SIM deactivated, no service, terrible customer service from call center

[SherlockHolmes]

I called up yesterday to ask for a 5g sim to be sent out to me. Just got a new iphone 12 but only getting 4g.

Spoke to a chap who was very polite and friendly, he explained that he would have a new sim sent out that could take 3 to 5 working days but said it would likely arrive today. 
We also asked him to add another sim to the account for my wife to use. 
He was very pleasant and professional but at no point did he mention that my current sim would be deactivated.

A couple of hours later when I left home I noticed that I had no signal at all on my phone.

I called Virgin again to ask what had happed. I was told the sim in my phone had been deactivated and the new 5g one that was being posted out had been activated.

I told the woman speaking to me that I hadn't been informed of this but she would continually talk over me saying that I had accepted the terms and conditions. I tried to explain that I hadn't been read any terms and conditions that said my current sim would be deactivated.

I honestly can't get over how unprofessional she was. She kept insisting that I MUST have been told it would be deactivated. I could tell that I wasn't going to get anywhere with her.

Is this the norm? If you ask for a new sim are you expected to go up to 5 days with no service? 

Anyone else had a similar problem?

Would appreciate input from a member of staff.

Cheers

[enlli]

Don't know about normal.. didn't used to be but posts similar to yours are starting to come up.

[Robert_P]

Hello SherlockHolmes

It's really disappointing to hear of your recent experience when looking to change SIM to be able to use 5G, we understand the frustration this can cause and apologise for the inconvenience.

When ordering a replacement SIM we have the option to send the new SIM already activated (it'll work straight out of the packaging) or with self activation (you would need to activate this once received) 

From what you have advised the replacement should have been sent with self activation so your current SIM would continue to work until you had received and were ready to activate and new SIM. It appears the new SIM has been sent already activated meaning the SIM you have now no longer works.

We're really sorry this has been the case and will be sure to feed this back to the agent who you originally spoke to. As you can't have two SIM active with teh same number we are unable to reactivate the previous I'm afraid.

Rob

[SherlockHolmes]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for getting back to me.

I'm afraid the problems have got worse!

I have now received the SIM cards in the post, one with a red virgin logo that came with paper saying its 5G enabled, this was to be used with my existing number. 

We received a 4G sim also that was a new SIM added to the account for my wife, this sim has a purple logo on it.

But sadly the numbers seem to have been mixed up, the red 5g sim has a new number thats beings ported to my wifes old number.

And the purple sim is using my existing number.

The red SIM gets a strong 5G signal in Glasgow and a good 4G signal at home

But the purple sim that has my number doesn't get a 5G signal and very poor signal at home!

I've just been on the phone to a call centre to get the numbers ported the correct way but there was a lot of confusion and I'm not sure the chap I spoke to really understood what the issue was.

Would someone from virgin be able to send me a PM to try get to the bottom if this please?

[enlli]

The different reception will be down to the network they run on. 5G SIM will be on Vodafone where the purple 4G SIM will be on EE. 

Eventually all SIM cards will run on Vodafone within the next 6 months or so.