Virgin Mobile – more issues – and then a light at the end of the tunnel?

sorry - I need something to smile at!

I have been having a jolly time this week – as expected my contact with Virgin Mobile has not been productive or stress free. We started our little charade back on Saturday morning – bright and early. The task was simple (or so I thought). Transfer my son from pay as you go to a contract, something that most mobile companies should be able to do easily – but not it seems Virgin.

Since Saturday;

I have made 6 calls to Virgin.

I have spent two and a half hours on the phone to them!

I have had various 24 or 72 hour guarantees pass with no progress.

I have been ‘mislead’ twice

I have never received the promised calls back or texts to confirm the (hoped for) progress.

Oh – and although they tell me the phone contract has been set up – it hasn’t!

Getting to the end of my tether I decided to email the CEO of Virgin Mobile UK, Graeme Oxby, I doubted he would even get the email – they seem very good at deflecting complaints and then don’t act when you do complain. However I have recieved a quick reply directly back from him (and this was at 9.30 last night). So thank you Mr Oxby, I am impressed by your personal interest in my issues

So may be there is a light at the end of the tunnel? Mr Oxby has told me he will get someone from his team “to get in touch to sort things out”.

I await with interest.

 

Virgin Mobile and the ‘art’ of billing

As a household we are generally very ‘Virgin based’. We have our TV through them, our land line and our internet – plus three mobiles. To be fair we are very happy with the service we get and have always found them to be quite reactive to requests as and when we have ‘price checked’ them. They have always responded swiftly and to our benefit.

One such apparent ‘good deal’ was when they agreed to move my wife from her existing £10 for 200 minutes, 200 texts deal to match a deal from Tesco Mobile of 500 mins, 500 texts and unlimited data for a similar amount. Virgin increased the deal they offered back to us to 800 minutes, unlimited texts and 1GB of data for a similar £10, an excellent deal that we took up instantly!

But, at that point we came up against Virgins billing department, and the rest as they say is a nightmare!

The transfer to the better tariff was done in November 2010 and then the fun started! The tariff we were transferring to was apparently normally a £20 one, but we would get a monthly £10 credit – total cost therefore £10, simple!

Unfortunately not if you are Virgins accounts department!

Month one  – the bill was wrong, £20 rather than £10 – hours spent on the phone finally gets it sorted – Virgin are sorry.

Month two - the bill was wrong (again) – hours spent on phone calls plus this time multiple failures to call us back when they promised – Virgin are sorry.

Month three – you guessed – and yes they were sorry. And this time it was the fault of a computer error apparently. A credit was made for the next month ‘just to be sure’ and then the new computer system would sort it out – Virgin were sorry!

Month four - all OK as credit already in place – hurrah!

Month five (now) – Oh dear, its wrong again!

My wife (it is her account) has now spoken to them again (took 6 minutes this time which to be fair is good), apparently they have ‘sorted it’ and it will be correct at least for the next two months. Will they get it right after that? I hope so, but if I am honest I doubt it!

So, well done Virgin, I have always championed your cause on TV, broadband etc, but you have really let yourselves down this time.

I really don’t want to hear that you are sorry – I want you to sort it out! It will also be interesting to see if your customer service is as good as John Lewis – when I blogged about an issue with them I was contacted the same day by their customer services department – how will you do Virgin?