when is a credit limit not a credit limit

smashedsanny

the answer is with Virgin, I have a phone for my daughter on a virgin contract, I asked to have a credit limit on her account, they know its for my daughter, I thought the limit was £30, she has had her phone now for 18 months and only every going over a few times and with only a few £££, so you can imagin my shock when the last bill was £189.79 I looked at the bill it showed the credit limit had jumped up to £500, as you can imagin I called virgin got the most unhelpful girl ever who had more fun talking to the person next to her rather than helping me, I sent an email and today in the post got a reply to say they were sorry ..... and yes the credit limit is £50, but I have to pay the bill, and I should not use the £50 limit as a tool to see if I go over, my under staning of having this limit was the phone would cut off if it went over the limit, and asked that when I set up her account. any one got any advice, thanks :eek:

HappyMJ

smashedsanny wrote: »

the answer is with Virgin, I have a phone for my daughter on a virgin contract, I asked to have a credit limit on her account, they know its for my daughter, I thought the limit was £30, she has had her phone now for 18 months and only every going over a few times and with only a few £££, so you can imagin my shock when the last bill was £189.79 I looked at the bill it showed the credit limit had jumped up to £500, as you can imagin I called virgin got the most unhelpful girl ever who had more fun talking to the person next to her rather than helping me, I sent an email and today in the post got a reply to say they were sorry ..... and yes the credit limit is £50, but I have to pay the bill, and I should not use the £50 limit as a tool to see if I go over, my under staning of having this limit was the phone would cut off if it went over the limit, and asked that when I set up her account. any one got any advice, thanks :eek:

Do you have the £30 credit limit in writing anywhere? Do they have a record of you asking for a £30 limit? I'd tell them that's what you agreed to and you'll pay £30 a month until the debt is paid off.

I also wouldn't speak with them if the first attempt at resolving this issue has already failed. I would now write to them.

grumbler

smashedsanny wrote: »

...I... got a reply to say they were sorry ..... and yes the credit limit is £50, but I have to pay the bill, and I should not use the £50 limit as a tool to see if I go over, my under staning of having this limit was the phone would cut off if it went over the limit,

What was your understanding based upon?
The T&C say:

We will also set a credit limit for you and may suspend the services at any time when you reach the limit until we have received the full payment of any charges you owe us.

Certainly 'may' and 'will' have different meaning.

Credit cards have credit limits too. This doesn't mean that you cannot go over it.

What you need is either PAYG or a contract with a cap on spending, not with a credit limit. AFAIK only T-mobile and Tesco Mobile do such contracts.

smashedsanny

when I first set up the account I explained that I wanted a cap on her not going over her account, just in case 1 she lost the phone or 2 she went a bit crazy, I was told this would be a credit limit, on I did not get it in writing, as it was done on the phone,
I need help to resolve this issue, thanks for your answers so far

zagfles

smashedsanny wrote: »

when I first set up the account I explained that I wanted a cap on her not going over her account, just in case 1 she lost the phone or 2 she went a bit crazy, I was told this would be a credit limit, on I did not get it in writing, as it was done on the phone,
I need help to resolve this issue, thanks for your answers so far

Unfortunately you can't rely on credit limits to control usage, they are there to protect the networks not the customer. Even caps aren't reliable as they often have exclusions (like roaming). The only safe option seems to be PAYG - when it's the netwoks' money at risk they suddenly seem to be perfectly capable of stopping usage once the credit is used up.

Buzby

Agreed, these caps are there for the network's protection ONLY, and if the use was genuine your family member has had a valuable lesson - using something because you can doesn't mean that's all you pay, there will be some reconing. She must have been aware she was using the handset for more that she used to, so if this was the case hoping that the limit would block the connection will not work on a contract phone - only PAYG has this protection.

macman

They don't 'know it's for your daughter'. The contract is in your name and you are 100% responsible for the bill. If you allow your daughter to have use of the the phone then that is nothing to do with the network.
If the charges were due to roaming abroad (?) then they are not incurred in real time, and the network cannot apply any credit limit to them.

Stuart_W

The only contracts that explicitly do cap monthly bills are Tesco Mobile's Capped option and T-mobile's U-fix options.

In both cases, you pay a fixed monthly fee for a certain allowance of minutes/texts/data and if any allowance is exhausted during that month, then top-ups can be added - like PAYG - for additional use if required. The monthly bill cannot have additional call charges added.

T-mobile specifically refer to U-fix being aimed at parents buying for children.

T-mobile_Website wrote:

You Fix on T-Mobile offers you 12 Month contracts where you stay in control of what you spend! You pay an amount every month to get an allowance of minutes and texts which you can't go over - if you want more, you simply top up the phone just like you would on pay as you go!

*No unexpectedly high bills at the end of a month
*Freedom to add more if you need it
*Perfect if you are buying for a child and want to stay in control of how much they spend!

The fact that, in the case of T-mobile certainly, the deals offered on these contracts are not as good as on "open-ended" contracts shows just how much money they expect to be able to make on run-on rates and additional charges.

wantmemoney

when I first set up the account I explained that I wanted a cap on her not going over her account, just in case 1 she lost the phone or 2 she went a bit crazy, I was told this would be a credit limit

This is not the first time I've heard this. It appears the Networks are instructing their 'customer service' staff to mislead people or allow people to mistakenly believe the Network credit limit is a customer's spending cap

My advice for the future is record everything....and yes 'billing' is in real time.....the year is 2012

robbies_gal

you cant do much except take the phone off your daughter

its your contract you pay the bill so take some control yourself

wantmemoney

gabbyevs wrote:

its your contract you pay the bill so take some control yourself

if you read the thread you would see that that was what Virgin had mislead the OP into believing she had done....they mislead her into believing a customer spend cap had been put in place.

grumbler wrote:

http://www.virginmobile.com/vm/genericContent.do?contentId=our.service.footer.sm068
We will also set a credit limit for you and may suspend the services at any time when you reach the limit until we have received the full payment of any charges you owe us.

actually it's not in the main T&C's but it is there to be read.

that is clearly misleading if not actually false.....many people would be lead to believe that 'limit' was for the benefit of the customer.