Sony Ericsson phone at carphone warehouse for £12.95 inc £10 credit.

pinkgem

MINCER wrote: »

Edit - Oh and he insisted that if I tried to take the phone back to a CPW or sent it back I'd only get the £2.95 back as the credit is non-refundable.

i bought a pay as you go phone in carphone warehouse at xmas, and had to pay an extra £10 for credit, when i got home and opened the box there was no back cover for the phone and one of the buttons didn't work! i took it back and asked for a full refund and was told i couldn't have the £10 credit back! i got them to phone customer services in the store and they agreed to send me a cheque for £10 which turned up about a week later

thepearce

After spending at least 45 minutes in a store this afternoon I've ended up with a £2.95 refund and a £10 cheque to come. The cheque is "gesture of goodwill" rather than a refund though. I have to wait up to 28 days for the cheque.

I had this problem with mixed numbers as well as being told by Virgin they couldn't register my number as it was already registered. This was why I wanted a refund on the whole lot - I'm not prepared to wait 21 days for it to be rectified.

Despite being promised a refund for both by customer services it was a different story in store & when they called "retail support". The guy in the store was helpful but by that point I'd decided I wanted a refund.

I would urge people to check that they can register their number/sim on the Virgin website and pursue the (extra) top-up by email.

Silly me had apparently ticked the box on the website to say I agreed the top up can't be refunded. I must have missed the box which agreed to about 3 hours hassle....... I must've ticked it though.

"Top-up is a virgin problem"........"the sim was direct from Virgin" (yet it came with the phone?).

As I say - I recommend dealing with this as suggested previously - email / top up in store. Trying to get any joy by phone will probably be a waste of time. I'm sure CPW will sort people out and you may end up with some extra credit but I'll be far more wary of these "when you buy £x top-up" deals in future.

jammy123

Just noticed the same thing.
I phoned them yesterday and they said they would add the £10 in the next 5-7 days.
After reading the above posts i found that my numbers are different.
So they will be adding credit to a sim that i don't have.

dansandman

This IS a Virgin problem rather than a CPW problem as the sims have been sent from Virgin with the wrong numbers on, but Carphone are the ones who need to sort it. It's very rare that credit doesn't get applied and if it ever does happen then it's almost always down to something like this. As I posted earlier, the easiest way is for them to fill in a failed top up form on their computers, just make sure you give them the right number.

And the no refund on topups has always caused a little problem. The only possibility is, as has been previously posted, for customer care to raise a tenner to send out to you, just be aware that this is by no means an official policy and would definately only be a good will gesture.

lililou

I had the same problem too - I jujst wish they had figured this out when I called them the first time as I was fobbed off with the 8 day rule. I phoned Virgin initially as I didn't know who was supposed to be giving the credit and tehy gave me a free £2 credit to make the call to carphone warehouse. Also got the £2 for registering sim card. So now just awaiting the initial £10 top-up. What a farce.

Will be recycling this one through tesco as soon as credit has been used ad will stay well clear in the future.

MINCER_2

dansandman wrote: »

....And the no refund on topups has always caused a little problem. The only possibility is, as has been previously posted, for customer care to raise a tenner to send out to you, just be aware that this is by no means an official policy and would definately only be a good will gesture.

They've taken £10 in return for crediting your sim within 8 days - they've failed to deliver and therefore you are entitled to get a refund.
If I took a deposit for a car and said it was not refundable but then failed to deliver the car or refund the deposit, you'd be off to the police, exaggeration but it's the same principle.

It's taking money under false pretences.:mad:

danz0l

Fully agree. Its a farse that they recon because of distant selling laws they can't immediately credit your sim with what you paid for. Ironically instore can be done at the time of purchase.

Seems a cop out to me.

cranhill

I have my phone and the £10.00 has been credited, you also get an extra £2.00 when you register the phone on the Virgin site. The downside for me is that I cannot use it where I live as there is no Virgin signal. It is locked to Virgin and there is no way to unlock it even if you pay Virgin the normal £30.00.

I also had the incorrect number stated on the invoice supplied with the mobile This was why I did not have the £10.00 credit after the eight days. The £10.00 credit had gone to another number which was on the invoice . However Virgin did sort it out in the end.

MINCER_2

dansandman wrote: »

This IS a Virgin problem rather than a CPW problem as the sims have been sent from Virgin with the wrong numbers on ....

I think you may need to go into more detail - I ended up with the same number that was printed on the 'credit card' that you push the sim out of. So virgin didn't send them with the wrong numbers on (there is no phone number on the box).

The problem is that CPW didn't match the sim to the invoice slip before they sent them out - it's basic stores and despatch stuff.
I suspect that due to the number purchased the stores guys just grabbed the nearest box and stuck it with any invoice - just to get them out of the door.

Blaming Virgin just seems like a cop out!

dansandman

I think you may need to go into more detail - I ended up with the same number that was printed on the 'credit card' that you push the sim out of. So virgin didn't send them with the wrong numbers on (there is no phone number on the box).

The problem is that CPW didn't match the sim to the invoice slip before they sent them out - it's basic stores and despatch stuff.
I suspect that due to the number purchased the stores guys just grabbed the nearest box and stuck it with any invoice - just to get them out of the door.

Blaming Virgin just seems like a cop out!

I'm purely basing this on a post on our staff info website that informed us of the problem. It said Virgin had mismatched the numbers with the sims.

Basically, as far as I understand it, when the sims get sent from the manufacturer, a list of sim numbers and related mobile numbers get sent along with them and this information is then stored on the CPW computer system. Normally the phones don't have the sim cards with them so a phone has to be picked from the stock room, the relevant sim has to be picked and then these 2 items would get scanned in before the sale can be closed. It's this scanning in of the sim that tells the computer where to put the credit.

With this phone however, it is one of the rare few that DO come with the sim in the box. Any like this again come directly from the network along with the information on the phone number etc... attached to the phone serial number. As far as I can remember all that's printed on the box is the phone IMEI and the sim number, so all that needs to be done in this case is these 2 barcodes need to be scanned in and that's that, the computer should automatically know which number belongs to that phone and top it up accordingly. So it's definately not the stores guys just grabbing the nearest box and sticking it with any invoice just to get them out of the door, the people instore or in online despatching at the warehouse are doing everything right, it's the fact there's a mismatch on the computer system that's causing the problem which, as I said, as far as I'm aware is due to the wrong info coming from the network.

Believe me, I'd be the first to say if Carphone do anything wrong *cough* talktalk *cough*, but I'm pretty sure this is where the problem comes from. But anyhoo, the blame really doesn't matter, I'm sure there was plenty of things that carphone could have been done to avoid it, and it's certainly cpw's responsibility to sort their customers out, not Virgin, and I still reckon what I posted earlier is the fastest and easiest way to sort it.

They've taken £10 in return for crediting your sim within 8 days - they've failed to deliver and therefore you are entitled to get a refund.
If I took a deposit for a car and said it was not refundable but then failed to deliver the car or refund the deposit, you'd be off to the police, exaggeration but it's the same principle.

It's taking money under false pretences.

In this case you're definately right, they've sold you something and not delivered. One way or another they should either sort out a refund of the credit that they haven't given you or get you that credit. All I mean is that there is no physical way to refund a top up, it's a case of having a £10 store credit/cheque raised. It's only when someone brings a phone back as a change of mind that the no refund on top ups causes a problem but I do see the reasoning behind that.

Its a farse that they recon because of distant selling laws they can't immediately credit your sim with what you paid for. Ironically instore can be done at the time of purchase.

Seems a cop out to me.

This has always confused me too tbh. You're right, credit can be put on a sim at point of sale instore, literally a matter of seconds after the transactions paid for and closed! I'm not really sure why they don't/can't (although I'm pretty sure it's DON'T) credit it sooner with online sales. One more reason why I'd personally never buy anything of this sort over the phone/online.