lost or stolen, please call our team on 0845 6000 789. These calls are charged at local rate. We're open 24 hours a day and we're here to help

mrsr

I wil PM you

Maybeanotherday

mrsr wrote: »

I wil PM you

Just wanted to let you know that what you said was exactly right, for some reason the system had not regonised my new package and had charged me for everything I have used!
They are refunding me for the money that have taken, do you think I should send a letter of complaint about the attitude I got the first time round and her brushing me off?:o

mrsr

skellett wrote: »

Just wanted to let you know that what you said was exactly right, for some reason the system had not regonised my new package and had charged me for everything I have used!
They are refunding me for the money that have taken, do you think I should send a letter of complaint about the attitude I got the first time round and her brushing me off?:o

Hi skellett
Glad you got sorted i thought that was the problem,sorry you felt you were being brushed off ,in defence if you spoke to somebody new or inexperianced they would not have known what to look for.Hope you were added some free min/texts to keep you going till IT fix it.

headintheclouds

You can also cap your spending with Virgin. I've got a £50 limit per month but I never get anywhere near that. Ask them to put a cap on at an amount you think is reasonable for you and that way you won't have to worry about overspending.

SaLoGo

I used to work for VM and it astonishes me that staff can get away with giving that kind of service! They either need sacking or trained properly. It was a bloody fab place to work and I actually miss solving problems like the OP's.

AlexChambers

Hi Skellet,

My wife and I had the same problem and others with a Vodafone contract for our young daughter's who would run out of Pay-As-You-Go credit and not be able to call us if the local bus service left her stranded.

When my wife took out a cheap (in theory) contract, apart from not being able to login to online billing to check a bill because the account the account had been suspended by Vodafone, we found we could not put a spending cap on the account because of the direct debit mandate she had given.

I therefore propose a Communications Charter so that customers with contracts can use communications devices (they're no longer just phones) and put limits on their bills or direct debit authorisation to protect their bank accounts from excess charges over and above the inclusive amount as with the EU imposed data roaming spending cap.

We appealed to Otelo but they seem to think that Vodafone's contract (like every mobile phone company) excludes putting a limit on phone charges so you are not protected from "unauthorised" charges unless your phone is stolen or used fraudulently e.g. you have not protection if your dog chews the phone and calls Afghanistan whilst you are out or if you sit on your phone and download the latest 3hr blockbuster movie.

Basically, contracts limit the controls you have on your bill as much as the procedure trying to keep and eye on charges.

There should be a charter giving customers the right to put spending caps on their bills not just for data abroad but in the UK as well and the use of direct debit mandates should be investigated by the Financial Services Authority to prevent abuse.

I reckon the Government should investigate all communications contracts and test whether they are covered by the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and

1. Whether the direct debit mandate excuses phone companies of a duty of care?

2. Whether there should be a UK spending cap automatically imposed in proportion to the contracted inclusive monthly amount or set at £34.00 + VAT as the data roaming spend cap abroad e.g. Why should phone users have protection abroad and not at home?

3. Whether contractees are entitled protection from excess charges for phones used by third parties, unauthorised or accidental usage?

4. Whether contractees should have the right to set spending caps as a contractual right?

5. Whether termination penalties are enforceable in the absence of spending caps or contract failure??

6. Whether phone charges under direct debit are regulated by the FSA, UK Payments Administration Ltd. and Trading Standards?

7. Whether phone companies have a contractual duty or duty of care to authorise excess domestic charges directly with customers as with charges abroad?

8. Whether online billing should be regulated and online terms and conditions constitute contractually binding agreements?

9. Whether there should be a time limit to excess charges after failed direct debit collection to protect customers from bills they have no knowledge of or cannot pay?

10. Whether there should be a right to hold a phone contract/obtain a discount or have the personal security phone of mobile phone connection without a direct debit mandate or bank account in a modern world devoid of Post Offices or phone boxes on every corner?

11. Whether phone users should receive a free automatic text message to indicate that their credit is low or contract usage is going to exceed inclusive charges?

12. Whether of Pay-As-You-Go users should be able specify an emergency number to phone other than 999 to protect children or people like farmers or those in remote areas?

Generally, I think there should be a UK and European investigation into the oligopoly of mobile communications companies and their failure to provide call packages allowing the poor, unemployed, isolated and minors with a fair system of access to mobile communications amounting to a breach of Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantees freedom of association.

In other words, are digital communications covered by freedom of association guarantee and should those without the means be able to participate in society?

gjchester

AlexChambers wrote: »

My wife and I had the same problem and others with a Vodafone contract for our young daughter's who would run out of Pay-As-You-Go credit and not be able to call us if the local bus service left her stranded.

With respect you need to teach your daughter the value of things.

I understand your concern, but if you bail her out all the time she won't learn.

Some of the thinks you suggest *ARE* already in place.

You are protected against charges once you inform the mobile comnpay a phone is lost or stolen. Sitting on a phone or a dog chewing it and it making calls / downloading, sorry but you just have to take responsibility in that case for your actions or inactions, not blame someone else for what is ultimatly your fault through your inaction or carelessness

My Wife gets texts from vodafone once she drops low on credit, and a friend on O2 gets a balance after each call.

Orange do a "reserve tank" where there is a set amount of credit for an emergency use (http://www1.orange.co.uk/service_plans/payasyougo/reserve_tank_overview.html)

And as for the right to hold a phone, why? The mobile companies are not govermenatly funded, if you want a phone you have to pay for it. PAYG is cheap, however people have to accept they can't use a service without payment.

I can understand where your coming from but a charter is not the answer. People taking responsiblity for their actions and reading contracts before they sign them in the willingness to get the latest gadget is the answer.

AlexChambers

Hi Chester,

I would agree with that to an extent but the fact is that my wife was taken seriously ill after a year or so into the contract and Vodafone stopped sending the phone used by my daughter messages showing her usage the month before my wife had to withdraw her direct debit authorisation. She was just 14 at the time and we live in a country area where the buses frequently drop children off in the dark or bad weather to walk over a bridle path that can be difficult in high Summer. I want her to have the freedom and the security a phone can give.

Needless to say, girls want to talk to their mates and no more so when their mum is ill. In her case, most of her school friends are 20-30 miles away and few local.

To credit my wife, she received an alert from her bank and canceled her direct debit immediately as she had a priority payment to go out that day and our daughter's bill was just under 5 times more than the inclusive amount of the contract.

I didn't know that my wife had taken out a contract in reply to a cheap offer from Vodafone. Her concern was that my daughter had been left in the snow or buses had been cancelled in bad weather last Winter (repeated this year!!). The problem with Pay-As-You-Go is that it eats up your credit every time you dial or someone leaves you a message (think teenage girls here) and you can only call 999 in an emergency and not your parents.

The howler here was that Vodafone did not cut off the phone as you or I might expect but left it on for a further two and a half months without posting a bill until October 2010 for £431.09 which comprised 3 months bills plus a cancellation charge of £97.07 which is good, bearing in mind my wife didn't say, "hey, get lost Vodafone". Instead, she canceled her direct debit to prevent further charges in the full expectation that the phone would be cut off for non-payment in a few days as normal e.g. teach daughter to be more careful and I'll get back to it later. At that point she spoke to Vodafone to query the bill who blithely informed her that the account was "suspended" (sound exactly like Skellet's problem which is how I found this topic) and they could not explain the charges or provide an itemised bill.

Would you pay a regular bill five times the normal amount without checking it?

As regards to your comment, I have to defend my daughter whom I was not happy with at all at the time. She said she used to receive text messages monthly with the charges. However, it turns out that Vodafone stopped sending SMS billing messages in May the month before my daughter broke the bank. Having had PAYG phones previously which get get cut off before you run out of £10 credit she thought she was still within her limit. Not unreasonable assumption bearing in mind the contract offered unlimited texts and free wi-fi internet since we now have broadband in our village and at home.

On holiday in July/August with my wife still unwell her penultimate bill was 794% the inclusive calls and 322% for a week or two into August until Vodafone at last cut the phone off.

All this time we never received a bill in the post, and no phone call or email from Vodafone. Not exactly credit card level security and they have a mandate to take whatever and whenever from your bank account remember.

Eventually, I received a bill to my wife about the third week of October for £431.09 as mentioned. After a distressing call to Vodafone by my wife it turns out that the bill was for 4 months including the first £95.63 my wife called to query plus 3 subsequent months including 90 days charge when not connected plus £97.07 termination charge despite the fact that my wife had not terminated the contract. She merely withdrew her direct debit authorisation and queried the bill which Vodafone said they could not itemise because our account was "suspended" e.g. pay up and we'll reconnect you (having been with Vodafone for 11 years and had monthly bills for over £100 when you could fill a Range Rover for £35 that rang very true which is why I left them).

The best bit of all this was when the Vodafone's Director's Office (e.g HQ) send me itemised bills by month from June to September in mid November, it showed that the call charges over the inclusive minutes were 35p/minute instead of 21p/minute on PAYG.

Needless to say, both daughters are on Pay-As-You-Go and have to walk and be more careful now. But it is still a worry.

Anyway, you are correct in saying that mobile phone companies are not Government funded - you and I pay the bills. Just like the banks who went bust and we are all paying the price for the next 10 or 20 years. Like the banks, all of this could have been prevented by better regulations and politicians not fiddling their expenses but doing their jobs. Hence my suggestion that we need a Communications Charter.

Remember Gordon Brown saying. "We've abolished boom and bust"? Well, my family live in a village and the fact is there are no Post Offices for miles, a phone box that you now need a cash bag of 20p's to use, no shops and a bus service about to disappear completely (50% cut last year).

Now I'm sure you are about to say, this guy's a whinger, but what do you do when your car gets two flat tyres as mine did on Monday and you are 7 miles from a garage and you have no spare wheel ('cos it's progress!!) and a 1/2 used can of squish to inflate the other?

I'm not saying there aren't !!!!less people like you say but that does not bear out my experience. The fact is times have changed and Post Offices, faxes and local services are a thing of the past and we rely on mobile communications to book a flight, buy your dinner and a thousand and one things you don't think about until you are stuck.

The problem is that for a large section of society not bailed out by the banks and those in rural areas, mobile phones are a life saver. I am not being over dramatic but I have a neighbour whose son was working on his big tractor out in the fields by himself and got a shard of metal behind his eye just stopping short of his brain. A mobile call and an ambulance to Moorfields 100 miles away he lived. That would not have happened 20 years ago.

My question is, what would have happen in 2 years time if this you man with two children had not had credit and couldn't pay his bill because his phone/internet banking or whatever had not been working because the phone companies carried out their threat to charge users for connection just for having their phone on?

Just remember Gordon Brown and look what happened.

We need a Charter to protect us. Times have changed.

gjchester

AlexChambers wrote: »

To credit my wife, she received an alert from her bank and canceled her direct debit immediately as she had a priority payment to go out that day and our daughter's bill was just under 5 times more than the inclusive amount of the contract.

I have symapthy for the situation but cancelling a direct debit without cancelling the service or at least talking to the provider is the worst you can do. Did you attempt to call Vodafone over it?

From experience when I changed bank account and the DD didn't get moved correctly Vodafone sent me a letter and then also called me as soon as one DD payment failed to query it. In my case I used a banks switching service and they got a few wrong so it was simply a case of ensureing the had the right account and sort code and it was sorted out quickly. Are you sure they didn't do that, or did your daughter not pass the meessage on?

I'm not saying Vodafone are perfect, but they would have tried to contact you somehow.

AlexChambers wrote: »

The howler here was that Vodafone did not cut off the phone as you or I might expect but left it on for a further two and a half months without posting a bill until October 2010 for £431.09 which comprised 3 months bills plus a cancellation charge of £97.07 which is good, bearing in mind my wife didn't say, "hey, get lost Vodafone". Instead, she canceled her direct debit to prevent further charges in the full expectation that the phone would be cut off for non-payment in a few days as normal e.g. teach daughter to be more careful and I'll get back to it later. At that point she spoke to Vodafone to query the bill who blithely informed her that the account was "suspended" (sound exactly like Skellet's problem which is how I found this topic) and they could not explain the charges or provide an itemised bill.

Again I'm not sure why you think it's Vodafone fault, it would not be reasonalbe to expect that stopping a DD would cancel a contract, she would have signed up for a minimum term. New contracts usually use online billing only, was this not told to your wife?

If you cancel the direct debit but still continue to use the service without payment what were you expecting? A contract last a set minimum months, you can't cancel it early without paying a termination fee.

Why didn't you just talk to you daughter about the bill, as no one said anything how was she supposed to know?

AlexChambers wrote: »

Would you pay a regular bill five times the normal amount without checking it?

No and it there are mistakes thats another matter, but your wife cancelled the means of payment and your daughter kept using the service. Out of bundle minutes may be higher on contract than PAYG, but thats irrelevent, they were used then need to be paid for.

Would you keep working for somene who didn't pay you for four months?

AlexChambers wrote: »

Having had PAYG phones previously which get get cut off before you run out of £10 credit she thought she was still within her limit. Not unreasonable assumption bearing in mind the contract offered unlimited texts and free wi-fi internet since we now have broadband in our village and at home.

Again did you tell her what she had allowance wise. You gave her a phone that potentially has no limits . Your wife must have know how many minutes were in the allowance, if it was say 100 and you told you daughter she had two hours of talk time a month then she might have been more careful. It sounds like she was not tolds any limit.

AlexChambers wrote: »

After a distressing call to Vodafone by my wife it turns out that the bill was for 4 months including the first £95.63 my wife called to query plus 3 subsequent months including 90 days charge when not connected plus £97.07 termination charge despite the fact that my wife had not terminated the contract. She merely withdrew her direct debit authorisation and queried the bill which Vodafone said they could not itemise because our account was "suspended" e.g. pay up and we'll reconnect you.

So you didn't pay them for at least 4 months by removing a means of payment and then you wonder why they closed your account. I'm suprised they didn't pass it on to debt collectors.

If you need a mobile for emergecy use then it should be impressed on her that, what would have happened if your daughter had been using the phone all day then when it came to call you the battery was flat.

I don't doubt phones are lifesavers in some situations, but it's a service, use it and you need to pay for it. It's not really relevent going back 20 years and saying what if so much has changed, would some be working a fireld by themselves 20 years ago? Most likely they would not have been so mechanised and would have had help.

AlexChambers wrote: »

Just remember Gordon Brown and look what happened.
We need a Charter to protect us. Times have changed.

Any such charter would be a political football.

Remember the patents charter big fanfare when launched , but the NHS has not got appreciativly better for it. Some parts have inprioved some have not. Rememeber the waiting list issues, you would not wait more than a week to see a doctor, so what was the solution, not improve the service but to stop taking appointments more than a week in advance.

I'm sorry I know this sounds heartless but your wife stopped payment on the contract, yes the out of bundle cost was higher then you expected, and that was a mistake, but your daughter exceeded the allowance and you need to pay for what was used.

It's easy to be wise after the event, the bill should have been queried at the time not ignored. Stopping payment has probably got you wife a few black marks on her credit reference file, and a lot of stress.