Virgin Mobile

Monzo is a bit different because most of the complaints are about accounts being closed because of suspected financial crime where there are laws governing what the bank is allowed to say to the customer. Monzo is not perfect though and I’ve voiced my displeasure with the decline of their customer service elsewhere on this community.

Virign’s case is different though. On one hand you have Monzo which is a free service, has no contracts or monthly fees included and it’s relatively easy to CASS away if you’re not satisfied. Virgin on the other hand has yearly contracts where they bill you for a service that is sometimes not being provided or up to spec and switching away is not easy if you want to play by the rules (since you’re going to get a hit on your credit score and some people care about that), so you end up with a lot of people stuck in a contract being forced to pay for something that doesn’t work and are being given the run around by incompetent idiots running their CS if they want to try and sort it out.

Looking at the community it seems like some problems are now consistently occurring for 2 years and the user experience is just as awful for the people the people involved. That’s completely unacceptable IMO.

Literally a text message - it’s a U.K. 07 mobile number :sweat_smile:

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I don’t believe that is the case, especially given how proactive Monzo are at referring things to their Customer Advocacy Team.

Just to point out that Monzo does indeed have a contract with you - they need one to provide any form of service to you.

They also have fees for the various versions of Plus etc.

It’s also just as easy to change mobile provider as it is to change bank account, both have regulator inspired schemes to ensure this and doing either well affect your credit record.

Sadly, Monzo also seem to have various long standing issues as well which remain unresolved.

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Virgin Mobile have had a number of issues with billing and sending un-provisioned SIMs ongoing for a some time, among other issues.

Unfortunately, the whole company’s customer service is absolutely abysmal which negates pretty much any offering they have mobile or otherwise with the frontline staff either unaware of basic problem solving skills or downright abusive. It’s a shame as the HFC fixed line network could be pretty decent if better managed.

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This simply isn’t true, it just suits your agenda.

I agree with this in principle, but it’s important to keep in mind that some mobile contracts can be up to 24 months (previously longer was possible). You can’t just move in this case without significant financial penalty, which is not the case with Monzo or banking in general.

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Yes, it is. Please don’t start spouting conspiracy theories about agendas etc.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-releases/2019/end-it-with-a-text-mobile-switching

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Not it isn’t. You’re not comparing like for like.

You’re not tied to any amount of time for Monzo. You are with a phone contract.

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That depends purely on the contract you agreed to with your bank.

With mobile firms, what they can charge for early termination of a contract is also regulated and firms are subject to large fines if they get this wrong such as Investigation into EE’s early termination charges - Ofcom

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You are with Monzo Plus.

Not all phone network plans lock you into a contract.

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Plus you are in theory, but people have been cancelling and just paying for what they’ve had.

Rolling contracts are totally different.

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I get what you are saying, the switching itself is fairly simple and Monzo does have a minimum term for Plus (which they don’t seem to be enforcing beyond the initial £5 card fee), but saying switching from Monzo where there is no long term contract is as easy as switching from a mobile provider where you could be tied in for years isn’t really a fair comparison.

The implication is that you could be stuck with Virgin for 24 months with problems and be struggling to resolve these, or pay around 50% of the entire term to leave. This situation is simply not possible with Monzo or the majority of mainstream banks.

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ASDA are doing the same thing. Strange.

I’m not sure if you’re aware but if you have a fixed interest pot with Monzo, they will reject any request to transfer your bank account elsewhere from them until that pot is closed.

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BT/EE are probably trying to recoup the costs of replacing Huawei kit and other losses and just aren’t being as competitive anymore. Vodafone need some big wins to remain relevant with all the consolidation going on and upcoming 5G rollout, so they’re probably being very competitive with their negotiating.

Aren’t persistent, unresolved issues often cause for terminating early without penalty though? Never had too many issues with phone networks, but certainly VDSL broadband, I’ve been allowed out of contracts early due to unresolved issues, which meant they were not providing the service promised in their contract.

Interesting. Usually the bank would just close these accounts and return your money with no interest, or in some cases a penalty will be deducted.

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I didn’t know that, and that’s not great, they could simply keep a basic account open to provide savings access. But to be fair, mobile networks also don’t accept PAC requests by text if you have other linked accounts, and how they handle the remaining linked products is variable. Granted, they won’t hold your number ransom and neither should Monzo.

It’s absolutely possible for the company to release you from your contract, or for the Communications Ombudsman (or alternative ADR) to order this. But as @Rjevski has noted, you’re still pretty reliant on the company and some can be extremely difficult to deal with even for basic issues and getting the final resolution can be a battle.

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I have absolutely zero problems being offensive when talking about a company which wasted hours of my time and still technically demands my money for a service they couldn’t provide. :upside_down_face:

they always have to work within pretty narrow constraints

That’s up to the company to decide - those constraints are not set in stone and dictated by some superior deity; if the “narrow constraints” result in bad customer experiences then those constraints should be changed and the company has the power to change them.

True, however as a customer it is not my problem to worry about how the company got to the point where the people supposed to help the customer are behaving like monkeys. As a customer the (last) problem I had is that I was mis-sold a product by someone that couldn’t understand my requirement (despite stating several times that I intended to cancel that in a month as soon as the new provider is set up) and signed me up for a yearly contract instead of 30-day rolling and then the person supposed to help me sort it out couldn’t be more unhelpful (every single request I made to try and move things forward - which I think were reasonable - like having someone review the call recordings and all the account’s history and then call me back - was apparently impossible according to that CS advisor and it was clear he couldn’t care less about actually helping me solve this and just expected me to keep paying the contract).