New Virgin Money credit cards - customer service

So, how are other people finding getting hold of customer support with the new VS cards from Virgin Money?

I've not been able to get through on the phone - wait times are just too long for a non-urgent query, and online secure messages appear to go unanswered. I posted a secure message nearly 2 weeks ago, which is still unanswered and followed up 3 working days ago to chase, and still no reply.

Doesn't bode well for urgent issues ...

[Neil]

I called last week with a question about statement dates and it took less than 10 minutes for the whole call, the agent was very helpful so no complaints here.

I called about popping Jamaica on to the list of places on my travels in the coming weeks and first time I gave up after waiting 25 minutes. I sent them a secure message, This still to this day hasn't been read. I finally got through a few days ago after abut 10 minutes.

[mitchja]

I’ve found them pretty bad so far. I called a few weeks ago to cancel a standard Virgin credit card now I’ve got the VS version. 15-20 minute wait here and the after the call ended, turned out the agent hadn’t done what I’d asked. Called again a few weeks later and after another 15-20minute hold, the card was finally canceled. Well at least I thought it was. I did receive an email saying as much about a week later, but the info in the email mentioned no longer being able to log into my account (which I still could do) and my online ‘balance available’ amount was still the same as my credit limit. With most other card providers, your ‘amount available’ usually drops to 0.00 once a cancellation request is applied to the account.

I also tried the online secure message system which took almost 14 days to get a response.

Twitter where not very good so in the end I fired of an email to their customer relations department.

They are using the launch of the new VS card as the excuse for the long call wait times.

Also I was told ‘digital banking’ i.e. a proper app and ApplePay etc ‘should be here before the end of this year’.

I’d be inclined to believe them re wait times.

I suspect they’ve been caught out by the sheer number of people applying for the VS cards which are regarded as being among the most generous non-Amex cards on the market when it comes to benefits.

They’ve been widely publicised on popular frequent flyer blogs - not least headforpoints which, after years of all but ignoring VS in favour of BA, now seems to worship it.

The current bonus miles offer linked to monthly spend also suggests to me that a significant proportion of customers, having earned their 15k sign-up bonus, haven’t been using the cards for day-to-day spending, probably because they also have a BAEC or Amex card.

All of which we could probably have predicted but may have caught out VM.

As for an app and Apple Pay, I’ve no doubt they’ll come with the Clydesdale/Yorkshire takeover.

I've rang them a couple of times and it's taken up to twenty minutes to get through. They've been helpful once I've finally got to speak to someone however. I applied for an extra card for my son, the pin arrived but no card. I spoke to someone who said that the card hadn't been ordered! We're still waiting. I've also messaged but it's still unanswered after 10 days.

Could someone point out to me exactly where the send 'secure message' facility actually is when you log into your VS Money Mastercard account, as for the life of me I can't find it anywhere on there! I clicked on the little envelope top right thinking that was it, but that just tells me I have no messages!

[Nottingham Nick]

Could someone point out to me exactly where the send 'secure message' facility actually is when you log into your VS Money Mastercard account,..........!

Click on the star (Services) button on the left of the screen on the home page and the send message facility is on the top right of that screen.

Nick

It took them 20 days to respond to my question sent via secure message....rubbish!

I’m still waiting, so 3 weeks now.

I’ve pretty much given up on a reply, and phone queues are too long when I get the opportunity to call.

Not impressed. No reply to my secure message sent several weeks ago, and waiting for 20 minutes on the phone today before I gave up.

I got.a reply to a secure message withi. 24 hours and not had an issue with long wait times on the phone

[mitchja]

Looks like VM are really struggling capacity wise at the minute as they have now temporarily removed several of the standard cards from sale

(The VS cards are still available)

From their website:

Important Information
Our credit cards have been extremely popular recently. Due to the significant demand we have temporarily removed a number of cards from sale both online and in our contact centre. We’ll be back taking applications across our full range of cards soon.

If you are already a customer you can sign in and service your account.

I applied & was accepted for the standard (free) Virgin Money VS card on the day it was launched. Did not really use it at first other than a nice spend in month 1 to get the sign-up bonus miles. Now the MBNA Amex is RIP in terms of miles benefits, I've started putting all my spending onto the VS Mastercard.

Got a letter today from Virgin Money doubling my credit limit. The one I was assigned on sign-up was lower than my Black VS Amex, but more than adequate for my needs & I have got nowhere near maxing it out and repay in full every month.

I had both the white & black MBNA cards, both now replaced by Horizon cards - so one of them will be cancelled for sure to take some available credit off my credit file. Only place I use my backup BA Amex is at Costco - who bizarrely don't accept Visa or Mastercard credit cards, yet happily take Amex which is way more expensive for them to process. Can only assume it's something to do with Costco being a US company.

I applied & was accepted for the standard (free) Virgin Money VS card on the day it was launched. Did not really use it at first other than a nice spend in month 1 to get the sign-up bonus miles. Now the MBNA Amex is RIP in terms of miles benefits, I've started putting all my spending onto the VS Mastercard.

Got a letter today from Virgin Money doubling my credit limit. The one I was assigned on sign-up was lower than my Black VS Amex, but more than adequate for my needs & I have got nowhere near maxing it out and repay in full every month.

I had both the white & black MBNA cards, both now replaced by Horizon cards - so one of them will be cancelled for sure to take some available credit off my credit file. Only place I use my backup BA Amex is at Costco - who bizarrely don't accept Visa or Mastercard credit cards, yet happily take Amex which is way more expensive for them to process. Can only assume it's something to do with Costco being a US company.

And it is odd that in the US if you visit their Costco (as you can with your UK membership) you can only use a Visa credit card as they ended their agreement with Amex a few years ago. It's a funny old game....

I finally had a reply today to a message sent on 14th July. The message said that they noted that I'd had a phone conversation on 16th July and hoped that I'd been able to resolve the issue! There was no response to my message.

I applied & was accepted for the standard (free) Virgin Money VS card on the day it was launched. Did not really use it at first other than a nice spend in month 1 to get the sign-up bonus miles. Now the MBNA Amex is RIP in terms of miles benefits, I've started putting all my spending onto the VS Mastercard.

Got a letter today from Virgin Money doubling my credit limit. The one I was assigned on sign-up was lower than my Black VS Amex, but more than adequate for my needs & I have got nowhere near maxing it out and repay in full every month.

I had both the white & black MBNA cards, both now replaced by Horizon cards - so one of them will be cancelled for sure to take some available credit off my credit file. Only place I use my backup BA Amex is at Costco - who bizarrely don't accept Visa or Mastercard credit cards, yet happily take Amex which is way more expensive for them to process. Can only assume it's something to do with Costco being a US company.

can i just ask how long you waited for your bonus miles to show up in your v.a account ..thanks in sdvance

Re customer service and no app etc. It not like it was an instant pull of the AMEX cards, they had ample notice.
Maybe a barrage of emails to Dickie will raise the profile a bit.

Ok, so I logged into my account today to pay my bill, which I knew was only around £100 and was shocked to find there were 4-5 transactions totalling several thousand pounds marked as ‘pending’

I phoned Virgin Money immediately and selected the option for suspected fraud... 20 minutes for somebody to pick the phone up. I feel this is totally unacceptable for an ‘urgent’ call.

I wasn’t able to get much information other than being told that a replacement card would be sent to me and that somebody from their fraud team would be in touch soon, as they’d all gone home for the day.

Maybe I’m expecting too much, but the guy I spoke to sounded like he’d just left school and was very unsure when I asked questions.

Not impressed. I shall be calling back tomorrow to speak to the fraud team. It seems that they’re still struggling with their customer service.

Shockingly terrible service had so far. Husband signed up to the offer thst was received in the post which was 18500 miles on first purchase and then the bonus 3k miles for £1k spend for three statement periods.

18500 came thru no issues. But not the 3k bonuses. We contacted via the online form as soon as second statement issued to ask what was going on....this was in December....took them ages to reply and then they had the cheek to ask us to send proof of the offer. Luckily I had a feeling something like this might happen (cynical much?) and I'd kept the card with the offer. Sent them pics and they kept asking for proof with husbands name and address on the offer but I don't remember seeing this nor had I kept the envelope it came in. Anyway still not resolved despite multiple phone calls and escalations. Last straw was that we needed these miles for airport upgrades and we were on the phone at 9pm the night before with some guy reassuring us that someone would contact us on the following Monday (we'd called at weekend) and nothing. He had offered us a paltry monetary sorry that would buy us 5kmiles which was nowhere near what we needed.

Honestly we are on holiday now and hoping to upgrade on the way back but still no communication nor miles credited. Utter joke. Husband is fuming and vowing to cancel card as soon as we can actually talk to someone. Awful service. I am fully expecting a letter when we get back even though the supervisor knew we would be away and suggested that he would make sure we got an email response so we were able to respond to it whilst away. Argh, seriously banging head on Wall....we've been talking to them about this for 3 months!

Definitely not getting the card myself now.

Rabbit --- I feel your pain
I had to go through a similar process, multiple emails, multiple promises to return calls etc, sent in copies of offer, next agent replies a week later without having looked at file --- rebuked, start again etc, however as soon as Flying Club got involved all was sorted, had a call from Virgin Money that FC had agreed the offer I had recieved and that they had credited the miles to VM account [although I could not see these until next statement]
Spoke to rep at FC and they told me there is a backlog of complaints regarding offered mileage

Used + card for 6 months and never had an issue so never had to contact them. Then towards the end of last year to bonus mile deal came up so signed up for basic card (5k miles plus 5k after 1k spend). Offer was not applied after first 2 statements so had to call up. Agent was pretty useless, asked me to send proof off the offer I had signed up to... told him quite frankly that that’s near impossible and asked to speak to his supervisor. All of a,sudden I was given an email address to send my complaint to, month later got email back saying I was getting my miles. All in all not the best customer service experience but not the worst, got my “free miles” (which let’s face it a lot of us use the card for) but just had to show a little patience

Rabbit --- I feel your pain
I had to go through a similar process, multiple emails, multiple promises to return calls etc, sent in copies of offer, next agent replies a week later without having looked at file --- rebuked, start again etc, however as soon as Flying Club got involved all was sorted, had a call from Virgin Money that FC had agreed the offer I had recieved and that they had credited the miles to VM account [although I could not see these until next statement]
Spoke to rep at FC and they told me there is a backlog of complaints regarding offered mileage

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I did ponder talking to flying club but thought they would not be able to do anything. I'll have my husband call them next. Virgin money has us email 3 different email addresses including customer relations and credit card complaints which is just a joke. They have no established way of dealing with complaints like every big company should. The time I had a complaint with barclaycard it was dealt with so efficiently and swiftly and I was kept informed every step of the way and the issue resolved to my satisfaction. Bunch of jokers!

Which department of FC did you talk to out of interest?

I'm sure I saw the same offer when I signed up.. but the email confirmation I have - and indeed the actual bonus miles I am receiving - is for 2000 bonus miles/month for 3 months, with minimum £500 spend/month.

So, different. But slightly more (6000>5000).

Odd. ++

Rabbit --- I feel your pain
I had to go through a similar process, multiple emails, multiple promises to return calls etc, sent in copies of offer, next agent replies a week later without having looked at file --- rebuked, start again etc, however as soon as Flying Club got involved all was sorted, had a call from Virgin Money that FC had agreed the offer I had recieved and that they had credited the miles to VM account [although I could not see these until next statement]
Spoke to rep at FC and they told me there is a backlog of complaints regarding offered mileage

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I did ponder talking to flying club but thought they would not be able to do anything. I'll have my husband call them next. Virgin money has us email 3 different email addresses including customer relations and credit card complaints which is just a joke. They have no established way of dealing with complaints like every big company should. The time I had a complaint with barclaycard it was dealt with so efficiently and swiftly and I was kept informed every step of the way and the issue resolved to my satisfaction. Bunch of jokers!

Which department of FC did you talk to out of interest?

Hi Rabbit,

Sorry I cannot confirm exact department in FC --- I was transferred by the credit card team to FC, supplied details to them, then tranferred back to credit card customer service who called me several days later and confirmed FC had approved as soon as they saw my file, but you are 100% correct they have no established formulae for dealing with complaints relating to miles offered [nor do they have a set path]

I was invited to apply via a link in my flying club account --- it stated I was pre-approved and offered me a very generous sign up bonus of 60,000 miles [luckily I printed all the offer out and kept the full URL of the landing page of the link]

Nobody at creditcardcustomerservices could verify this despite me sending full scans of all documentation, the URL link etc.

It took 3 months of constant emails and phone calls before FC got involved, prior to this I spoke to numerous call handlers, floor managers, supervisors etc, none would supply alternative email addresses or surnames [there are call handlers with the same forenames] so eventually I was supplied with thier ID codes so I knew who I was talking to, however emails to the generic email address either "got lost" or were never attached to files so I kept going over the same ground with different personel all who proceeded to inform me that they had checked with thier IT and I had not received any other offer than those sent by email or post!


The whole process was incredibly frustrating [I was also cut-off many times] and took the shine from the offer and the card, good luck with Flying club and make sure you keep a full log of names, times etc!!