More News.
I had put in a formal complaint. I received a proforma letter in response and had called up saying this was not a solution and asked to escalate the complaint. I was told a manager would call me within 48 hours. After 10 days I had heard nothing so I called again. The aim was to either get a manager to call me or get permission to take my complaint externally for independent adjudication.
I has a slightly confusing discussion on the phone with the representative. She went off to consult with her manager. When she came back she said she would arrange to have my roaming turned on within a few days in time for my next trip abroad. However her computer would not let her fill in the form to do this as my roaming was already turned on. I checked and this was the case (it was not the case earlier in the day). I then discovered a private message sent a couple of hours earlier from Travi_M as follows;
“I've been advised that roaming has been activated for you now - please keep us updated with how you get on.”
Clearly this is a good outcome for me. So what have I learnt.
The 35+ threads on this topic in this Community have many statements from Virgin like these.
“If your account has a Soft Lock on it, this sadly means we're unable to make any adjustments.”
“Thanks for coming back to me, this has been looked into this afternoon and unfortunately the team have advised that its not possible to turn on the roaming feature, you would only be able to activate the roaming function once the migration has gone ahead and the soft lock removed.”
“If there is a Soft Lock on the system, this sadly does mean we're unable to remove it for thirty days.”
“With a soft-lock being applied, we're unable to make any changes to the account, so we wouldn't be able to enable Roaming.”
These statements are just not true. They can make changes, they just don’t want to. There is a computer form Virgin can fill in to make it happen.
My advice to anyone who is prepared to take the time is to make a complete pain for yourself. Keep posting pointing out they are not telling you the truth. Keep calling them. Put in a formal complaint. Escalate it Argue with them. Waste as much of Virgin’s time as possible. It will take time but eventually they will give in.
Companies that treat their customers like this eventually get their reward. I have my eye on a competitor who has a better customer service rating and lower prices. Moneysavingexpert is a good place to start.
Finally I have reported this general issue to the regulator Offcom via their Monitoring Form.
Steve
