News 2002
Virgin Mobile welcomes Oftel's call to Consumers to do their homework on International call charges before travelling abroad
04/04/2002
Virgin Mobile today welcomed OFTEL’s drive to make consumers more aware of the charges involved in using their mobiles abroad. Virgin Mobile was one of the first networks to simplify its charging structure for international calls and actively encourages customers to find out all the up to date information about the prices of international calls before they travel abroad.
Customers can simply log on to www.virgin.com/mobile and select a country on its ‘Calling from Abroad’ pages or call 789 using their Virgin Mobile phone to ensure that they get the best deal possible.
With Virgin Mobile international calls are not only cheap but transparent.
Calling home from abroad with Virgin Mobile
For travellers and holidaymakers Virgin Mobile has a range of flat-rate charges for calls back to the UK (and for receiving calls while abroad). Simplified tariffs make the cost of calling home cheap, easier to understand and budget for.
With other networks, roaming customers are often bamboozled by an array of different roaming charges, which can depend on:
- the host network
- peak/off-peak prices
- call set-up fees
- minimum call duration charges
- and the exchange rate.
Transparent pricing
With Virgin Mobile when customers are abroad they know that the cost they’ll be charged will be fixed for the country they are in, and not dependent on which network they are roaming on, making it far easier to calculate the cost of calls when travelling.
Virgin Mobile advises those mobile users who regularly make calls abroad from their mobile phones to take a close look at their call costs to see how they stack up against its low and transparent prices. While some of Virgin Mobile’s call prices may seem similar to other network operators, the call price Virgin Mobile quotes is the only price customers will pay. This is because, unlike other networks, Virgin Mobile doesn’t believe in charging customers a monthly fee for having an international option on their phone which can work out more expensive in the long run. Virgin Mobile’s transparent pricing policy means customers won’t be caught out by hidden charges or stung by line rentals of any sort!
Calling from the UK to overseas
Calling abroad with Virgin Mobile has never been cheaper. Calls to the Republic of Ireland are just 15p a minute, while calls to Australia and the USA are some of the cheapest around at 20p a minute. And calls on Virgin Mobile from the UK to the Far East cost just 40p a minute.
Receiving calls while abroad
Virgin Mobile also offers its customers great value on calls they receive while they are abroad.
Calls received while customers are in Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Republic of Ireland, Australia & New Zealand cost 20p per minute. For those jetting off to Europe, they’ll pay 30p per minute to receive calls and although for the rest of the world costs are variable (most countries charged at 50p), calls received of two seconds or less are not charged.
Tom Alexander, managing director of Virgin Mobile, said: “As well as checking your passport, tickets and money before travelling – put a call into your mobile phone company to check your roaming rates. At Virgin Mobile we offer simple but competitive pricing and what you see is always what you get. Our customers are able to calculate exactly how much they are paying for their international calls and can make their calls safe in the knowledge that they are paying some of the cheapest international call charges around. We aim to maintain our cheap pricing to ensure that our customers always get the best possible deals on all of their call costs.”
Virgin Mobile offers the added incentive that all calls made from the UK qualify for Virgin Mobile’s new Big Bonus whereby customers who spend over £30 a month using their phone receive 10% of this total as airtime credit the following month.
