Virgin Media 'fully itemised' bills

DemiDee

Hi all

I've been with Virgin Media since they took over from ntl, and I have always paid the extra £1 for a fully itemised bill. This month however, I have only had calls itemised that were chargable (I'm on a special rate with daytime and evening calls to landlines free). However, I have always had every call itemised until now. Just called them and they said it's always been this way, but I have definitely had every call itemised, including those that didn't cost, so they are wrong!

Anyone else having the same problem?

Dee

swimmer_2

I spoke with Virgin about this recently, I'm sure they said from June last year they stopped showing every call made.

But I'm sure they said you can pay for a full itemised bill. I told them it was a bloomin cheek to ask for money so a customer can see what they actually bought! The way they have it set up now basically means they could pick any figure out the air and you to pay it.

Ever since Mr Nice Guy got his hands on NTL there seems to be all sorts of sneaky charges, £60 a year if you dont want to pay direct debit, if your broadband is knackered they ask you to call a premium rate number, (again I said you've got a nerve asking customers to pay over the top per minute phone charges just to find out why their not providing the service as they should be!

Another thing is they slap on late payment fees if you pay a day late. Again a BLOOMIN NERVE, I'm self employed do small businesses whack on hefty fees if they get a cheque a day late, NO they are just glad they got it. I told them keep your late payment but you've just lost a customer who has paid hundreds of pounds for services over the last 5 years. The dipstick I was talking to said fine........well what do you know a week later i get a call from a sales manager asking why I was leaving, I told them and the woman couln't apologise enough refunded the fee AND upgraded my broadband to the fastest speed for COMPO......Hey not bad eh!

Always pays to be a member of the awkward squad, just keep your arguments firm and polite and sell what your worth, in this case a well paying customer.

swimmer_2

I should add that there definately seems to be a strange ethos in the company that beleives in cutting costs so much that they run a large media company on nothing more than thin air, which of course is impossible. I pointed out that within what we pay is surely a percentage put aside for administration of the business. ALL businesses have the cost of RUNNING the business which eats into profit. Virgin Media seem as far as I can see think they can externalise and charge or all the parts of running it so when they get your bill money its 100%PROFIT. But then thats how the blokes ending up owning a tropical caribbean island, the media portray him as mr nice guy. Well, I don't buy it, very few NICE people have the ruthless streak that is required to become a billionaire.

normanmark

Well i think you should read up on some history first, Branson doesn't own NTL (Just has 10% of shares in them). NTL bought Virgin Mobile off him & then asked if they could use the brand to market their services, in turn Virgin Media is born.

Easiest way to avoid all the excess charges is to pay by Direct Debit. No late fee's, no other payment handling fee's & you as a consumer benefit from the increased payment protection from the DD scheme.

Regarding people business & profit. Surely thats exactly what people are in business for - to make money? Very naive to think otherwise.

DemiDee

Whilst this thread has emphasised a number of problems people are having with Virgin Media, with which I can totally sympathise, we seem to have veered away from the original topic, which is whether people have lost their fully itemised bills in favour of a listing of the paid calls only.

BexTech

Certain areas had different billing systems.

Some used to display all calls even inclusive ones (I won't call them free as you have paid for them up front in the calls package).

Some even displayed calls to 0800, 0808 and 0500 Freefone / Freecall numbers - there was some up-roar at this as it meant the person the bill went to was able to see when someone had call child-line or other such helplines.

Some had always charged for itemised bills. Some itemised over 10p, 20p, 50p unless you asked for fully itemised which again was at no charge.

My cable phone company was one that never charged and let you have fully itemised bills too, however that some time back switched to charging extra for it when NTL took over Telewest.

They are migrating everyone to one billing platform. If you want itemised bills it will be chargeable and it will only itemise chargeable calls.

I think they should offer fully itemised bills at no charge to those who opt for eBilling along with the soon to be £1 discount (up from 50p).