Day Eleven: Paying the Bill.

Received an email today saying:

The bill for your Virgin Media mobile 01234567890 is online now and ready to view......
The balance of £189.79 will be taken by Direct Debit on or immediately after 10 February 2012.

That's too long, let's pay it now, and get back to normal life...

Having checked the Virgin Mobile website today (30th January 2012) I now find that it won't accept my credit card details!

At this point do I try another phone call to Customer Service, with another long delay and magic-key pushing( press "1" for Hell, "2" for purgatory, "3" for billing), or bury my head in my hands...

Head in hands it is.

At this point I'm angry. sooooooooooo annnnnnnnnggggy!

Here's why. The next bit is extracted from the letter I sent (both via email and snail-mail):-

1. The information, help & support offered by Customer services on the 24th January seems to have been COMPLETELY INCORRECT - If my service was already suspended then surely this should have been flagged at the time, and I would have been able to immediately resolve the issue, retaining my service.
    
2. The information help & support offered by Customer Services on subsequent calls has been confused and contradictory. It appears that my call allowance is NOT applicable to roaming calls, yet this was NOT explained when I first called, nor was it explained WHAT limits do apply to roaming calls. If this had been properly understood by staff, and explained I could take appropriate action to resolve the issue, retaining my service.
    
3. The attitude of Customer service staff and senior managers has been reprehensible. For Mr BBBB to suggest that a call to Customer Services to retain my service was somehow “inappropriate” is clearly unacceptable.
   
   After three phone calls, I have still NOT received an adequate apology or explanation as to why the information originally offered was misleading and blatantly incorrect when all the information necessary to quickly and efficiently resolve this issue should have been available to the staff involved.
    
4. I am UNABLE to register a Credit Card on the Virgin Mobile website; so even if this had been suggested on the 24^th of January (my initial) conversation, I would still have lost service, and wasted even more time contacting Customer Support.

Virgin Media Customer support is clearly unable to help and assist customer and have failed at every opportunity to resolve this issue, so once again, I am requesting:-

1. A Reinstatement of my mobile phone service.
    
2. Compensation for Loss of Service between 2012-01-24 Until my Service is reinstated.
    
3. Compensation for Loss of Business, Distress and Mental Anguish - not only during my time in the USA attempting to communicate home but also on return to the UK having to deal with a Customer Service organisation that is clearly unable to provide any customer service or able to communicate effectively either to customers or internally to other staff members

So let's see if that gets a response...

The email is met by the standard automated response that they will try to answer my query as soon as possible...

At this point you're probably reading this, thinking that my demands for redress are a "little" over the top. But here's my point:-

• My phone has now been cut off for 5 DAYS, through no fault of my own
• Even the automated texts were missing leading. It should have been "we're about to cut you off! Do something!", rather than "you're approaching your credit limit."
• The idea that calling Customer service was the wrong action on my part beggars belief. What are they there for?
• At every turn, I've heard platitudes and excuses but no real apologies nor attempt to restore my service. Not ONE of the people I spoke to actually had the sense to simply say "give me your credit card details, and we'll sort it".
  
  Maintaining any sense of customer satisfaction or service provision was the last thing in their minds. "Don't bother using it, go to the website"...

So all-in-all I'd like them to take notice and actually do something!

"I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND i'm NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE!" - Howard Beale, Network (1976)