Virgin Credit Cards - Being held to ransom over your account

PatKeyboard

Hi All, 
First post here and hoping this is the right forum for it. I wanted to share an ongoing battle I've been having with Virgin for the last 6 months in the hope that I could find people who had a similar experience, or could share some advice. This complaint was raised to the financial ombudsman in December but I've been told it could be months until they can look at it. I'll try to keep the explanation as concise as possible but obviously happy to answer any questions - essentially, what I believe is happening, is that I am acruing interest and fees without any option to pay my bill or realistically resolve the situation.
This first started in August last year when I took a call from Virgin about some suspect charges on my account. They called me, explained they were from India. Obviously I said it wasn't me, and they then said they would freeze my account and send me a new card. I asked them to confirm the address and they had my old one (I moved in March) so I asked to update it. Worth pointing out at this point I had already cleared security with them to have that conversation. I was told that they couldn't update my address over the phone and I would need to post them proof of ID and address. At this point with the lockdown, my office was closed, as it was all year, and people were advised to work from home. This meant I did not have access to a printer. I explained this but they said there was nothing they could do. 
In the meantime I tried to log into my account to pay my bill, as I do every month. I was told my account was locked and I had to ring customer services to gain access. This took days of retrying and hours on hold, as I had to plan this around my work commitments. Upon ringing customer service, I answered 3 security questions, but the 4th question was "what was the last transaction on your account?"
As I do not regularly use the card and just want to pay it off, I couldn't answer that question - the only way to do that would be to login to my account, which I couldn't do. So they are asking me to answer a question I cannot answer. I was told that this issue would be raised to their "security team" and they would call back - I was given no timeframe for this, and I never received a call at all. I then received an e-mail to say I had missed a payment and incurred a charge. 
I then complained formally to Virgin - another lenghty process, and this was now ongoing until October. All whilst I am being charged interest and late payment fees on an account they have restricted my access to. They gave me a "final notice" letter, saying that I had to send the documents for security, and that the "security team" was an error on their behalf and they would credit me with £25. Again quite useless, I have no access to my account, so no idea what that £25 will cover or what my balance/charges are. Eventually when we had a brief respite from national lockdown, I was able to go into my office and print the documents required for the change of address. We are now into December. I had an e-mail from customer services confirming they had received this and to phone up to get access back to my account. After I called, I was then told that the photocopy of my passport "wasn't legible" - I made multiple copies of this document, I have one in front of me right now and it is perfectly legible. I was also told that I needed to send proof of my OLD address as well as my new address - something that wasn't communicated by Virgin. I explained, again, that getting printed documents in the post is not practical during a pandemic. They suggested my post office might have a photocopier - But as my banking is paperless, all of my statements are online. So I can't exactly access that on a photocopier, and of course the local printing shops are all closed. I also don't feel comfortabe about logging into my internet banking on a public network, even if they were. 
So here we are - I have now been incurring interest for 6 months, non-payment charges on my account for 6 months and Virgin have given me no way to be able to pay my bill. This is also going to be severly impacting my credit rating - and whilst I hate to use the mental health argument lightly, this has severly affected me because I have been worrying that maybe this will mean one day I can't get a mortgage, or that I've accured up so much debt that it could bankrupt me (there is a big balance on the card) - all whilst there is a global pandemic ongoing. 
I am just beyond perplexed with how a lender can act like this - I feel literally held to ransom. Because everything takes so much longer in the pandemic I feel like Virign are effectively taking advantage of the situation by trying to extort as much money and suffering out of me as possible. 
I really hope the ombudsman can step in and resolve this but it is going to take so long that the situation could be far worse by the time they get to look at it. 
I would love to hear from anyone who's had anything similar, or could offer any advice. Sorry for the long post but hopefully I've covered all the details. 
Thanks for reading, 
Pat

[Deleted User]

I would prioritise making payments. You should have the payment details from all your previous payments, Start making payments based on your own estimation of the balance.

PatKeyboard

Deleted_User said:

I would prioritise making payments. You should have the payment details from all your previous payments, Start making payments based on your own estimation of the balance.

I've only ever made payments through their online app, which I'm banned from. I don't have a direct debit set up. With the account frozen, I'd also have no way of checking those payments were actuallly being receieved and accounted for. And whether they were the minimum etc...

sleepyjones

You can buy a printer in Tesco for like £25, they're always on offer and instead of trying to scan or photocopy stuff you can just take a picture with your phone and send them that (or print it and send them it)?

I'm not sure the ombudsman will look at it, Virgin will need these documents to confirm your identity and if you can't provide them then obviously there's a security issue, especially since you're disputing / raising fraud concerns on your account. (They can use your passport number to confirm your identity, so it could be something as simple as 1 character in that number being illegible in your print out).
They do have the facility to upload docs to their website, so I would ask again if you can upload a picture of your passport etc via the website (ie : https://uk.virginmoney.com/current-accounts/your-application/upload-your-documents/) ... obviously this is to support a new application, but they have the means in place ... or even if you can email into them and then just send a picture of the docs that you've taken with your phone.

You can also use an iPhone / ipad to scan documents (if you have one), have a look here : https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT210336

DjangoUnchained

i would stop paying them and wait for the ombudsman to sort it out. Interest should be frozen while in dispute. Virgin are idiots to deal with.

mab3000

PatKeyboard said:

Deleted_User said:

I would prioritise making payments. You should have the payment details from all your previous payments, Start making payments based on your own estimation of the balance.

I've only ever made payments through their online app, which I'm banned from. I don't have a direct debit set up. With the account frozen, I'd also have no way of checking those payments were actuallly being receieved and accounted for. And whether they were the minimum etc...

You can make payments via bank transfer with your bank. Their sort code and account number should come up as trusted business account as a bill payment, and with virgin you use your long card number as the payment reference. 

AbundantBudget

Such a simple situation to resolve, it shouldn't take 'years'. As said above every bank has Virgin's sort code and account number for payments, you only need your long card number as reference. Documents can be scanned by phone and uploaded via Virgin's upload document service, you just need to chat with Virgin and they will give you the link straight away. 

longtimelurker2020

mab3000 said:

PatKeyboard said:

Deleted_User said:

I would prioritise making payments. You should have the payment details from all your previous payments, Start making payments based on your own estimation of the balance.

I've only ever made payments through their online app, which I'm banned from. I don't have a direct debit set up. With the account frozen, I'd also have no way of checking those payments were actuallly being receieved and accounted for. And whether they were the minimum etc...

You can make payments via bank transfer with your bank. Their sort code and account number should come up as trusted business account as a bill payment, and with virgin you use your long card number as the payment reference. 

This is how I make overpayments to my Virgin credit card.

 I have two money-related apps; my bank app and the Virgin Money credit card app. Previously I’d pay by going into the VM CC app but after a while decided to set it up (using their account no and sort code) as a payee in my banking app, with the long number on my card as the reference. So I have no need to log into the VM app.

The Virgin Money website lists various ways you can pay to your CC and also details the sort code and account number to make bank transfers to, which might explain why they don’t appear to be sympathetic to your plight. (To be on the safe side, call them to ask for the payment details instead of lifting them off a website)

Now if their fraud team has frozen your account such that no transactions are permitted, then that’s another matter entirely. Good luck I hope you’re able to resolve this soon. 

rosiesposies

Yea this is mad. Surely you know roughly what you owe, calculate a minimum payment of that balance add some buffer in for good measure and make a payment to them using bank transfer. I would never play loose and fast like this with credit history in the hopes the ombudman might sort it out and also agree. Printers are cheap! Photo to scan apps and the rest 

PatKeyboard

sleepyjones said:

You can buy a printer in Tesco for like £25, they're always on offer and instead of trying to scan or photocopy stuff you can just take a picture with your phone and send them that (or print it and send them it)?

I'm not sure the ombudsman will look at it, Virgin will need these documents to confirm your identity and if you can't provide them then obviously there's a security issue, especially since you're disputing / raising fraud concerns on your account. (They can use your passport number to confirm your identity, so it could be something as simple as 1 character in that number being illegible in your print out).
They do have the facility to upload docs to their website, so I would ask again if you can upload a picture of your passport etc via the website (ie :  ... obviously this is to support a new application, but they have the means in place ... or even if you can email into them and then just send a picture of the docs that you've taken with your phone.

You can also use an iPhone / ipad to scan documents (if you have one), have a look here : 

Hey, thanks for the reply - virgin confirmed categorically that these documents need to be posted and not e-mailed (I wonder why, in a pandemic, where they can exponentially charge accounts?) so that's not an option. I appreciate I can buy a printer - but I don't want to spend the money, and I don't want one. I didn't agree to anything in my T&Cs that meant I would need to personally buy a printer to resolve an issue.... 

PatKeyboard

rosiesposies said:

Yea this is mad. Surely you know roughly what you owe, calculate a minimum payment of that balance add some buffer in for good measure and make a payment to them using bank transfer. I would never play loose and fast like this with credit history in the hopes the ombudman might sort it out and also agree. Printers are cheap! Photo to scan apps and the rest 

I don't want a printer, nor do I want to spend any more money. The passport copy I sent was perfectly legible. I cannot pay via bank transfer - as mentioned to a previous message, the only card I have is expired.  I was just paying off the account, not actively using the card. So I would feel uncomfortable using that number as a reference.