claire b.

Back in December I decided to move to Virgin Mobile for my teenager dayghter and myself. Called Virgin and had a long process through an asian call centre (painful already). Managed to get it sorted and I received the SIM 3 weeks later. Went on the website to activate the SIM as told (very hard functionality to find) and was told that I needed to call to activate that it could not be done through the site. Tried to call them 3 times... "your call is important to us... you are number 24 on the list. Blah blah blah" I had this experience 3 times at 3 different time of the day and eventually gave up wrongly assuming that it won't be a problem.
Since I haven't activated the SIM.

The offer was for 3 months free and I have broadband, TV and Phone with them so I did not notice at first but on the 4th month they charged me for the mobile that I never activated or used.

I canceled the service and the direct debit and wanted my money back. The mobile agent assured me he'll pass on my complain to the refund team and I never heard back until yesterday when they called me to "settle" the due amount! I refused and explained the issue and asked for a commercial gesture of some sort. They refused!

Now I have been a customer of theirs for more than 2 years and was planing on staying with them... this is all going to change my boardband, TV, phone services are going to another provider next month.

Regardless of the legal terms and conditions that I did not know about (obviously) I can't believe that virgin customer service manager believes the best way to gain customer is to make it really hard for them to sign up then to cahrge them for something they haven't managed to do!

Disgraceful

It is very sad as I admire Richard Branson and all he's done but his company is not living up to the standards and lost themselves along the way...

Stay away they will realise one day that customer experience is key to profitable business!