Carphone Warehouse vs. Virgin Mobile - Help!!

[qasdfdsaq]

Funny, perhaps ask VM to upgrade you directly. See what they say then, seeing as they would then use their internal system that would say the exact same thing as CPW...

[Micky Finn]

Done that, although as VM (claim to) have no system to monitor when customers on payg tariffs are buying handset upgrades (and found it bizarre that CPW should be suggesting this) I was really heading up a cul-de sac with that one. Was offered a new handset for £40 more than the CPW price.

[qasdfdsaq]

So VM will allow you to upgrade directly? Hmm. Have you checked your online account to see your accrued discount? Given they have an offer that gives you £10 off your next handset upgrade or every £100 you spend, if they have no system to monitor when you are buying handset upgrades then what would stop you stacking that up indefinitely and eventually getting a new £100 phone for free every day?

[Micky Finn]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

So VM will allow you to upgrade directly? Hmm. Have you checked your online account to see your accrued discount? Given they have an offer that gives you £10 off your next handset upgrade or every £100 you spend, if they have no system to monitor when you are buying handset upgrades then what would stop you stacking that up indefinitely and eventually getting a new £100 phone for free every day?

Not 'upgrade' as such, no. Just 'allow' me to buy a new handset, with a new sim with £10 credit. I don't really understand the rest of the post - online account? accrued discount? You've lost me. I've simply got a payg sim, that I occasionally add credit to, in a crappy old phone that I think I inherited from my boys' cast-offs. It does calls & texts and not much else and I wanted to buy a new handset that did a little more.

[arcimedes]

When you have a payg sim for every £100 you spend VM allow you £10 off a new phone upto a maximum of £100. To see if you have any money available you need to login to your mobile account. As you don't appear to have one you need to create one by going to www.virginmedia.com and connect to the virginmobile site which will give you the opportunity to create an account.

[Micky Finn]

Originally Posted by arcimedes

When you have a payg sim for every £100 you spend VM allow you £10 off a new phone upto a maximum of £100. To see if you have any money available you need to login to your mobile account. As you don't appear to have one you need to create one by going to www.virginmedia.com and connect to the virginmobile site which will give you the opportunity to create an account.

Thanks but not a lot of point. I have a work phone which handles the bulk of my mobile activity. The payg phone is just a cheap & cheerful backup for the very occasional moment when there's no signal etc. Kids borrow it for festivals and stuff. I doubt I'm anywhere near £100 in all the years I've had the number!

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Micky Finn

Not 'upgrade' as such, no. Just 'allow' me to buy a new handset, with a new sim with £10 credit.

Well in that case they're doing it wrong. Upgrading involves just the handset, no new SIM, no new credit. I suspect they were trying to sell you a second phone.

I don't really understand the rest of the post - online account? accrued discount? You've lost me.

http://www.virginmobile.com/vm/gener...e.howdoi.sm103

If they had no way of tracking when you bought an upgrade handset people would just be getting free phones forever.

[Micky Finn]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

If they had no way of tracking when you bought an upgrade handset people would just be getting free phones forever.

And that's EXACTLY what every single person I've spoken to at VM or had emails from has said - they have no way of policing it. Which brings me back to the start line.

[qasdfdsaq]

Again, if they have no way of policing it, they would literally be giving away free money. You'd think that'd have made national news by now.

[Micky Finn]

Only passing on what they're telling me.

[vincerooney]

Originally Posted by Micky Finn

Wow! You're a happy-go-lucky sort!! Nothing like a bit of infantile patronising, eh? I'd be grateful if you didn't come back with that sort of nonsense next time. Could you possibly flag up where, exactly, I displayed any arrogance in the post above? I spent much of my holidays on the phone to CS at both parties, basically being passed from pillar to post with no resolution in sight. You'll forgive me if I became a little frustrated by the process. Far from explaining the situation wrongly to VM, they had the whole story, verbatim, including full transcripts of conversations between myself and CPW and any emails forwarded on to them. So no, not wrongly - don't jump in again without checking some facts, please. I rather naively thought this forum, and others like it, was the sort of place one could come for some helpful advice; on the contrary, it seems self-importance is the prevailing currency....

---------- Post added at 11:34 ---------- Previous post was at 11:32 ----------



Thanks Chris, for a more sober response. Believe me, I now wish I'd kept the handset from the original purchase!! It wasn't a huge amount, but money is tight here at the moment, so £10 is £10, as someone probably said. Once.

Im sorry about this situation unfortunately i have no idea exactly what to advise you to do.

May i just on record apologise for the utterly disgusting way you've been spoken to though. I read these replies to you and felt sick.

If people do not have anything useful to reply then please dont. I can see a lot of anger and frustration. Its embarrasing, i genuinely felt embarrased reading the nasty response. Maybe this is something these people need to deal with in their life rather than doing this on a forum to someone asking an innocent question.

If all else fails i'd suggest you get in touch with citizens advice who might be able to offer some advice on your legal position

[yorkshireborn]

I think you need to bite the bullet on this your getting nowhere the amount of time and effort let alone calls to VM & CPW would be more than the £10 saving you where after on upgrading.
I would just buy the phone your after and a new simcard and just take it as lesson learned don't do it again move on.

[Micky Finn]

It became more of an exercise in trying to prove which party was ********ting me; I'm past caring about the phone, tbh.

[alanbjames]

I would never go with Carphone Warehouse, they are really expensive.

For example to Kill time i was in PC World in Swansea last week and i know my contract is due for renewel so i called into the Carphone Warehouse instore that used to be Phones4u.

I spent about 15 minutes going through with the guy what i wanted from a phone and how many minutes i currently have and data useage and txts etc.

The best deal they wanted to offer me to stay with EE was £30 a month for a Samsung Galaxy S4 which is not guarenteed to be upgradable to Android Lollipop where my current handset is, 1000 Minutes, Unlimited Txts and 1GB data. I said no thanks i wasnt interested.

[yorkshireborn]

Originally Posted by alanbjames

I would never go with Carphone Warehouse, they are really expensive.

For example to Kill time i was in PC World in Swansea last week and i know my contract is due for renewel so i called into the Carphone Warehouse instore that used to be Phones4u.

I spent about 15 minutes going through with the guy what i wanted from a phone and how many minutes i currently have and data useage and txts etc.

The best deal they wanted to offer me to stay with EE was £30 a month for a Samsung Galaxy S4 which is not guarenteed to be upgradable to Android Lollipop where my current handset is, 1000 Minutes, Unlimited Txts and 1GB data. I said no thanks i wasnt interested.

strange ive allways got it cheaper thru CPW currently im on EE note 4 unlimited mins unlimted texts 4 gig data £33 a month thru upgrade my old phone note 2 was on orange 3g 1000 mins unlimted texts 500mb data for £37.
on ee website you can get s5 for £35 pm normal should be cheaper thru upgrade.