After literally years and a load of phone calls which yielded no help, it has finally been fixed................data wasn't activated at Virgin! I find it so hard to believe that no-one had ever checked, it isn't something you can do for yourself. I know that I asked for it to be done years ago, you just assume that it has been and, if you can't get data it must be your fault. The supervisor tried to tell me that I had never asked it to be activated, which I know I did way back when I got my first phone that could use data as it was part of the set-up process, though this isn't something I can prove.