It isn't that long since I was singing the praises of Virgin Mobile. At the end of last year they dealt well with a replacement phone under warranty and I've not had any problems with my tariff or contract.

So I not only decided to renew my own contract, getting a nice E63 for upgrading, but I got a second phone on contract for my wife for Christmas. Big mistake.

Unfortunately, unlike my contract, Virgin Mobile now don't rollover unused minutes and texts from month to month. They also insist on charging a minimum of 1 minute for all phone calls, no matter how short. More of that later.

I, of course, was unaware of either of these facts expecting my new contract to be identical to the existing one, as it was on the same tariff. They don't exactly make you aware of these terms in big letters either, preferring to hide them away in the usual lengthy Ts and Cs.

At the end of January our son was ill, a bug picked up from playgroup. My wife was in touch to see how the other kids were and had to use the mobile as many of the other mums don't have landlines (an increasing trend these days). This resulted in her going 19 minutes over her 100 minute allowance.

Well the bill has arrived now and the total extra cost is £19. In other words the equivalent of £1 per minute. The reason for this amount is that although my wife has only actually used 19 extra minutes in calls, the minimum 1 minute call extends this substantially. By the way she was 23 minutes UNDER her allowance the month before so with rolled over minutes no extra charges would have occurred.

This prompted me to look at the bill in greater detail which led me to find that Virgin Mobile are indeed ripping their customers off. There are several "calls" on the itemised bill of 3, 2 and even 1 second. All of these are charged at 35p, the minimum 1 minute charge. If you extrapalate this based on a 1 second "call" it equates to £21 per minute!

The reason the word "call" is in inverted commas above is that these are not telephone calls. Exactly what sort of a conversation can you have in 1 second? These are dodgy connections, dropped before any call can take place. So Virgin Mobile are charging £21 per minute to provide their customers with no service! Brilliant!

There are also 5 seperate "Internet" charges, even though my wife has never accessed the internet from this phone. The reason for this is simply that Virgin Mobile choose to place a direct link to the internet in the most awkward place possible so that as many people as possible connect by accident. This is deliberate to maximise their revenue by stealth.

I appreciate that Virgin Mobile are a business and I don't object to them making a profit. My wife has exceeded her minutes and I don't object to paying a little extra as a result. What I do object to is being ripped off.

There is no justification for charging for 1 second "calls", nor phantom internet usage and, if they don't sort it out they will not only lose me as a phone customer but I will be moving my Virgin Media account too as my contract has recently expired.

I suggest you think long and hard before taking out a contract with Virgin Mobile because what looks like a good deal on the face of it could turn out to be a costly mistake, as it has proven for me.