Virgin Mobile - Robbed Of My Tarriff!
No Go Ahead: I arranged a new unlimited tariff for my mobile, however, due to a change of circumstances, I decided not to go ahead with it and phoned Virgin Mobile 10 days later to cancel the order. Even though this was still three days before my refresh date and the date the new tariff was due to come into effect, I was told that I couldn't cancel the order as the computer wouldn't allow it. So no cooling off period then?
Cooled Off But Frozen Out: I said again I did not want the change to go ahead and pointed out that I simply wanted to keep the package I was on. The customer service advisor insisted that there was nothing she could do as the computer wouldn't let her cancel the order and told me I would have to ring back on or after my refresh date.
Convoluted Process: A new sim turned up in the post but I didn't use it, as I wanted to keep the one I had. Despite my asking them not to, and not using the new sim, they went ahead with the change of tariff and started billing me the extra money. When I rang them back after the refresh date, as suggested by the lady I spoke to, they still wouldn't put me back on my original tarriff. Well I never!
Worse Value: I was instead offered a number of options all worse value that what I had previously had. I was told that my original tariff had been better value because it had been linked to the new 2 year phone contract, which was only 6 months in. The phone itself hadn't turned out to be that brilliant either so now the whole thing was starting to be rather distasteful for me.
Stitched Up! Feeling like I'd been stitched up, I spoke to the complaints department and various other customer service personel, who were all very nice but couldn't help give me my package back. They wouldn't reimburse my money either, despite the fact that they had acted against my wishes and my instructions and despite the fact that I hadn't used any of the new tariff, as they could plainly see.
Customer's Wishes Ignored! So, I ended up being switched to a new tariff that I didn't want, being charged signifcantly more money. I was also refused my orignal tariff back that they had 'robbed me of' against my wishes and against my instructions. The end result was that I was worse off financially and had wasted more than 3 hours in total on the phone with them, all for nothing.
Blame The Computer! Everybody I spoke to in customer service followed the same old party line and used same old excuse to justify the fact that had effectively stolen my tariff from me, and wouldn't give it back. The 'easy get out, can't do anything about it clause' of blame the computer. However, even if this were true, some devious person is programming it!
Devious Scheme: My conclusion is that Virgin Mobile want to get people off the better value tariffs and charge you more money wherever they can get away with it. Not allowing people to change their mind and making life more difficult for them is just another one of their devious schemes to that effect. There's a lot of it about!