Virgin Mobile handset upgrade denied despite double promise
Hi there,
I have been a loyal Virgin Mobile customer since 2004 and I have now been denied a handset upgrade of £100 that I have earned to and which it was also announced to me via letter (I can provide with evidence if required).
• On Mon 21-Feb I received Virgin´s letter announcing upgrade time and confirmed I’ve earned £100 towards the price of my next phone. I was previously aware of this amount as I monitor my Virgin account regularly and was saving allowance for my first upgrade with Virgin since 2006.
• On the night of Wed 23-Feb, I decided to make use of my upgrade, so I went to my online account and there I saw the £100 upgrade allowance ready; so all fine. Then I attempted to order a Nokia X2 (valued at £59.99) and followed all the steps (including clicking on “Get Upgrade” to make use of £60 of my upgrade) however the transaction failed in the last step and the order was not confirmed.
• On Sat 26-Feb, I went to the Virgin Media store at Oxford St-London and explained the situation. According to their records, I only had £40 for my upgrade, which it only could mean that the remaining £60 was deducted with my failed order online, as I clearly had £100 prior my failed order and for few weeks now (I saw how over the last months my upgrade allowance went from £80, then £90 and then £100, which is the maximum Virgin will give you). They also mentioned they had other customers with missing upgrade allowance, so it looks like a software bug in Virgin systems.
• The shop assistants put me on the phone through Virgin Customer Support (CS), but the CS agent assured she couldn’t check my accumulated previous upgrade balance/use and that she only could see the £40 upgrade available, as per their system. I also mentioned about the letter (which unfortunately did not bring with me by then) and she replied that, if showing the letter to the shop attendants, I would definitely be honoured with such £100 upgrade.
• On Mon 28-Feb, I returned to the shop with the letter and the same shop assistant phoned again the CS explaining the situation. Despite the previous commitment, they told me I had to top-up £60 if wanted the phone, which I declined as that was not required with the upgrade. Other bizarre explanations came (“you have spent your missing £60 in calls” (???) “your previous balance was wrong”, “the upgrade balance fluctuates form time to time”, etc) to justify their I asked to speak to the agent’s manager, who was supposed to call me the day after
• On Tue 1-Mar, I have been called by CS, but unfortunately couldn’t attend the phone, so I had to call again and start my query from scratch with another agent and his manager, who came with even more bizarre offers: “move into a contract and we give you the phone” or “the phone costs £65 but I offer it to you on £60”.
Unfortunately I have not only been wasting time, money and journeys on this query but feeling poorly treated by Virgin´s CS, who insisted in that both and the letter were “wrong” and that “apparently” they can not check my top-up history over the time (if so, they could see I have earned Virgin´s maximum £100 upgrade allowance), same for the use of upgrade allowance.
Even worst, Virgin´s CS are not willing to honour the letter with such £100 upgrade sent in the name of Virgin Media (and that I understand it is a commitment to a customer) and signed by their Exective Director of Customer Care.
My apologizes for the long text, but I hope you understand my disappointment with Virgin Media and hope are able to help me to find some way to be heard by the right people or some advice in the next steps to follow to get what I have earned fairly and been promised
Thank you!
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