Faulty Purple SIM Card Woes Strike Virgin Mobile UK Customers

Some customers of Virgin Media’s mobile network sibling – Virgin Mobile – are being affected by a batch of faulty purple SIM cards that for the past few weeks have been causing intermittent connectivity problems. The situation has even hit some of the replacement SIMs that were sent out in order to resolve the original problem.

In most cases those who have been hit by the faulty SIMs state that, once activated, they tend to get a working service for a little while before their phones suddenly revert to only allowing Emergency Calls (i.e. the SIM stops working). Sometimes this can be temporarily resolved by rebooting the phone (the classic “turn it off and on again” solution) but the issue soon returns.

Sadly Virgin Mobile’s front-line support team tend to adopt the tried and tested tactic of blaming everything other than their SIM card for the problem, which until now has left some customers to go around in circles. As you’d expect Virgin’s Community Forum is full of similar gripes (examples here, here, here and here).

Sample Complaint 1

“Ongoing problem with Virgin mobile seems to be supplying non working SIM cards.

I get a mobile signal for approximately 1 hour and then ‘No Service’ until I power off and on again.

Complained to Virgin and they sent me a new SIM card with exactly the same fault.”

Sample Complaint 2

“Just updated my plan & had to have new sim. On my second one now and none work. I have spent over five infuriating hours talking to some very “chippy” advisors in the Phillopines with no success at all.They seem to only want to sell me another phone which I do not want or need. After numerous calls each time my account is “RESET” then I get service for about 30 mins and then nothing once again.

I have been with Virgin for 8 years plus and never had problems like this. My old sim worked perfectly in my phone but both new sims just will not work.”

Sample Complaint 3

“I finally got through to the technical team who were very helpful and honest. There is a known fault with the system. Which I’ve just noticed someone else has previously mentioned in another post. There is a problem with a batch of (“319″) SIM cards not recognising or losing the network. Or possibly EE transferring to 5G and these SIMs don’t recognise it. It could be something else, they are not sure. Or when this will be fixed. As I’m sure you already know, the only short term fix is to reboot or refresh network settings etc. But then, if you’re lucky, the service only lasts briefly.”

The good news is that a moderator on Virgin Media’s forum confirmed yesterday that they are now “aware of an issue affecting some customers’ SIM cards and are working hard to resolve it.” The Register has also picked up on the problem.