# Virgin Mobile do not automatically refund credit balance on account when you leave



## ClubMan (17 Feb 2020)

Not sure if it's been mentioned before but in my experience (several times with different accounts) VM do not automatically refund any credit balance on your mobile account when you close the account and leave them. You have to chase this up and get them to issue a cheque (!). And if you don't explicitly ask them to refund it then they keep it. Seems like a bit of a swiz on their part to me but there you go.


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## Frank (21 Feb 2020)

eir are the same sent several bills to me and my wife fro months with around -10 each on them for months 

I eventually rang and got the money back
Cost them more in stamps than they owed us.


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## jethrothe2nd (24 Feb 2020)

Seems to be common amongst service providers - I recently left Sky and they kept sending me mails to tell me I owed them 61 cents for an early breakage fee. The account was in credit of  50 odd euro, which they only refunded when I specifically asked them to (minus the 61 cents of course)


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## ClubMan (26 Feb 2020)

It seems like sharp practice to me that they're not obliged to proactively refund customers in such circumstances. Presumably all those small (and sometimes not so small) credit balances add up to a reasonable amount that they simply hang onto? I'm so disillusioned about the lack of consumer protection in this sort of situation that I'm very hesitant to complain about it (well I did to VM and others but they just ignored my complaints - ditto for insurers who price gouge existing customers with the renewal premiums compared to signing back on as a new customer!) and I'm not even sure who would be the relevant authority to complain to these days? CCPC I presume? https://www.ccpc.ie/

Edit: actually since I bothered to post here I decided that I would submit a CCPC complaint and once I managed to get their crappy complaint form to work I submitted my complaint there for what it's worth (probably nothing in my recent experience).


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## gipimann (26 Feb 2020)

Vodafone operate a similar practice. Buddy of mine left them (phone, broadband and TV) last summer and he continues to get monthly bills showing his credit. He will have to contact them to get his money back.

I had a similar experience with Sky.


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## ClubMan (28 Feb 2020)

Yes - it seems to be a common/widespread practice and something that the CCPC really should deal with.
Haven't had anything other than an automatic reply back from them so far.
I'm skeptical that making a complaint to them about VM specifically will make any difference.


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## ClubMan (4 Mar 2020)

As expected the CCPC response to my complaint was useless and basically said that service providers are not required to proactively refund customers any credit balance on their account when they leave. Waste of time...  So the powers that be are content with service providers hanging onto customers' money if the customer doesn't think to actively request a refund. So much for consumer protection and empowement... The individual sums involved may be generally (but not always) small but the cumulative amounts must be significant?


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