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Mobile Roaming Charges - Virgin Mobile under the spotlight

There has been a great deal of discussion about mobile phone operators and the extent to which they operate fairly and competitively.  Here is an interesting story:

N went to Dubai and Oman for 2 weeks.  He made and received no calls, the reason being that Virgin Mobile had a published tariff rate which stated here what all the rates were:  £1 to receive calls and £4 to make calls.  He decided not to access voicemail until he returned to the UK as he assumed that this would also incur a charge if he got through to it.

However, on returning to the UK he checked his account and his bill was way higher than usual and there were a collection of strange items on his bill for call received and made, even though he had not made nor received any calls and the phone log on this phone clearly showed this.

On contacting Virgin Mobile on 18th March, straight after he returned, he was told he would be called back within 3 days but this never happened.  On or around 30th March he spent 70 minutes on the phone to a call centre which left him on hold twice, the second time never coming back to him.  He tried phoning again and spoke to someone who said that they could not help because if the system said he made call then he made calls, even though his phone said otherwise.  On asking to make a complaint they seemed to have no clear system for dealing with this.


We will keep you updated on any progress on this but in the meanwhile be very wary of Virgin Mobile.  Once we hear of a response from them we will, of course, publish it.