Thank you, Natalie. Unbelievably, the texts began again at 07:45 the next morning! Nobody rang, though, so I just phoned up after 8am and got through to somebody almost instantly!
Theoretically, the problem has been resolved - but it was also resolved in April, so maybe a record of it here isn’t a bad idea.
I took out a two year contract in 2019, for three existing mobile lines (sim only), increasing the bills from £15, to £17 per month, on the understanding that all three lines would reduce from £17 to £10 each, for exactly the same allowances, after the two years were up. This didn’t happen, though (they only dropped to £16 each - a deal I would never have signed up for) - and I had to contact Virgin to sort it out.
The lady I spoke to in April was brilliant and she agreed that I wasn’t getting what had been agreed. She reset my tariff to £10 for each line - which is what it said when I logged in online or checked my app. Even better, she also merged my accounts for me (something I'd tried to do in the past, because one of the numbers was being treated as a separate account for some reason that nobody could explain, let alone help me with) - and she pointed out I was due a discount, because I had three lines - and she applied that as well. I couldn't believe my luck!
With the discount, I was supposed to be paying £26 per month (I forgot to write that bit down- so it might even have been £24) for all three mobile lines combined, with the same lifetime allowances on each.
What happened in practice was that all three plans now said I was paying £10 per month, with no further discount applied (I didn't actually mind that, because the extra discount was an unexpected bonus), but I was actually paying £39 per month (£13 on each line). I let it go the first month, because I just put it down to there being an adjustment on the account, after merging the two together. I did the same for the second month as well - but then it continued (the next bill arrived while I was away and I was disinclined to do anything about it at that time) and I just couldn't face phoning up again. To add insult to injury, my bill had an annual increase (which seems a bit cheeky after two months of the new tariff, but there you go), going up 25p for me and 15p each for the other two lines - which didn't even make any sense.
What finally tipped me over the edge was having somebody phone to try and upsell me a new package, though. When I asked them if they could just fix the issue I already had, they cut me off instead - which is when I decided it was time to do something about it. I tried the text service, because I couldn’t face any more time on hold - but I was just on hold in a completely new and even more frustrating way.
Anyway. I’m now theoretically paying £10.30 per month on each line, with no other discount - and I got money back as well (although the money back seems to be too much. I did point this out, but the guy was insistent). Sorry that’s all a bit long winded. Hopefully, I’ll never have to refer back to this again - but it’s here now, just in case.
In answer to your actual question, there was nothing extra in the bill at all (and since the merging of the two accounts, there is now no record of what I was paying for the third line at all, prior to May of this year). The plan said £10 per month for each line, the bill said £13 per month. The fact that I had to argue with the guy on the phone about this absolutely bent my mind. We went round and round in circles about the fact that I couldn't expect to pay what had been agreed two years earlier - because it was now two years later and things change! It didn't even seem to matter that I was being charged more than my tariff said I should be paying. It was bonkers - and I still feel like I’ve had my pants pulled down, but I just couldn’t be bothered to argue anymore. It just means that when I move out of this house next year, I won’t be taking Virgin with me - and, apart from a gap of 12 months, when I lived somewhere it wasn’t available, I’ve been with Virgin since it was Diamond Cable - and then NTL. Which is a very long time.
