advice please

[garytheobald]

Hi can anyone please help,I bought a virgin sim only deal £15 for 200mins and 200 texts and it was activated 2 weeks ago with a credit limit of £150, anyway when I tried to use my phone last thursday it said my credit limit had been exceeded, I called vm up and they said my bill was £159 I said i couldnt have used my credit limit as i had sent 5 texts and used 30 mins of my allowance to which they replied that the costs was for wifi,
I explained that I was told that wifi was included and they then said it wasnt, so I could start using my phone again I paid the bill but dont see why I should after a lot of complaining they have given me £35 but the question is I currently (and for the last 7 years) have my broadband tv and home phone supplied by vm, should I cancel it because they wont refund this charge, when I spoke to virgin media to cancel tv etc they said they are a different company to virgin mobile and that i was punishing them for vmobiles greed.I thought that virgin media would have been able to speak to virgin mobile to ask them to refund the £159 what should i do many thanks

[utt]

Welcome

Whilst they are part of Virgin media they are in effect a seperate company on their own billing system. Virgin media will not process a refund on Virgin mobiles behalf because they can't.

I will add that I can't find anywhere it says the WIFi is included in a Sim only deal so £35 as a goodwill gesture is something need not have been offered so I would take it and pay the bill.

[ceedee]

I'm guessing that they've charged you for 3G data rather than wifi (via a wireless router such as at home, office or a friendly cafe) which should be free.

But I'm a little baffled how you could have used *that* *much* data in just two weeks.
Have you been downloading lots of mp3 tracks or a movie or ten?

If not, I'd recommend you chuck it back to Virgin Mobile and ask them for a detailed, written explanation of their 3G charges.

[garytheobald]

hi no ive used it mainly for email retrieval accessing bank account etc just normal web browsing by the way ive no paid to join the cloud for their wifi is that the only way to get net access away from home or can i get it free somehow

[ceedee]

Originally Posted by garytheobald

hi no ive used it mainly for email retrieval accessing bank account etc just normal web browsing by the way

If that's all you've used it for, the volume of data shouldn't have cost £150!
Get back to VirginMobile and ask for some figures!

ive no paid to join the cloud for their wifi is that the only way to get net access away from home or can i get it free somehow

I believe that MacDonalds and JD Wetherspoon pubs now offer free wifi, tho' you may need to sign-up or buy something first. Plus there are loads of small shops, cafes and pubs that offer free wifi as an incentive to use them.
The problem is that finding them is not so easy!

That's why 3G (ie. true wireless via your phone or USB 3G modem) has taken off so fast -- it's available (almost) everywhere, (almost) all the time, for a fixed, or at least predictable, cost.