Virgin Mobile Sim Only Deals with 5000 mins inclusive to call 08 numbers

Imymayra

Has anyone had an issue with Virgin Mobile to do with calling 08 numbers.

I set up my mother, whos an old age pensioner, an account with Virgin Mobile for Sim Only deal at £13pm which gave her 5000 mins to Landlines/Uk Mobiles + 5000 mins to 08 Numbers + 3GB Data per month.

My mothers service was suspended. When I called them on her behalf they advised me that my mother was making too many calls to an 0870 number. I queried whether my mother had gone outside of her inclusive minutes to which Virgin advised that she had not.

I was now quite puzzled. I was then put through to another department who were very abrupt in their manner of speaking. They simply advised that even though my mother had not used all of the 5000 (in fact she was at about 2000 mins used) for the month they were not happy with her usage and therefore they were not going to lift the suspension and gave her to options 1. take the number to another service provider or 2. they would cancel the contract.

To me this is mis-selling of great proportions. Their website still advertises and promotes/offers the £13pm Sim Only Deal with 5000 mins for Landlines/UK Mobiles + 5000 for 08 Numbers + 3GB Data. How can this be right ???

Hoping other people out there can shed some light on this for me.

Ian011

If she made 2000 minutes of calls to 0870 numbers with a Service Charge of 13p per minute, Virgin Mobile will have had to have paid out £260 (including VAT) to the joint benefit of the organisations that were called and their telecoms providers. The organisations that were called will have received up to £170 in revenue share payments. Whatever of that that hasn't been paid by the caller who made the calls, will have had to have come from increased prices for all other VM customers for all other types of calls.

This underlines the craziness of any and all deals offering inclusive calls to premium rate 084, 087, 09 or 118 numbers with an additional Service Charge.

VM changed their Terms and Conditions several months ago to state that anyone calling inclusive 084 and 087 numbers to a greater extent than calling geographic numbers, 03 numbers and mobile numbers would be disconnected for abnormal usage.

Nevertheless, make a complaint to Advertising Standards (ASA) explaining that VM are not willing to honour what was originally advertised.

Jon_01

I'd guess that there's some fair usage policy on the number of calls to 0870 that you can make. 2000 minutes to premium rate numbers is very high for anyone!

wongawonga

If your mother was using it to make inclusive intl calls via a 0870 number its no surprise they shut it down

sdduk

I can under stand where you are all coming from but its Virgins thought for giving people 5000 mins to 0870 numbers in the first place if they didn't want you to use all them mins then they shouldn't have given them in the first place bloody hypocrites.:mad:
Its like given someone a box of chocolates and telling them they can only eat half because the company that makes them is running out of chocolate.:o

mobilejunkie

Though they don't give you a box full of hazels in the box - there are lots of toffees and not so nice ones. It depends as always what it says in the t&c about 08 numbers. It is extremely WRONG that "unlimited" data doesn't mean what it says - which is where the t&c are a get out for the networks.