Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

They say because of my credit rating, strange thing is it has happened to a lot of other people even though they have no problems getting credit else were, I also know some one that has really bad credit yet they were given a Virgin phone on contract!

Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

Well the mobile phone business is not as profitable as it may seem in the UK.

Firstly,mobile network operators have to pay business rates (similar to council tax) plus rent which are both high cost for each mast and any outdoor equipment they have. Then there is VAT on top of the calls we make,plus network improvements,3G licence fees to pay for and retail costs plus all the marketing and this is expensive especially when they send out loads of free sim cards and then there is the reduction termination rates and reduction in roaming costs. And most importantly, employee wages and indian call centre schemes.

How do some of the above problems effect virtual network operators like Virgin?

Well, T-Mobile obviously raises its cost of leasing out its network to help subsidise such costs and therefore Virgin have to raise costs to in order to stay in business.

You may have noticed that landline companies have also raised costs too, below is a summary:

BT:

Replaced 5p minimum call charge with 3p connection charge

Introduced 6p fee everytime you press 3 to return calls on 1471 and then add on 3p when the call is connected.

Raised cost of using anonymous caller rejection to £4 per month

Increased cost of using BT callminder to £2.50 from £2 per month

Increased cost of using calling features by 25p (From £1.50 to £1.75)

Increased line rental by £1 during 2006

Increased non-direct debit admin by £3 meaning it now costs £4

BT has increased minimum call charge to 40p on its payphones, but 40p does give you 20 minutes calltime to 01,02 and new 03 national numbers.

BT increase cost of installing new lines or replacement master sockets from £74.99 to £99.99 and then to a whopping £124.99 and for those paying in £27 installments to £137!!!

NTL/Telewest:

In 2003, they offered calling features and advanced voicemail for £1 each, now they are £1.75 per month, but anonymous caller rejection is also £1.75 which is so much cheaper than BT and TalkTalk. The calling features pack costs just £3.75 where with BT its costs £1 more and doesn't even include advanced voicemail/BT callmider.

5p call connection went up to 6p for calls to 01,02,0845,0870 and mobile calls. Premium rate calls can incurr connecton charges of up to 50p per call. 0844 and 0871 numbers have a 10p connection charge.

NTL and Telewest scrapped 6p an hour evening calls to local cable phone customers.

NTL and Telewest increased cost of calling mobiles directly during 2004

NTL and Telewest raise non-direct debit admin fee to £5 in summer 2006

Telewest introduced a fair usage policy on Talk anywhere plans during summer 2006 for those calling mobiles and international numbers as well as 0870 numbers but not 01,02 or 0845 numbers as these are low cost.

Virgin Media scrap free calls to Broadband helpline via 151 and scrap access via the 0845 number and introduced 25p per minute premium rate number in its place.

Virgin Media lower L and XL calling plan costs and decided to keep free weekend calls on M plan during the review which is good news.

Vodafone:

Vodafone scrap unlimited calls to mobiles on different networks on the free weekends scheme and replace it with 60 minutes per weekend instead. Calls to landlines and Vodafone mobiles remain unlimited.

Vodafone raised minimum call charges around 2 years ago way before roaming charges reduced.

---------- Post added at 18:15 ---------- Previous post was at 18:12 ----------

Try and find out whats in your credit hsitory from Experian, I think it costs £12 but you may get a discount if its your first time.

Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

£2

http://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/o...perReport.html

And you need to to Equifax and Call Credit as I'm unsure which Virgin use.

Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

that 100 texts and 100 mins for £10 isn't very good.

orange pay as you go will give you 66 minutes for your £10 (calls to any network at 15p a min) plus 300 'free' texts and free evening wap/internet browsing if you top up by £20 a month in which case your 300 free texts increases to 600.

http://shop.orange.co.uk/shop/simoff...nAprHoFre_1248

and also they have a crap indian call centre.

Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

Is the Virgin Mobile call centre in the UK or India?

Ive rung 3 times in the last 6months and have always got a English person.

Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

Orange customer service is non existant so it's ok in terms of the deal they offer but if things go wrong dont even bother ringing them.

Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

Seconded. Orange lost my custom due to shoddy customer service.

Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

I've been with Orange since i've had a phone, around 8 years and i've always found their customer service to be spot on.

Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

Orange refused to fix, refund or replace a faulty phone (Capital One refunded it eventually :tu: to them). :wavey: to Orange

Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

Orange works out expensive because:

calls to 08 numbers: 25p per minute(Virgin is 10p per minute cheaper)

Calls to Voicemail: 10p per minute (Its free on Virgin)

Calls to customer services: 25p per call (Its 10p on virgin and free if you have no credit)

And whatsmore, you don't get call hold on Orange.

And thats another thing when phones break down, they don't want to know!

Oh and most of the time, calls to customer services end up in India with Orange.

Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

Not quite sure on the logic here.
Virgin Mobile tariff = £10 for 100mins and 100 texts
Orange tariff = £10 for 66 mins (that's 34mins less and no texts unless you pay double...)

Am I missing something in the maths?

Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

I think basically, if your a texter, get on Orange. The website allows you to sign up to the 'Free text top up tariff' which gives you 300 free texts when you top up by £10 and 600 for £20 but the calls are more expensive.

But if you like calling at off-peak times, then O2 pay and go online 'Talk off-peak' is for you, it offers 100 off-peak minutes per month when you top up by £10.

Alternatively if you don't have a landline and usually call landlines or O2 mobiles, try O2 online pay and go 'Favourite place', where you type in a post code where you mostly use your phone such as home or work and receive 500 minutes to call landlines and O2 mobiles, voicemail costs 10p per call.

Asda mobile is also good it offers calls to landlines and all networks cost 16p per minute for the first 3 minutes of calls each day then 8p per minute thereafter. Texts cost 10p per text for the first 3 texts then 5p per text thereafter.

Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

examples of how crap they are:-


1.see this link here:-

http://shop.orange.co.uk/shop/index?WT.hplink=AHh

200 mins and 1000 texts if you top up by £30 a month.

click on it and see what happens! ring 'em and ask for it!

They also advertised the above in the daily star about a month ago with a link which when you clicked on it didn't work. shoddy.


2. check out the terms and conditions for "PAY AS YOU GO Free Text Trigger"

condition 11 states "The Reward is not available in conjunction with any other reward or promotion, except the Free Evening Calls Promotion and Text Extras, unless otherwise specified"

So I rang them up and asked for it - they said it wasn't possible as I have the evening calls promotion - I wrote a letter of complaint 2 months ago and got a reply stating that it was an error on the web site - despite this they are still misleading customers with incorrect terms and conditions. shoddy.

---------- Post added at 20:54 ---------- Previous post was at 20:52 ----------

yeah you are - you get 300 texts if you top up by £10 or 600 if you top up by £20. for your £10 you get 3 times the number of texts compared to virgin with the loss of 34 mins talk time.

Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

Out of interest - does anyone know if O2 treat calls to Tesco mobiles as on-net calls? - They say they're 50% owners so I just wondered. :)

Re: £10 SIM offer now only 100 mins + 100 texts
 

Thats what i've been trying to find out,i've sent O2 two emails through their website and got no response, so I called Tesco Mobile and got through to some woman that didn't know the difference between her ancles and her elbows, she said 'I'm not sure really err' They might be',so I said can't you do your job properly and find out and the call just cut off, and she sounded like she was stuffing her face! Some people are soooooo lazy:dozey:

However, the same situation applies to T-Mobile and Virgin as Virgin Mobile is 50% owned by T-Mobile UK and the other is half is Virgin Media. Both charge off-net prices when calling between the two brands. Yet when I had the T-Mobile mates rates 5 day pass, I was able to use the free call allowance to call Mobile World users.

And another thing, the two companies are ripping is off really because T-Mobile does not charge termination rates to Virgin, so they have no excuse to charge 35p per minute and T-Mobile has no right to charge 40p per minute.

Same applies to Hutchison 3G(3-Mobile) when you go out of 3G coverage, it automatically choose the O2 or Orange 2G network as a backup, but the companies still charge the off-net rates.