Charge for replying to appointment text

[Greggy]

Hi I have been charged 8pence for replying to a text sent by virgin to confirm my appointment for engineer install ,is this correct ? 
p.s im not bothered about 8 pence just think if its correct then should be out there somewhere easily found letting you its a chargeable text …or if its a scam need to contact o2 😩

[Reece_MH · Accepted solution]

Hi @Greggy,

Thanks for posting, and welcome back to our Community Forums.

I'm sorry to hear you have been charged when confirming an appointment. Any texts responded back to us are charged at your standard network rate for SMS/Text Messages. We normally send our Technician Confirmations from a mobile number beginning with 07, which is free of charge in most provider's packages (unless it's a PAYG SIM).

Although we don't have access to O2's system to reference to your package. We can advise that if your O2 Allowance includes texts, this should be free of charge. 

I've checked the pricing of O2's charges for out-of-allowance calls/texts and there is nothing to identify a reason for the 8p charge. It may be worth contacting O2 to find out the specific reason for the charge as they will be able to provide further information and assist in preventing this in the future.

Cheers, 

[Greggy]

Thanks Reece   for that I’ve just upgraded to volt good to know should be free and yes I couldn’t work out why8 pence !!🤣will have a chat with o2 thanks 

[Jodi_S]

Please keep us updated with how you get on Greggy,

We would like to know what the outcome is.

Kind regards Jodi. 

[notdodgy]

This has just happened to me.  I was asked to reply to 86002 to confirm the appointment and it appears as a premium message.  

No indication that it would be charged in the text message.

Shoddy practice!!

[Adri_G]

Thanks for posting on the forum and this thread, notdodgy. 

In regard to this issue with SMS charges when you reply back to our number for confirming your appointments with us, our advice from Reece stands as seen above.
Do you also have an O2 SIM and currently on a Volt bundle and/or is your allowance including free text messages?

Lastly, have you contacted your mobile provider (if not VM) to check on why you get charged for this SMS reply in case you should send those for free?

Let us know and we're happy to help further with this.

[notdodgy]

This was with the O2 sim provided as part of the Volt package.

[Ashleigh_C]

Thank you for confirming @notdodgy

I'm sorry to hear that this has happened, it would be best to reach out to O2 to report this has happened. 

Please do let us know how this goes if you do reach out. 

Thank you again. 

[Greggy]

I had a 2nd text to reply too and got charged for that one too ! I used o2 live chat 😩 and got told its a chargeable text  but they couldn’t explain why it was only 8 p (10p including vat ) unfortunately the chat operator isn't uk based so will only read from the prompt script . I did ring and speak to billing and they are looking into it ,im not going to hold my breath waiting for that call back ,so for the sake of my sanity I'm not going to worry about 20p I did ring virgin to confirm the appointment and that call was included in my inclusive minutes ,if i ever get that callback will update the end result but think I might have better odds of winning the lottery 😂😂😂

[Tom_W1]

Hi @Greggy thanks for your reply here - I appreciate this is frustrating.

If O2 have suggested they are going to look into this and get back to you, please wait for this - even though we may have sold you the O2 SIM, once this has taken place then any billing issues/queries that do took place regarding the SIM, are to be deal with O2 directly.

Thanks for your patience in the meantime.

Many thanks