There's a pattern I've noticed, now that Gam and I have been with Virgin Mobile for some time. Every time one of us calls the other, the phone drops out after literally a second or two, before the person answering can say anything. It happens a couple of times before we can actually get a call through. But it still shows up on our phone bills.
Take today's for example. Of all the calls Gam made to my mobile that didn't get through:
20 calls at an average of 4.7 seconds per call
94 seconds total time connected
$14!! That's almost 15c per second. Not that those seconds count for anything, seeing as the call gets cut off before anyone can say anything. And that's not counting the further calls made that actually succeeded in getting through, that's a whole further pile of money. And the ones to the home phone that mysteriously cut off after only two seconds or so... he got charged for them too.
In fact, Gam made only 52 calls in the last month, so that means 38% of them were cut off. That's not a very good record. Telstra is actually starting to look good, the way things are going with Virgin.
My conspiracy theory is that the call drop-outs are deliberate, because that way they make more money when you have to call the person back again and again before you can talk to them.
Oh and it gets better: 9 of those calls occurred on the day when the Optus cable was cut and our phones weren't working- most of them after 1pm (when Optus claimed to have fixed the line) when we were trying to get through and couldn't. Somehow Virgin has found a way to charge us anyway.
Does anyone actually have a good experience with a mobile phone provider to relate? Don't bother if you're one of those people who spends $200 a month on phonecalls and think you're getting a good deal because you get to do $500 worth of chatting. I'd like to hear from sane people who use their mobile phones only when necessary.
8 comments:
I used to be a Hostie for Virgin Atlantic! They wereen't half bad...... and their credit card has no annual fee! lol why am I trying to sell things? Go to Vodafone, they've been pretty good to me over the years!
Both of you should go to 3. You get 100 minutes "free" on top of your cap to talk to other 3 phones... which means 3 are losing lots of money, and because they're piggybacked and site-sharing with Telstra, the big T is losing capacity too!
I'm with Vodafone, who've never been anything but great, and Hugo and I can call each other free, so my phone bill's only about $12 a month.
I'd refuse to pay for the dropped-out calls if I were you - and if they try to make you, I'd start threatening to take them to the Telecommunications Ombudsman. Works like a charm, that threat.
As someone who really only has a mobile as a device to find and be found in shopping centres I ask the question. Why is your wife's phone always out of contact when you have no idea where in the shops she's gone. It works perfectly when she's stnding right behind you looking annoyed at your stupidity.
I work for Telstra so I'm not going to give any dumb opinions as to who or what is better.
Bek- that's not a bad idea. Although last time I wrote to Virgin I didn't even get a response, so if they don't respond this time I will complain to the Ombudsman.
Mike- actually, come to think of it, the times I've phoned Gam to find out where he is (or vice-versa) and it's turned out he's just around the corner, I've never had any problem with it dropping out!
Tom- so you're working for Vodaphone now? :P
I'm reasonably happy with VirginMobile and the data rates are good. And if you ring with basically any gripe they offer to take $20 off your bill as a goodwill thing. Once I talked them into $40 but they claim that's as high as they can go. Worth being on hold for 5 minutes.
My wife and I have had prepaid Virgin phones for years, and have been happy. No phone bills, free texts to each other. They won't work when the Optus network crashes, but you can hardly blame Virgin for that.
Sure, coverage is not quite as good as Telstra, but it's a hell of a lot better than Vodaphone. A couple of people I know left Vodaphone because they didn't have coverage at work (Griffith University, right next to Mt Gravatt!)
Phil- I wrote them an email once after spending 20 minutes on hold followed by a poor-quality connection to someone with a very strong accent who was no help at all in fixing a problem where my phone suddenly lost the ability to send and receive messages. They never replied to my email, either. It might be worth my while seeing if they'll take $20 off the bill, I suppose, but seeing as it's a pattern of dropped connections that's leading to the high bills a one-off good will gesture isn't really going to fix anything.
Anon- I think you've just knocked Vodaphone off our list!
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