Roam Like Home

[Anonymous]

I am writing this following my experience yesterday. Having read the Virgin website and selected my new SiM £9 sim (25bg data) I read on another website that Virgin apply a Fair Use (FU) cap as part of the 'Roam Like Home' program. I went back to the website and found its 'FU calculator' ... to my disbelief it tells me that if I have a £9/25gb plan I will be surcharged if I use more than 4.8gb in the EU any billing month. The information is therefore in direct conflict with the 'Roam Like Home' advertising. I spent 2 hours on the phone asking a straight question to three seperate call handlers which is

If I go to EU for 1 month and use 24GB of my 25GB plan will I face any additional roaming charges. Each one of them said  No.... In the EU its all included as part of the Roam Like Home set up so you will not be charged. When I pointed out that on their website it has this FU calculator (not one of them seemed to know about) finally one of the call handlers said .... I'm sorry ... that page is wrong. I will speak with the website people and have it corrected.

Guess what ... more than 24 hours later the FU calculator is still visible on line.

https://store.virginmedia.com/FUP-Calculator.html?utm_source=awin&utm_medium=affiliates&utm_campaign...

So come on Virgin.... via this forum please confirm that three of your call handlers are correct and I will not face any surcharges if I spend the next month in the EU Roam Like Home area and use 24 gb of my 25 gb allowance.

I look forward to your swift response.

[John_GS]

Morning @Anonymous 

Thanks for posting and welcome to the community and indeed Virgin Mobile if just joined.

Sorry for the confusion over the roaming charges and fair usage policy. 

See this link for the Fair Usage policy and calculator. 

Based on the numbers you have given, you will be able to use 4.81GB of data in the fair usage policy. 

I am sorry as I said for the experience and will have it fed back. I will also have the page fed back as well to ensure it's easier to find the information needed.

Best wishes.

[Anonymous]

Dear John

I'm afraid your answer is nor acceptable.

I repeat... I spoke to 3 different operatives in your own telephone sales team who said repeatedly........ 'when you are in EU you can use all your data just like you would at home'. This is patently FALSE.

When I spoke to the 3rd person she even said that your web page was wrong or out of date and she would have it corrected immediately. I again just checked on the phone as 'mystery shopper' this morning and they CONTINUE to provide incorrect information.

This is clearly a breach of trust on the part of Virgin Media (whether intended or not) and consumers will no longer stand by and accept misleading advertising to entice customer churn. As a result of your response I will now forward this correspondence to the Advertising Standards Authority and ask them to investigate this sharp marketing practice of Virgin Media. I would request that you do the following

1) Cancel my new sim only contract that I signed up to yesterday. I relied upon the false information provided by 3 SEPARATE telesales operatives.

2) Stop the porting of my number immediately (ending 192) from Vodaphone to Virgin Media (I provided the pac code VUK106681)

3) Raise this forum post as a formal complaint within Virgin Media and provide a written response as required by OFCOM regulations

4) Confirm to me (either here or privately by email) that you have actioned the above by return.

Thank you in anticipation of your speedy response

Martin Hunt

Totally dissatisfied (lost) customer.

[Emma_C]

Thanks for replying. 

We are sorry that you remain unhappy with our reply, this is disappointing. 

We will ensure it is fedback that you feel as though you have been mis lead. As you can see, we do offer roam like home unlike many other providers now and you can use a lot of your allowances in the EU, however we do have a fair usage policy. 

This will only kick in if you were to go over the policy but as most people go away for a week, two or three at a time we feel as though the allowances given are plenty. 

If you would still like to go ahead with the cancellation of your packages and the port then we can help from here, but we will need to do this via private message. Therefore we will send you a message now and take it from there. 

Thanks. 

[Emma_C]

Thanks for taking the time to talk further with us and again we will be sad you won't be joining us. 

Please let us know if you need anything else. 

Thanks