Virgin Mobile have suspended my contract!!!
djleekee
Posts: 1,622 Forum Member
✭✭✭
I bought a HTC Desire on Virgin Mobile on April 7th but today received a really short text stating that they have suspended my service due to exceeding my credit limit of £125.
The contract I took out was a £25 month for 600 xnet mins, 3000 texts and 1GB internet useage.
The only detail in the rather short text message was to call them to get the service reinstated.
I have now spoken to Virgin Media and it became apparent that my 1GB internet allowance wasn't assigned to my account. Only further digging around, and being put on hold whilst assistant spoke to other supervisors etc, that she then 'found it on the system'
According to them i have now been charged £141 since the start of the contract for my internet useage based on 30p a day for the first 25mb and then some larger amount per Mb after the first 25mb.
But I tried to explain that all the internet costs should surely have been asborbed by this 1gb 'fair internet useage' so i cant surely have run up this huge bill ontop of my 1gb allowance?!?!
I was then interogated into what i use the phone for what types of files i am downloading! I informed her that I dont download any files but use it to listen to internet radio and browse the web. There was almost insinuation that I shouldnt be using the phone for that purpose!
Anyway - luckily I have a Net Counter app installed on the phone and that is showing since I have had the phone I have used under 900mb since acquiring the phone. (This figure could be slightly out depending on when I installed it!)
Anyway my main points are:-
Why was my mobile phone suspended? I cant make any calls, send texts or use internet!
Why wasnt my 1GB useage viewable on the VM account but then 'found' later on?
Why am i being 'charged' £141 for internet useage that is already included in my contract?
Why have I got to wait until Monday before a representative calls me back?
What are my rights here? Can i still cancel the contract as they have breeched the contract on many grounds?
Just when I thought VM were getting better they go and do this to me!
</rant>
The contract I took out was a £25 month for 600 xnet mins, 3000 texts and 1GB internet useage.
The only detail in the rather short text message was to call them to get the service reinstated.
I have now spoken to Virgin Media and it became apparent that my 1GB internet allowance wasn't assigned to my account. Only further digging around, and being put on hold whilst assistant spoke to other supervisors etc, that she then 'found it on the system'
According to them i have now been charged £141 since the start of the contract for my internet useage based on 30p a day for the first 25mb and then some larger amount per Mb after the first 25mb.
But I tried to explain that all the internet costs should surely have been asborbed by this 1gb 'fair internet useage' so i cant surely have run up this huge bill ontop of my 1gb allowance?!?!
I was then interogated into what i use the phone for what types of files i am downloading! I informed her that I dont download any files but use it to listen to internet radio and browse the web. There was almost insinuation that I shouldnt be using the phone for that purpose!
Anyway - luckily I have a Net Counter app installed on the phone and that is showing since I have had the phone I have used under 900mb since acquiring the phone. (This figure could be slightly out depending on when I installed it!)
Anyway my main points are:-
Why was my mobile phone suspended? I cant make any calls, send texts or use internet!
Why wasnt my 1GB useage viewable on the VM account but then 'found' later on?
Why am i being 'charged' £141 for internet useage that is already included in my contract?
Why have I got to wait until Monday before a representative calls me back?
What are my rights here? Can i still cancel the contract as they have breeched the contract on many grounds?
Just when I thought VM were getting better they go and do this to me!
</rant>
0
Comments
Even if they can't sort it out today in terms of what has gone wrong (though don't see why they can't). Surely since they caused the problem and know why your credit limit is breached, I can't see why they can't just temporarily increase your credit limit until they correct what has gone wrong.
737MB Received
158MB Sent
Bizarrly the Net Counter app has refreshed and the total has amended itself to 1.066GB
Ive now configured an alarm at 800MB so this doesnt happen again. But even so £141 for 6.6MB seems slightly excessive to me.
Also my understanding of the 'Fair Internet Useage' policy was that it is billed as UNLIMITED but has a soft limit of 1GB. Obviously when you first acruire your phone you will be updating and downloading apps and so in that very first month useage may be a bit hgher than normal. Surely some intelligence is built into the 'unlimited limit'?
I still feel a bit peeved that all my services have been suspended and im off to read-up more on what this 'fair internet useage' actually means.
Out of bundle, rates are 30p per day which includes 25MB and then (a ludicrous) £2 per MB over that. 66MB over your limit should therefore in theory cost a maximum of £82.30 assuming that happened in one day (which is unlikely). So something's wrong, unless like you say you have substantial downloads before installing Net Counter (which is a great app, btw).
As mentioned I do think £2 per MB is ludicrous, especially when they've advertised "unlimited" service. There's discussion below about changes to Vodafone's contract that is basically hitting those who go over FUP, but they're charging £5 per 500MB - that would cost you a grand under Virgin :eek:
Besides, you can login to the virgin site and check your usage to 0.01 of a MB.
My main issues here are:-
The internet access is described and advertised as UNLIMITED. Ok there is a fair useage policy of 1GB included. But surely the phrase FAIR USEAGE implies that this 1GB isnt a hard limit but a infact a soft limit. Where from previous contracts you can go over this limit but if you continually hammer it month after month they will then take action.
But in this instance, a new phone, a new way of using it with andoid and all the apps that come with it-if any month I was going to exceed the 1gb limit it would be in the first month.
I cant beleive that such a big company would allow their customers to run up such big bills without even informing them!
Looking through my contract I dont see any mention of cost if you exceed the internet allowance - have they just made these figures up? How can i check?
Be interesting to see what VM have to say when you get through to someone who knows what they're doing.
What 'type of thing' is a con in this thread? Or as usual are you going to post nonsensical garbage and never return to it?
Maybe you could point us to a HTC Desire contract (or prepay tariff) where your downloads are totally unrestricted and un-metered.
If not, then maybe think before you post rubbish.
OP I would stay on the phone until they sort it. Refuse to be put on hold and refuse to accept a call back.
The CS assistant can only see the total and not see how it is made up until the first monthly bill is created.
It seems I began my contract on the 10th so the first bill will be available on the 11th. So still two days to wait!
I appreciate that there maybe some privacy ruling that doesnt allow the CS to interrogate the breakdown of the bill as there could be some sensitive information in there? Or maybe the information is only processed once a month and just isnt available until the end of each billnig period.
Regardless I think its stupid that my contract has been suspended even though i still have 100's of XNET minutes and 1000's of text message still to use. It seems its only the internet useage that is an issue! Cant they just put that on hold until this matter is resolved?!
2) Some companies do it like you describe and contact you if you hammer it. But for mobile phone companies it usually does act like a hard limit. The regulators let them call it unlimited because apparently most people won't reach the limit. It's silly I agree but what can you do? You have effectively paid for 1GB internet per month rather than unlimited.
3) When you go over the credit limit you account automatically gets stopped until a payment is made to bring you under the limit.
4)What the CS said about waiting for your first bill sounds rubbish, they should be able to see it from day one!
5) What will eventually happen I imagine is that they will reconfigure your account to 1GB rather than 25MB per day, they will have to recalculate what your over-limit expenditure would have been on that basis instead and charge you that instead of £141. As someone mentioned, this might be £80. Or they could be nice and write it off.
6) They should credit you back for your inability to use your free minutes and texts during that month.
7) You could try hassling them to give you a bit more credit.
8) Where possible use WiFi rather than 3G, it takes less battery and it saves you using up your allowance.
They've suspended my account, yet the amount owed is well above the agreed credit limit threshold and kept creeping up after I got the initial 'account suspended' text message. I was informed today that the credit limit is 'just a guide' and rather than suspending the account right away, they are free to keep charging until they see fit to stop.
The call centre haven't been helpful at all- after an hour of arguing last night they raised the credit limit so I could make calls, only for the total owed to go up again overnight (with my phone switched off), breaching the second credit limit and suspending the account again.
Despite the online account saying usage is logged within half an hour, it seems like they waited until two in the morning to add more usage from yesterday afternoon - I suspect for apps getting content automatically, as I wasn't actually using the phone, but I'm not sure how that adds up to a further £20...
They are unable to give me much useful info on when and how I have gone over the data limit - and so I've said I'm not willing to pay anything to bring myself under the credit limit as I don't know what I'm paying for, and am not convinced I've used quite as much data as they claim. So...there is stalemate until I get the bill, which may or may not makes things clearer.
Meanwhile the automated phoneline and my online account have no mention of the data thresholds, so I couldn't tell if I had gone over the limit or not anyway. Basically, there is no way for me to tell from Virgin if I'm near any data limit.
It's all very frustrating, and I'm faced with a hefty bill. Any tips or updates from the above posters on taking this forward? I'd really appreciate any further help - the above has given me some really good pointers.
Many thanks
In the 2 days in question I had used 150mb and was charged £168 just for those two days.
They havent accepted any of the issues and unfairness in their billing methods I put to them and so I am taking it further as this must be happening to people all the time.
Get yourself a Net Counter app - ive listed the link at my website at www.djleekee.co.uk and click the TECHY tab for all the Android app posts.
Once I have the bill through I'm hoping I'll actually have something concrete to argue about - its pretty difficult getting anywhere at the moment with Virgin unwilling/unable to offer any information.
The billing methods are ambiguous, and seemed designed to catch people out. To not inform people when their phone, text or data allocation is up is bad enough. To bill them well above and beyond their credit limit, before raising any sort of alarm, is something else. With the online account and phoneline not offering info on data limits (at least in my case, but I suspect many more), I can see a lot of people encountering this problem, especially new users.
If you don't mind me asking, how are you taking this further? Good luck, either way!