So it all kicked off a bit yesterday afternoon as I tried to finally sort out Abi’s mobile phone contract. And, as usual, it’s the big companies who seem to have no idea about dealing with the bereaved. I’ve blogged about this before.
In October 2012, we bought Abi a new mobile phone (as she’d just started secondary school and as a part early birthday present). I took out a 2-year contract with Virgin mobile as they were offering a Samsung Ace for £14 a month. It was less than she’d been spending on her pay as you go, so it sounded a good deal.
Then, four months later, she died.
Only that afternoon, as she had come home early from school having had a fall (the start of it), she was sat with me in my office on the laptop looking up new phone cases. I was half listening as she chatted and showed me cases she wanted to buy. There was never a sign that her brain would haemorrhage just hours later.
Anyway, so I was left with a 2-year contract. The bill was of course registered in my name, but the number was used by Abi. So I called Virgin and explained the situation (a few months after Abi’s death I should add).
The thing was, I wanted to keep her phone, as it held all her precious memories in of course, but I didn’t want it to be active and get a monthly bill each month – a cruel reminder that she is not here.
Abi’s beloved smartphone
They said that in order to cancel the contract (and keep the phone) I’d need to pay the full amount (around £300), which I couldn’t afford to do. So I decided to keep the account and lend the sim to my niece but change the phone number to a different one (closing Abi’s number – I didn’t want it used by accident in any way as this could upset her friends if they received a message).
I was sent a new sim and gave it to my niece for a while (Abi’s sister was too young for a phone so it would be pointless giving it to her). My niece used it for around six months and although we were still paying out each month, at least I could disassociate it from Abi a little bit.
Eventually, my niece didn’t need it anymore so I called Virgin and suspended the sim so that it couldn’t be used. I just had no need for it, and with six months left on the contract, I decided to just let it run.
So, it’s coming up to October and I received my e-bill from Virgin yesterday. It didn’t say anything about it being the last payment so I thought I’d call them to make sure (after all this, I didn’t want the contract continuing).
In fairness, it was the wrong time to do it. I had about 20 minutes before I had to take my son to his football club, but as he was already changed and the baby was fed, I thought it wouldn’t take long to make the call while I remembered.
The first person I got through to took all the details and seemed to keep disappearing. He took ages just to look up my account, and when finally I asked him to close it, he said he’d have to put me through to the department that deals with that – ugh!
Ok, so ten minutes in and the kids were getting restless, but I was determined to just finish the job seeing as I’d had to wait so long. When the next guy connected and I, yet again, went through the whole identification process, he asked me how he could help, and I rather quickly told him I wanted to cancel the contract now that it has run its course.
He asked me why I was closing the account. I’d normally think of a suitably vague response, but as I was now under time pressure, and I didn’t want them to start giving me the sales patter, I thought I’d cut to the chase. ‘Because my daughter died and it’s her phone. I need to make sure the contract is ended.’
He apologised, but then rather than carrying on with my request quickly like I expected, he asked me if he was speaking to the account holder. I realised he probably was confused. So again I explained, ‘I am a mother paying my daughter’s phone bill, she uses the phone, she’s died and now I need to cancel the contract.’ I was that abrupt I’m afraid, but I didn’t have time to faff about.
Clear?
Apparently not.
He asked me another three times to make absolutely clear that he was talking to the bill payer. I also re-explained the reasons for me suspending the numbers in the first place. Ugh!
Right, he finally got that, but then he said that he had to tell me about some of the benefits. Benefits? I said okay – all breathless and hurrying about, now trying to stop the older siblings fighting with one hand and getting bags and bottles of water organised with the other.
And then I couldn’t believe my ears when he started to tell me how, despite me hardly using the account during the entire term, the account had great benefits attached to it. I can’t remember what – a load of minutes or something. He asked me if another family member could use the phone instead, rather than cancelling it! I stopped him mid-flow and said, ‘I’m sorry. Why are you telling me this?’ I was getting angry now.
‘I want to make sure you don’t want to take advantage of this great loyalty you have with us. It’s an amazing deal.’
What?!
I almost hit the roof.
Surely he could hear the baby crying in the background, the children arguing and calling for me. Did he really think I wanted to talk deals? After what I just told him?!
I spelled it out. Again.
‘Look. My daughter is dead and I have to close this account. It is upsetting just thinking about her number. I don’t want the account anymore. You could offer me free phones and zillions of texts but it doesn’t change a thing. Please just close the account.’
‘OK, madam. I’m sorry. It’s done.’
I still had to clarify with him when the final payment will be taken out so that I didn’t stop the direct debit too soon. I flew out the door and didn’t have time to think. The children were fighting I expect after hearing my conversation and picking up on the fact that I was now stressed out. I felt teary and hassled.
Why on earth that had to be so hard I don’t know.
chasingdragonfliesblog.com 
That’s appalling. I know these people are fed a script which directs them from A to B to C via marketing offers D, E and F, but you would hope that they would be able to engage their brains enough to realise when they need to go off-book and just jump straight to Z. Better still, it would be even better if their training included ‘exceptional events’ such as yours. I know time is money and all that, but is it really that big an investment to make?
Thanks Tim, I agree – what is my piddy contract to them? Are the staff so desperate for their bonus or reaching their targets that they can’t go ‘off process’ occasionally? I can’t be the only one having to do this. They have millions and still can’t get things like this right. I’d much rather deal with small, local businesses any day!
Your feelings or his job security/income? Not even a choice really for the operator. They’ll have forgotten who you are and spoken to six other irate people they aren’t properly equipped to help within the hour. Why risk the wrath of management for the sake of a customer who’s probably not going to stay?
Call centres can be vile places, intent on squeezing every bit of value out of both front line staff and customers, making nobody but the top-dogs happy. It’s all about the stats to them sadly.
Thank you. It’s sad we live in such times though I don’t blame the man himself. He was just doing his job and I felt sorry for him after to have to do that all day. I’m a customer of virgin in other ways so just because I closed this one doesn’t mean I don’t spend money with them in other ways. Their system needs updating!
It is a shame that organizations need to be so difficult. I’m sorry you had to deal with this.
Thank you. It’s smaller businesses that show far more support with things like this x
I have found the same thing. We had the runaround from the government for almost a year. So infuriating. I, too, got to the point where I was no longer nice.
I just wrote a post about a terrible conversation with a vendor. That vendor was a telecom vendor. Even in the business world, they are the worst of the worst, but I am so sorry you had to have those horrible conversations.
I did want to say I realized last week there’s a place called Abi’s Autos near here. Makes me think of your girl.
Thank you, they are part of the robotic world of technology. In fact a robot would be better!
Abi’s Autos is a great business name! When I was feeling down I saw a van with Abbey builders (or something like that) on it. Not spelt the same but it gave me a little lift. x
That’s unbelievable!! I actually had my daughter and my husband take care of closing all accounts because I knew that I would be unable to explain without breaking down. It is horrible to have to tell people why you are closing a bank account or ending a phone contract, only to have to repeat yourself.
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Aaagh! That’s just hideous! Was he deaf or just stupid? I feel frustrated for you even reading it. Couldn’t he just say ‘Oh, I’m really sorry to hear that, I understand why you want to close the account, I will do that for you right away’?
Thanks Sarah, that was what I wondered. Supposed to be a communications company!
I am new to your blog and am very sorry the loss of your daughter. As if that was not bad enough, you’ve had to endure the ‘one size fits all’ approach clearly applied by these big corporations instead of them just listening. Shocking service
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That’s awful, I’m so sorry that you had to go through that. Sadly these companies have no idea how to deal with something that deviates from their script, (to the extent that a former colleague was reduced to tears by his TV provider when trying to cancel the package taken out by his late partner who insisted on talking to the account holder) would it really be so hard for them to show some common sense and compassion instead of causing even more hurt to people who are already going through a terrible time?
Thank you. I’ve heard so many similar stories. It’s worrying that people are being upset like this and nobody is doing anything about it.
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