Virgin Mobile have billed us £68 and say no problem on the account

donny909

Well I dont know where to start on this except the start I guess. GF gets a new mobile on virgin mobile in march, just over £15 per month for 500 mins & unlimited txts. Not much chance of going over as she had been on 75 mins per month on previous contract and did'nt go much over that. Only today VM have billed us £68 because she apparently used up the 500 mins and near 200 mins on top of that.

There is no way she has physically used that up but the call centre says there is no suspicious activity on the account even though she never went over the inclusive in the previous 2 months. So they say again nothing odd or suspicious seems to be indicated on the bill and suggests she looks at the itemised bill online to see for herself as they wont refund as there is no abnormal account activity and therefor wont investigate.

Eventually get the itemised bill online and some of what VM said is possably true but there is also some very odd activity (odd from my point of view) or signs of problems on the account.

First off calls are getting dialed that are not getting connected but are getting taken off the allowence and then being charged for on a per minute basis. For example the gf has been trying to get hold of people but they are not answering there phone. The bill indicates that she is often trying as many as 3 or 4 times per minute to get through and the bill shows that in the 3 or 4 times per minute she is trying inside a single minute they have deducted 3 minutes off her allowence even though to call has been made. This has happened a good 200 times or more during the last month according to the bill where the calls are not getting connected but she is still getting minutes deducted each time and later in the month often being charged each time by as much as 30p for non connecting calls!.

Futher more the bill and contract as with all mobile networks assumingly uses up the inclusive minutes and then charges after that right?.

But the gf's vm bill shows that in the last several days of the last bill that on some days the calls are being charged for (because assumingly the account is showing she has gone over the 500 inclusive minutes) but on other days she is not getting charged. Ity's kind of like on say days 24,26,28 she is getting charged for calls but on say days 25,27,29 etc the bill shows she is not liable for phone charges!!!.

To me this shows a clear problem with the account that she is and has been charged\deducted minutes off her account for non connected calls (cant connect or no answer etc) and is not being charged on some days that she is being charged for on previous days.

Does this sound odd activity via the bill or is it somehow normal activity for the bill to look like that?. Any advice on the issue as it seems very odd to us?.

OneADay

Virgin charge by the minute so I heard. 1 second calls is counted as 1 minute.
Your GF's repeated attempts to call someone might result in a non connection to that person but the call could be being directed to a voicemail on other end - in which case its connected.

That is probably what is happening as a guess.

fluffy123

Hi there....I can't guarantee this as I'm still waiting for my bill to come in but I have a feeling my bill is going to be a bit higher this month than normal. I've never gone over an allowance in the 17 months I've had the phone, therefore I've only ever paid £1, £2 on top of the line-rental for picture messages or accessing the internet.

But looking at my account, I've got a feeling that we're going to be talking more like £25-£40 over which wouldn't make sense to me as well....this could be interesting...

invisibleyousee

If the call goes to voicemail, then than will come out of the allowance because it has connected - so if she's making 3 or 4 attempts to get through to someone and it connects to voicemail and then she hangs up, she'll still use that out of her allowance.

What date does your bundle refresh each month? That could be related to when she has to pay/when she doesn't.

Also - are the numbers being called only standard landline or personal mobile numbers?

grumbler

donny909 wrote: »

...The bill indicates that she is often trying as many as 3 or 4 times per minute to get through and the bill shows that in the 3 or 4 times per minute she is trying inside a single minute they have deducted 3 minutes off her allowence even though to call has been made.

Normally you get connected to the voicemail finally that counts as a connection even if you don't leave a message. I guess Virgin round the calls up to whole minutes.

Futher more the bill and contract as with all mobile networks assumingly uses up the inclusive minutes and then charges after that right?.

But the gf's vm bill shows that in the last several days of the last bill that on some days the calls are being charged for (because assumingly the account is showing she has gone over the 500 inclusive minutes) but on other days she is not getting charged. Ity's kind of like on say days 24,26,28 she is getting charged for calls but on say days 25,27,29 etc the bill shows she is not liable for phone charges!!!.

Some 07 numbers may not be included, for example, 07744 and 07755.
Virgin use T-mobile that are known to charge for a wide range of numbers: Tmobile wants to charge me for 07404 numbers?

If it's the case, it's worth challenging them as I don't see any information on their website except for 07744, 07755 and 070

They say, however, "UK mobile networks", but some numbers looking like UK mobile numbers can be not UK in fact.

donny909

Thanks for the replies as I think both sides are at fault here, virgin for not clearly indicating a per minute charge even if only a 5 second call and not texting to inform when allowence has been used like other networks. And the partner for assuming a new network would have a similar policy of informing once an allowence has been used and thinking she's not be charges 4 minutes worth of allowence of bill when she has tried 4 times inside a minute to call someone.

But 1 of the numbers is my mums mobile (voda I think), that will ring a good 30 seconds or more before going to answer machine. So even if on every occcasion on her number alone she calls on the first second of a minute can the bill say she has called 3 or 4 times in a single minute. Thats physically not possable as nobody can fit a good 2 mins of dialing\ringing into what a bill claims can be done 3 or 4 times in a single minute.

So I gotta wander if there might have been a problem with the account or vm's system where it has caused her to be billed for numbers\calls she cannot have dialed and gone to answer machine as the time it takes to dial goto answer machine hang up and redial simply cannot be done by anyone on any network that the bill claims has been done. Any thoughts on this or can a number be dialed and connected to answer machine hung up and redialed 3 or 4 times inside a single minute?.

invisibleyousee

If your partner used to get a text when her allowance had been used up, it would be worth reminding her that she can dial 789 at any time and she'll be able to hear what her current minutes and text balance is so she'll know how many minutes she's got left.

You should also be able to see that information on the "Your Account" online.

donny909

invisibleyousee wrote: »

If your partner used to get a text when her allowance had been used up, it would be worth reminding her that she can dial 789 at any time and she'll be able to hear what her current minutes and text balance is so she'll know how many minutes she's got left.

You should also be able to see that information on the "Your Account" online.

She used to be with 3 but got a better deal from virgin. I guess it's easy to say she should have checked the balance on reflection. But also fair to assume that virgin mobile dont have a policy of not informing customers of charges untill they reach £125 in a month being unlikely.

I might well try and challenge virgin later on how the bill can claim she can dial get to answer machine hang up and redial 3 or 4 times in a single minute when thats simply not possable and have the bill claim thats she has done that various times covering well over 200 minutes of charges throughout the month on various numbers.

Gotta wander if that kind of thing has happened to others where a bill shows a customer has repeatedly dialed numbers they are claiming they have not and cannot possably have inside a time a bill shows they have?.

grumbler

Can you check the call history in the mobile?

EDIT: unfortunately, it doesn't show whether the call went through and how long it was.

donny909

grumbler wrote: »

Can you check the call history in the mobile?

It does'nt go back thats long or many calls so even thats not possable sadly.

invisibleyousee

It also depends on how long the voicemail takes to kick in - yes some people may have this set to 30 seconds, but others may only have it at 10/15/20 seconds in which case then someone could redial multiple times within 1 minute.

Is the credit limit set to £125? This could be lowered to £50, although this used to only be possible around 3 months of having had the contract (may have changed now), and this would send out text alerts when approaching the credit limit.