What rights Do I have?

[lymara]

I ordered a virgin mobile contract online for a samsung tocco lite on their £15 per month contract over 2 weeks ago. i recieved their usual emails telling me the order was being processed, but then recieved another email telling me their was a small problem and for me to ring them, which i did. Apparently as i live in a flat, the credit check couldnt resolve which flat i lived in so i was asked to do the order from scratch over the phone.

I ran through the entire order over the phone with them and was told I have passed the credit check and the phone would be posted out the following monring (friday 21st August), unfortunately i wasnt going to be in that day, so they said they will send the phone at their next available date which would now be Wednesday 26th August. I was also asked if i had any other virgin servcies which I do, All of them actually (broddband, TV, & Phone), and bacause i was already a virgin customer, I was entitled to UNLIMITED texts instead of the 300 texts included in the tarrif which was great!

I recieved my phone as promised on Wednesday 26th which i was happy with. However when i logged into my online account is showed I was on a PAYG tarrif!

I called them back to find out why, and was informed that they needed to confirm some details before they swap the SIM over to the contract. I was asked if my virgin services was linked to another direct debit account as they coudlnt trace it and without this i would lose my UNLIMITEd texts.Apparently as i supplied My bank details for the credit check (and my other services are from my partners bank detials) they needed to change them to the same account in order to get the unlimited textx package.

I was informed this would take 24 hrs and then they would change my phone over to the contract as agreed.

The account management team would be calling me to let me know everything was in order however they called on bank holiday Monday (31st) whilst i was away over the bank holiday weekend! (this took them 5 days to call me back!) and they left an answerphone message.

They left a message stating that the original credit check done over the phone when i applied had developed an error and that they have now run another credit check and it has failed! Can i please send the phone back to them as soon as possible!) Ive had this phone a week now without being able to use it whatsoever! useless....

I havent even spoken to ANYONE whatsoever in the account management team other than a message left on my answerphone. I have tried to call them but i can only get through to customer services who can pass the message on for them to call me! They customer service did admit that apparently they had a severe computer glitch the week i ordered the phone and they have actually issued hundreds of phones out to people without re-running the credit check!

Basically virgin have sent me a phoneknowing they had computer problems with their credit check system, and had 5 working days in between the orignal application and sending the phone out to me without re-checking the credit check! and are now panicing for everyone to send the phones back without so much of an explanation!

All i want is the contract I agreed and they agreed to sign up to, to be honoured. Ive recieved no phone call explaining anything whatsoever, and to just send the phone back to them!

As far as im concerned, this is THEIR error and they should honour the contract. Ive even spent almost £100 on a hands free kit, leather case & in car charger for this phone, obviously expecting that my contract would be running as soon as they get their act together!

Why should i now return a phone ive spent money on because of their mistakes, not to mention has anyone ever heard of a company sending out expensive items to a customer without so much as running a credit check as the original one failed? I believe they are completely incompetant!

Where do i stand with this? any help would be greatfully appreciated, becuase I want to keep this phone and want my contract, but they want the phone back and want to forget messing me around for almost 3 weeks and lose the £100 ive spent on accessories?

Thanks

Personally, I would contact them telling them when the phone is available for pick up, I do not see how you are obliged to send it back with the cost of postage that will incur, so long as you look after it until they do arrange pick up the ball is in their court I'd say.

[lymara]

thanks for your comments arcamalpha2004, but sending the phone back isnt in dispute, I want to know what rights i may have as this is virgin mobile who have screwed this up. All i want is for them to honour the contract! Ive spent £100 on accessories for this phone! Would you send it back? I dont think so... The whole value is the contract

[chuzzlemonkey]

Email them and ask them from their point of view what rights you have. I've always found their email response guys to be quick and helpful? So maybe give that a go?

Originally Posted by lymara

thanks for your comments arcamalpha2004, but sending the phone back isnt in dispute, I want to know what rights i may have as this is virgin mobile who have screwed this up. All i want is for them to honour the contract! Ive spent £100 on accessories for this phone! Would you send it back? I dont think so... The whole value is the contract

Looks like a trip to the CAB for you then.
Explain to them exactly what you have here and see what they say.
If it was me that felt agrieved over it I would just get onto them, give them a date that they can send someone out to collect if from me and at the same time ask to be put through to cancellations, after all, if my money for the mobile is not good enough, neither is the money for the other services.
I am sure they will see sense and come up with something.
Just a thought, they sent you the phone, if they want it back they should arrange for its return, and aslong as you have looked after it there should be no issue.
But it might be worth either a phone call or visit to the CAB, by the way, I totally understand how you must be feeling over having spent £100 on bits for the phone, but where you stand wont be answered here I am affraid, you could try calling their bluff as I suggested.
Good Luck.

[AndyCalling]

When I recently received cable broadband, it was made clear that I could pull out of the contract right up until the engineer delivered the box. Once I had accepted delivery of the box our contract would be binding whether or not a paper signature had been received by Virgin Media from me. This was in black and white on the contract I was sent ahead of time.

So, it would be the case that you are in the same position. Now you have accepted delivery of the 'box' (or mobile phone in this case) the contract is binding. Virgin Media can no longer back out. They can stop taking your money if they like, but must provide a service till the end of the contract period (just as I could now cancel my cable broadband service, but would have to pay until the end of the contract period). Surely this must be the case? Put it to them and see what position they take.

Can you tell I'm a union rep? ~

I would agree that the sending of the phone is a binding contract and I would tell them to honor the contract or you will be charging them 12 months worth of texts @ say £1 a day

[lymara]

Firstly I would like to say thanks to all the people who have responded to this post, your advice has been helpful. This situation has been ongoing for the past week and I have only just come to a resolution with them. The system was flagged on the day that the phone was mean to be sent out to notify the sales team that a credit check hadn't actually been run and the delivery should be delayed until such a check had been carried out. This was ignored by them. In fact it wasn't brought to their attention until I called up to register the phone.

Apparently I should have never received the handset. The fact that I had made me unwilling to just send the phone back and be out of pocket and still without a phone. They told me that they would try and bypass the system as the fault has been on their end. This was at the beginning of the week just gone. I received another call from them saying that they had tried to getthe contract passed but their credit management team refused to give me a contract. At this point I was again unwilling to accept their resolution of just sending the phone back so I demanded to speak to a manager, hoping to get hold of someone who could reverse this decision. Instead they made a counter offer of having me keep the handset rrp of £110, me just paying £50 and them footing the other £60. Not the resolution I was hoping for but the best I could get out of them. I had an outstanding bill on T-mobile when my phone was stolen a couple of years ago. T-mobile refused to budge and I refused to pay for a bill that I didn't create. With virgin using T-mobile's network there was no way they would give me a contract. So I think the resolution we came to was the best I could have hoped for. Incidentally for anyone who has had similar run-ins with their "credit management team" I will list their contact number 01373 855624. Available 7 days a week 9-7 mon to sat and 9-6 on sunday.