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Virgin Money: Essential Current Account reviews

Name: Essential Current Account
Rating: 3.05 (143 reviews)

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3.04

Based on 143 reviews, last reviewed 28th Jan 2026

No new 5 star reviews

in the past 90 days

No new 1 star reviews

in the past 90 days

37%

13%

38%

Latest highest rating:

4

Branch has a car park, and parking is normally possi... Branch has a car park, and parking is normally possible. Internal cash machines usually operational and available. Queue at tellers desk normally arou... Read more Reviewed on: 28th January 2026

Latest lowest rating:

1

Completely useless, l have been on the phone for ove... Completely useless, l have been on the phone for over two hours no response Reviewed on: 4th June 2024

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About this product

The Virgin Money Essential Current Account is no longer available to new customers.

Virgin Money reviews help you find out what it’s really like to be a customer. If you’ve used Virgin Money before, you can also leave a review and share your experience.

Virgin Money Essential Current Account reviews (143)

Review of the Virgin Money, Essential Current Account:

Just godawful.

Just godawful. Consistently on hold for at least 40 mins. One alert where they asked me to contact them. After over an hour on hold, I gave up and tried another number. They looked at the account and said there was nothing wrong - although they verified that the alert had indeed come from them. Then online account was blocked - again, spent ages on hold on a Sunday when their hours were showing as open. But then it had to be referred to another department and they weren't open until Monday. So tried again on Monday and got everything resolved in about 5 mins - but was on hold for 45 mins to get there. So many problems with their new system. I really hope they get this sorted soon because it's a miserable experience having to deal with their very inaccessible customer support and appalling wait times. Reviewed on: 15th August 2022

Interest rate not worth the trouble

Trying to phone to resolve blocked access was a nightmare with calls answered with a number of options and then approximately every 20 seconds to be advised "Your call will be answered shortly" Reviewed on: 17th February 2021

Waste of my time

Opened a current account because of the decent interest rate. The online application page showed an error and it was the weekend, so no way to call and check what had happened, so decided just to wait a few days. No email confirmation was received. Some days later, received a letter through the post, so "Ok then it worked". Finally had all the info through and tried to get online again to transfer some money in, etc - but the online banking website is VERY unintuitive. Took me going around in circles many times to get logged in, then repeatedly showing the same popups about paperless preferences even though I had sent those, sending you to pages on different domains, opening help pages where the links to perform certain functions don't work, etc. Then spoke to online chat and there appeared to be bugs with that also, so all in all - none of it infused faith in Virgin Money and would just result in me being frustrated, so I have decided to close my new accounts and bank elsewhere. Reviewed on: 26th October 2020

They violate your data without consent

On the 28th may i applied for virgin money current account based on reccomendation from a friend. On the 29th may around 12pm i received a email to say my account has been opened then followed by another email at 14:00hrs saying they can’t offer the account as i did not meet their credit scoring criteria. I accepted their decision and moved on and did not think anything else would be done and stayed with my current bank barclays. This was just the start of their abuse only if i knew before!!! On the 15th june i applied for mortgage through halifax which was accepted, around 20th june i recived call from my broker to say halifax have picked up internal CIFAS marker on my name for application fraud and they are not willing to offer the mortgage but i should contact CIFAS and request SAR. To my shock i didn’t know what cifas was and why there was fraud marker in my name! So on the 22nd june i made SAR request with CIFAS, around 26th June i received report back from them and to my disbelief and utter shock i found virgin money trading under clydesdale bank put application fraud for the current account i applied. The reason for this was due to previous adverse credit on my previous addresses. To my disgust i contacted them immediately and was told by someone in yorkshire bank department that they did not put that because it’s not on my credit file, However i explained i have the SAR report from CIFAS in front of me and i am happy to provide them. The lady on the phone told me someone from virgin will ring me to discuss further, which sadly never happened! After 6 weeks of waiting i rang virgin money on the 13th August (last week) and spoke to adviser called Stephen O’donnell he quickly advised he will speak to underwriting team and get back to me while on hold, After 5 minutes of waiting he got back saying, “sorry our underwriting team are not willing to remove the marker and are unable to provide you with more information, You are happy to log a complaint” So i went ahead and logged an complaint under referance C-11007660 with a lady and she advised she has escalated my complaint and should hear back within 4 working days. On the 18th august i received notification from Experian credit agency that 5 new searches have been carried out in my name. To my shock i quickly checked my credit file and found virgin money under clydesdale bank did 3 enquiry hard searches and 2 unregistered searches. I was shocked again and angry as to why? as i haven’t applied for anything with them or ever want a thing from them. Today 20th August i rang again and spoke to complaint handler name Tamy and explained the whole situation and how they have violated my privacy. I told her i didn’t give my consent for credit search so why they carried out 5 searches on my name? i am not getting any account with them simply logged complaint so wanted clarification. She quickly told me she has no idea and can’t see anything on the system. She advised she will have it escalated again. At that point i was soo angry i told her i wanted call back within 24 hours and explained why they abused my data without consent?!! I also explained this is what i am about to do, Not only going to financial ombudsmen which can take 56 days, i’ll be applying to county court direct for their violation of my data and privacy without consent. I have all the relevant proof of searches they did without consent and CIFAS report. I will not be played around and abused for applying for current account! i feel they see myself as some sort of criminal fraudstar and not an genuine customer. I wish i never bothered applying with virgin money anything, in my 18 years of credit life i never had anyone putting CFAS marker on my name for current account, That is what makes me laugh! If it was for loan or credit card it’s understandable. I would not reccomend anyone or wish on anyone to go through stress and anxiety as i am going through. So please avoid them! Reviewed on: 20th August 2020

Worst bank ever

I switched from Natwest and wish I hadn't. I have made 7 phone calls over 3 days to transfer money to an existing payee . I have been promised on several occasions this will happen within hours. It never does. I have never experienced such shoddy service. This bank won't remain business if it continues like this. Avoid like the plague - there are plenty of other, better banks Reviewed on: 13th August 2020

Virgin Money website is rubbish

I have a Stocks&Shares Isa and I keep getting "(1000007080, 0) Price data not found on FAST" when trying to manage it. When I try and send them a message - the web-form doesn't even recognise the " or ' characters so I can't write "I've" or "can't" in the message field. It is so bad it would be laughable if I didn't have money tied up. Once I've recovered the monetary losses recently, then I'm off. Reviewed on: 17th April 2020

Can't do real banking with this account

Amazing that in 2020 you still can't transfer money online. Useless! Reviewed on: 14th April 2020

Poor Banking

This is the worst bank in the uk I open a account on the 16-01-2020 then on the 19-01-2020 I get a email saying my bank accounts has been put on hold with out a reason they asked me to upload my ID through the link sent by ba.Direct I have been doing this from 19-01-2020 till 24-01-2020 then the retail sales team called me up to find if I have loaded my ID on the link I said yes they said ok we still don’t have it can you reply to the email from ba.direct and send my ID that way and I did then I get a email that I can’t send my ID that way and it will not be load to my account and I have to use the link if the staff members had a Half a brain they would let the department know what’s going on but it looks like they are to lazy to do this Reviewed on: 25th January 2020

AVOID THIS PROVIDER

AVOID THIS PROVIDER AT ALL COSTS. I would honestly give these guys a 0 if I could. I applied for a credit card application on 13 March, their website advises 5 working days for a response but they took a month. Within the month I called several times to find out the progress of my application and was misinformed many times. I spoke to a manager called Chloe ID number CK8811 who was the rudest person I have ever had the misfortune to speak to. She refused to file a complaint when I requested on the 23rd March and refused to give me information on my own application. I eventually got rejected for the credit card and have still not received ANY information as to why I was rejected even though I have requested this many times. I checked on Experian before applying for the credit card and I had a very good credit rating so there really should not be any reason for this rejection. Worse experience I have ever had!! Reviewed on: 13th April 2019

Reply from Virgin Money Hi there, thanks for getting in touch. Can you email your details over to us at [email protected] so we can help further? Thanks, Jane Response date: 15th April 2019

Surely the 5 star reviews here are fake?

I haven't a clue what is in the heads of the people running Virgin Money. If you read the negative reviews you'll see the legitimate reasons why people are frustrated. I have been with this bank for several years (I have no choice) and despite responses by Virgin saying 'thank you for your feedback, we will try and improve' they've done nothing other than add insult to injury. As mentioned by other people here, you can not do much online and have to go into a branch to do transfers. You can call them up but to make a new transfer you have to go to the branch. That isn't helped by them closing their branches!!! I live in London where you'd think this wasn't a problem but instead of being able to go to my branch in east London I now have to go to a branch in tourist central Piccadilly Circus. I was told in a letter that apparently my branch in east London closed because the landlord had put the rent up. Whoever heard of such a thing from a bank???!! Then when I go all the way to Picadilly Circus I find out where the money they saved has been spent on... free coffee and sandwiches and a grand piano!!!! I asked the teller what the hell this was and she said 'to improve customer experience''. You think sandwiches and a grand piano are preferable to me over not having to travel across London or being able to do ANYTHING online??? No double as a response to this review I'm going to get an empty 'Thanks for your feedback xxx, I'll be sure to pass that on to the relevant teams for you. If there's anything else we can help with in the meantime, just get back in touch! Thanks, Jane'.... absolute, empty rubbish. Enough of the lip service Virgin staff and !"£$% do something!!!! This bank wouldn't exist without some sort of support from the rest of the Virgin brand. Reviewed on: 26th March 2019

Reply from Virgin Money Good afternoon, thanks for taking the time out to share your feedback. I’d like to take a look into your experience and share this with relevant department so that they can review and respond to you directly. So that I can do that, can you please email your name, address and contact number across to [email protected]? Thanks, Lindsay. Response date: 26th March 2019

Efficient staff, great product, transparent and fair charges, convenient and excellent website

very convenient for me, as I travel back and forward between countries. No fees incurred for foreign purchases and a very low fee for overseas cash withdrawals. Would be even better if one could add and pay beneficiaries from this account. Reviewed on: 13th January 2019

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