Very rarely do I have a conversation with a company that really doesn't 'get it' re customer service. Easy Mobile have definitely won this years award in my book.

Back in July I thought I would try their new service.

I signed up for two Sim card/accounts at £5 each on their website and a few days later the cards turned up. Now when I first popped the card in the phone I couldn't get any network signal since it had not been 'activated' (I rang them to discover this). So I went onto their website and activated both cards. Within a few hours, Bingo, it was working. However it was working very badly. I had one bar signal strength that kept disappearing about 70% of the time. So I rang them back up and told them that the service was no good to me. The guy on the phone said it was ok and I could cancel on their website and get a full refund since I had not made any calls (both cards had £5 of credit on them). So I went through the cancellation procedure.

I thought no more of it until I recently had to check my Visa statement for something and noticed that no refund had ever been made by Easy Mobile.

Today I gave them a ring. After being left on hold while it was investigated I was told that no refund would be given. I asked why and was told it was because I had activated both cards. I explained that I could not get a signal until it was activated and that I hadn't made any calls. They explained that it is in their terms and conditions that no refund will be given after activation. At this point I asked to speak with a supervisor who gave me the same reply. A said something along the lines of 'you must be joking, I've never had the service promised, never made any calls and had one of your chaps say I would get a full refund'. She asked for my postcode and then told me that according to her computer I had a very strong outdoor signal in my area. Of course I disagreed and told her about the dissappearing one bar signal. She still maintained that I was wrong. So I tried to reason with her saying "come on we are talking £10 here can't you see how bad this makes you look?". She was unmoved by this and said no refund would be given. At this point I told her that I would go onto some of the relevant websites and post about their awful customer service and the unfair way in which they conduct their business. She didn't seem to care not grasping how detrimental this could all be to their image over a mere £10

Anyway the bottom line is that Easy Mobile refuse to refund me and they seem to think I can do nothing about it.

On an up note I contacted my credit card company and asked for the payment to be put into dispute. Shell Visa have given me my money back, but as a good will gesture, they won't be going after Easy Mobile for it. Thumbs up to Shell Visa for customer service.

£10 is peanuts in the grand scale of things, and I'm not out of pocket thanks to Shell Visa. But I'd really like to know whether Easymobile still think that the small guy can do nothing?