I ported my number to Virgin, hoping that i would get a few extra benefits and perhaps better prices.

Virgin went on this marketing drive to recruit as many clients as possible, their marketing has been superb.

unfortunately, its nothing but gift wrapped horse shit.

1. they told me it would take 4-8 hours to port my number across, more than 72 hours later I was still waiting.

2. I cannot send sms's to premium numbers, I reported this numerous times.
It has still not been resolved, however according to the incident report on their system it has been resolved.

3. more than 2 weeks ago I started receiving getting a message every time I made an outgoing call "your credit will expire in 15 days"
the next day it would be "your credit will expire in 14 days" and so on.

I called them to find out what this means ... "Oh just ignore it, you should not be getting it anyway" I was told. No I wont ignore it, its damn frustrating, I ask them to get it resolved. EVERY GOD DAMN TIME I make a call, I get a stupid message telling me my credit will expire. WHAT CREDIT???

I called again a few days later, still not resolved.

Day before yesterday the message was "your credit will expire in 1 days", yesterday it was "your credit will expire in days"

meaning that the notification period had passed BUT I WAS STILL GETTING THE DAMN MESSAGE.

Now this morning I cant send sms's so I call them, I get told to put in some unbarring code which did not work, I call them back again and get through to some woman I told her again that I cant send sms's and the reply I got was a resounding "EISH!?"

I asked her about the other problems and she told me that on the system they had been long since resolved.

REALLY???

Up yours Virgin, I am porting my number back to Vodacom.

LOL, Ease up on the steroids

Kidding man. It must be a HUGE pain in the arse. I have heard that number porting is just a huge fuck-up with everyone, so you can't say it's only Virgin that sucks in that department... all the cell-guys are screwing people who are porting away to other companies.

Have you tried being really nasty to the people who take your calls? I hate doing it too, but at the end of the day people respond to nastiness whne you mention managers

Yep, sad, but that seems to be the only way to get things done (for the most part) when you keep on getting screwed by a company. I recently battled for over a month to get details on a shitty policy I have with some cheap-ass insurance company. I eventually took it to a manager, who actually made follow up calls with me so that I would know how far the request was in their pipeline. Within 3 days I got what I needed.

yep, I asked to speak to a manager, she cam back and told me that her supervisor was busy I then said again "MANAGER, not supervisor, I want to speak to a MANAGER" 2 minutes later I was on the phone with the "Telesales" manager.

GOD DAMNIT!!

now when i try to make a call, I get a message saying that my recharge period has passed and that I need to recharge again.

I dont recharge, they deduct any calls made from my bank account.

I was seriously considering a move to Virgin, now I'm not even going to bother!

Paul I think you should go to a Virgin Branch and kak on everyone's head until it gets resolved they can then filter this through to other offices/branches and what not

http://www.news24.com/Beeld/TotUDiens/0,,3...1925535,00.html

Its in afrikaans, but if you can put together a reasonable letter it should help you. I have used it once, just as an afterthought because I was pissed at having to pay R20 more for a DVD-RW than I was quoted. I think about a week or so later Beeld phoned me and asked for details of the company, which they then phoned.

The threat of having stuff printed in a paper is usually enough to get people to spring into action.

hellopeter.com > all.

Virgin, you idiot! They are not the same as those in the bed

Remember this?

well it's happening all over again.


I have been wanting to port back to vodacom but virgin deny the request saying that I am on a contract WHICH I AM NOT.

and last night I could not send sms's or make out going calls.

I phoned their call center and complained to "bruce" and asked to speak to a superior, no joy.
He said he had people in the accounts department working on my problem.

I called back later only to be told that I would need to wait till morning & someone would call me back.

No one called me back & I phoned again this morning & spoke to a sandile at 8:15 who told me that he would put me through to a team leader but the team leader was busy and would call me back.

no call yet.

I phoned back and spoke to sandile a second time at 10:30 who told me "They were having problems but I will get a call"

it is now nearly 1pm & noone has called me.

I couldnt send mms for sometime and I still can't send sms's to premium numbers.

They need to catch a fat wakeup.

I just want out, I will pay whatever it costs for me to move my number back to vodacom.

I cant carry on like this, I am utterly and thoroughly disgusted with virgin mobile.

Move to MTN. This has put me off Virgin for life. Same as Cell C. Also a load of bogwash.

I always hear people go to a site called "hello Peter" to get their problems sorted fast, i will get you a link if you want?

That site rocks. I have used them a few times.

Mebe post a link? eh... mine is a bit lost at the moment.

hellopeter

yeah I posted on there before updating this post

http://www.hellopeter.com/the_comment.asp?recid=70349

Have they got back to yet. Doesn't look like it, which just shows how pathetic they are.

agreed

Let us know whether you get results from them.

I was reading all the other complaints about Virgin on the site, and it appears that they don't really do anything. Even when they reply to a user, they still don't do anything. I have some serious doubts that they will do anything now.

Virgin are just a huge company only interested in money

They wouldn't give a woooden nickel oabout what there customers think.

Its just MONEY MONEY MONEY

Anything claiming to be "Virgin" and having so many men around has to be Bullshit, didnt you know that?

Erm, Richard branson prides his company on the service that it offers it's clients. Maybe get hold of head office and hope it filters through to him?

"Experienced virgin rapes consumer"

Good newspaper headline if there ever was one.

i think all cell phone carriers suck really. there is one that i use but they do have there flaws. however unlike all the others who use minutes and units, and pay as you go. the carrier i use is actually pretty good at the moment. i use cricket. unlimited minutes, unlimited text messages, unlimited picture messages, all the great features and more for only 60 something a month. unlike the minute plans where you run out of minutes and have to wait, or just run up a huge phone bill.

however like i said cricket has it's flaws, it doesn't have the greatest coverage area, and in some states none at all, but other than that it works better and prevents kids and other people that just don't know how to stop talking on minute plans from running up huge bills.

Guys, this is my experience with Virgin Mobile:

I tried to port to them from MTN, unfortunately. This was about a month after the porting started, late last year.

It took 2 weeks to port me halfway. I could make calls and nothing else, no receiving calls, sms'ses, sending sms'ses or data features. After a few days my data services worked and I could send SMS'ses, but was still unreachable.

I phoned customer care every 2 days and spent at least 10 minutes trying to get things sorted, always met with the promise that although there were problems they were going to help me.

After the third week I asked them to cancel my port as I threatened to take back my starter pack to Woolies where I bought it and have it shipped back to Virgin HQ.

They canceled the port and I am once again running on my MTN sim card. I will probably never go over to Virgin, no matter what they try.

Not so much in Virgin's defense, but in Richard Branson's (yes, because Branson is based in the UK, and not in SA), but as Mill said, Branson DOES pride himself on customer satisfaction in fact.

See, while most other companies (like the one I work for) aim to please the shareholders first, Virgin aims to please its' EMPLOYEES first, and the shareholders last. The problem with Virgin operation in SA is that it is operating in a country where the service standards are at a low point (even an all-time low?). So, while service may be a big thing overseas (due to the bigger competition in the overseas markets?), here in SA, due to the many smaller markets, which lead to monopolies (TELKOM, ESKOM), we are left with some shitty service, hence while Branson might be keen on client service overall, it'll be pretty toughb to archive in SA what with all the shitty service being RAMPANT all over the country.

So, sometimes it may seem that a GLOBAL COMPANY may be at fault with service, it could just be the LOCAL EMPLOYEES who are actually at fault. After all (and I completed reading Branson's auto biography a few weeks ago), why would Nelson Mandela have contacted Richard Branson directly when The Health And Racket Club fell to ASK him if he would take over in SA?

Sometimes it is juts a case of LOCAL (poor) service standards taking over, whereas overseas, the service standards are HIGH. Hell, often I go to purchase something from a shop, and dont even get a decent greeting (if any) at the till for my "patronage" at the particular shop chain.

Virgin Mobel Hell is what I have been in. I was hung up on by three customer service reps and then was told there was no way to contact anyone other then there group for help. I was charged on my CC and my minutes never were posted to my account. They say that is impossible but I have the CC bill to prove it. No one was willing to help me or address this at there customer service center. When I tried to add more minutes by using my phone I would get the statement I was successful for top up but again, no minutes ever posted to my phone. After over a year of there service this was the last staw. No longer will I stand to be in Virgin Mobile Hell!

If I was you I would write a letter of complain to Sir Richard Branson as well as the Star, Sunday Times, etc but first start small.

drive to their head offices and bitch and moan until someone with authority comes to help you out if not then take gimme a shout I'll come by with some baseball bats!

Paul, what happened in the end? You move back to Vodacom?

no, they wont let me move till I pay the remainder of what I owe them for my phone (and they say its not a contract)

MY HAIRY ASS

guess you chucked that phone and got another prepaid?

no, too many people have this number

Yeah, people have been having problems with Virgin Mobile.

I totally agree with all the other Virgin bashers here. I'm with Virgin at the moment, but not for much longer!!

I recently had the unfortunate experience of using Virgin's global roaming facility while overseas for several months earlier this year. I had conscientiously set up direct debit before the trip to make sure I'd have uninterrupted mobile coverage while I was away. But I was soon getting sms's advising me that I had almost reached my "agreed credit limit" and that I'd better make a payment soon or I'd be cut off! What the hell is the point of having direct debit if I still have to make payments myself??? After scouring their website to try and pay online, I could only see my monthly charges, which showed zero balance! So why was I getting those texts? I made the expensive phone call to Australia to find out what was going on, and discovered that global roaming charges are seperate from the monthly bill and has a seperate credit limit and it can't be paid by direct debit or even online. So I was in the ridiculous situation of having to phone them here in Australia every few weeks FROM PERU to keep topping up my "global roaming credit", all the while paying for these calls just to pay them, even though I had direct debit set up! And why on earth hadn't I been informed of this before? LUCICROUS! For God's sake, just take whatever I owe you and let me get on with it! Surely that's not too much to ask? Well they've literally pissed me right off, I'm gone.