Virgin Mobile abroad

danbren

Hello

Last week my elderly mother returned from a trip to New Zealand to visit family. On return, she received a phone bill from Virgin Mobile for £463. Obviously shocked at this, she contacted Virgin as the most she had done was send a handful of texts and go on Facebook a couple of times (being 68, she's not technologically savvy).

After being put on hold for an hour while the person on the other end "got his manager" my mum hung up in frustration. She's now had the entire amount debited from her account, despite only receiving £500 a month pension.

I'm absolutely furious at what looks like Virgin taking advantage of a pensioner and not even having the decency to explain how this massive amount has accumulated. Does anyone have any advice on the chances of getting at least some of this back if i were to contact them on her behalf. She's devastated at this, feels like an old fool and I can't stand to see her like this.

Any help/advice greatly appreciated!

powerwin

There were cases like this involving Orange Mobile a few years ago, where users were complaining of extremely high roaming charges when abroad. I would see if you could find out what happened there.

Legally speaking the mobile company won't have done anything wrong, but it is a question of "reasonableness". It is very expensive to let your phone roam when abroad in some cases.

Rgds

Silk

danbren wrote: »

Hello

Last week my elderly mother returned from a trip to New Zealand to visit family. On return, she received a phone bill from Virgin Mobile for £463. Obviously shocked at this, she contacted Virgin as the most she had done was send a handful of texts and go on Facebook a couple of times (being 68, she's not technologically savvy).

Didn't anyone in the family such as yourself advise her of how to best use the phone abroad before she went ?
She should have had a welcome text advising her of the charges etc ...did she get one ?

System

If it is data, it should have been capped €50 unless you mother agreed to raise it - which sounds very unlikely.

Calls are a different matter.

grumbler

Heng_Leng wrote: »

If it is data, it should have been capped €50 unless you mother agreed to raise it - which sounds very unlikely.

Exactly.

There is a safety net - all mobile operators have to apply a cut-off limit once you have used €50 (excluding VAT) – around £40 – of data per month, wherever you travel in the world, unless you choose another limit.
The provider must send you an alert when you reach 80% and then 100% of the agreed data roaming limit. Operators must stop charging for data at the 100% point, unless you agree to continue to use data.

Ofcom: Using your smartphone abroad

Calls cost £1.50/£1 to make/receive. Texts are 40p.

danbren wrote: »

I'm absolutely furious at what looks like Virgin taking advantage of a pensioner and not even having the decency to explain how this massive amount has accumulated.

What about the monthly bills?
Elderly and "not technologically savvy"? What about you? Did you not know that she was going abroad with a smartphone? Could you not take care of this then instead of being 'furious' now? Even £40 for data is a lot for a pensioner on £500 p.m.

macman

If she failed to switch data off when roaming then all the apps will have been updating in the background on extremely expensive data rates.
As pointed out above, her monthly bill or online account will break down the charges-so why not look at them rather than ranting?

danbren

Some helpful points here, thanks for those. As for not informing her myself, it didn't even cross my mind as like someone here has pointed out, theres usually a cap on what you can amass abroad and she hardly uses her phone.