Why I Will Never Use Virgin Mobile Again

[vacuum2440]

After finally ridding myself of any connection with this company, I feel the need to publish my story about Virgin Mobile.

When I first signed up with Virgin, everything was great. The reception was amazing, I was loving my first android device, and my plan seemed reasonable at $50 a month for just about everything I thought I could possibly need. The only had one real issue. Because they charge for paper bills, I decided to sign up for e-bills. I figured that this should be pretty painless. Except for the fact that they could not figure out how to simply connect my email address with my account and I would fail to receive bill notifications constantly. I had to call in twice just to finally get my email properly connected to my account.
Finally after many consecutive months of getting bills in the $70-90 range because of long distance, I knew I needed to switch out of Virgin because this plan was obviously not meeting my needs and I was paying far too much in additional fees on a regular basis. This of course is at no fault to Virgin, except that they design their plans in such a way that overages are practically inevitable unless you are extremely vigilant. This is neither here nor there.

After approximately a year with the company, I decided it was time to get a new number and a new provider so I called to cancel my plan (which was not tied to any contract; the exact reason why I refuse to sign contracts). When I call to cancel, I am made aware that I will have to pay for the remainder of the current months bill and because I didn't give them 30 days notice I will also have to pay for an entire additional month. I switched to the cheapest possible plan for the final month to avoid paying more for no reason, but I was obviously angry about this 30 days notice scam. I know that all it takes is a few clicks on the computer for them to cancel my account and whether I give them 60, 30, or 1 days notice, it won't affect them in a negative way financially. Rather, they enforce this 30 days notice to squeeze more money out of each departing customer and in return the customer is paying a bill for services that were likely not used, as was the case for me.

Now because of the tab, I knew I had an outstanding balance left on my account. I had paid my final phone bill, but I assumed that they would inform me of my final charges within the month relating to my tab and all would be well. After not hearing from them within 2 weeks, I attempted (repeatedly) to sign into my account to see my balance. It seems they had cancelled my account and apparently my online account as well. I just said "screw it, they have all my information... I should hear from them via mail or email soon". Flash forward 2 months and yesterday I receive a letter in the mail... It says my service has been disconnected because of my overdue payment (I've been disconnected for months now), they claim they've tried to get in touch with me but they haven't heard back from me, and they say they will pass my bill off to a collections agency which will hurt my credit rating if I don't pay immediately. Now this REALLY infuriated me. They have my address, they have my email, and not ONCE did I receive any type of notification of my outstanding balance. Now, I am receiving a threatening letter from Virgin because of their failure to take the right course of action and inform me of my bill. And the most important thing is that I check my own mail so there is no chance of it having been thrown out accidentally, and I check all my spam mail just in case of mistakes by the spam filter.

I don't know what kind of show they are running over there at Virgin Mobile but from my point of view its pathetic that they can't figure out how to send a bill to my address. They can, however, figure out how to send me a "final" notice that threatens me to pay up or pay the consequence. For someone with a great credit rating and someone who's never paid a bill late in my life, I am extremely disappointed with Virgin Mobile and I will never do business with them again. I've been with many phone companies before but I've never had to put up with so much BS just to close my account.

[VirginMobileCan]

Hey There!
Sorry to hear of any frustrating experience-- that's totally not our way

If you need any help at all still, feel free to shoot us an email to hello@virginmobile.ca-- we'd be happy to help out in any way we can!


Lots of Love,
Virgin Mobile

[reveries3]

I'd recommend looking into prepaid or month to month service, in the future. And not linking a credit card to your account. That way, you'll be fully aware of what you're spending each month, and can leave with no hassle.

Sent from my HTC Panache using HowardForums

[vacuum2440]

I'd recommend looking into prepaid or month to month service, in the future. And not linking a credit card to your account. That way, you'll be fully aware of what you're spending each month, and can leave with no hassle.

Sent from my HTC Panache using HowardForums

Did you read my post? You seem to be confused...I was using month to month service and my credit card was not linked to my account. I was fully aware what I was spending each month but it usually had between $15-30 of extra fees and long distance charges tacked on over top of my actual plan. I've switched to a Wind unlimited plan and now I have no more surprises at the end of the month.. and to boot, my plan is actually cheaper than my old VM plan.

Either way, the point of my post is that I am very unhappy with how unorganized VM was with my final bill. They were able to figure out how to mail my final notice to pay but they couldn't figure out how to send me my final bill. I don't appreciate being threatened when I've followed all the rules and done everything in my power to comply with paying my bills on time.

[barter]

I had the exact thing happen to me. Called in to close my account 1.5 months in advance, and paid off my last bill in advance. I nevered received a final bill nor a bill for the amount due on tab. Then 3 months later they send be a bill saving my balance is goin to collections if I dont pay it. I paid the balance I owed for the tab of course, but they never sent me a final bill, and when I asked Virgin why they couldn't explain why.

[KM626]

Wow, what a story.

I have a similar situation in a way...

I thought I was paying too much for my bill as well. I decide to port my number to rogers where I got a good deal. April 2nd was my final bill date, April 7th my account closed. April 10th I got billed $18.87 for the balance of usage I did the month prior. I paid it.

My tab balance showed $0. Curious, I checked the history thing, and it showed April 7th that $1.61 was taken from my tab, then $0 for the remaining balance.

A week or two later, the account closes.

Fast forward 2 weeks, I'm here reading your thread. Now i'm kind of concerned if they will come after me as well 3 months down the road, saying my payment is overdue...

I mean, they have my information! Well, when they closed my account, there was almost nothing left of my information that I could see.

So this brings up my question...

Why the heck does virgin do this to us? This is obviously a lot more common than I thought..

Just bloody give us the balance of the tab and let us pay it, don't wait 3 months to take us to collections!

I think I better start saving...I thought I got away with paying it.

[VirginMobileCan]

Hey There!
Sorry to hear of any frustrating experiences-- that's totally not our way. Tab balances and final owing amounts are always available online for you-- they do take until your last bill cycle completes to charge out.

If anyone needs any help at all still, feel free to shoot us an email to hello@virginmobile.ca!


Lots of Love,
Virgin Mobile

[Joey_G_1975]

Hey There!
Sorry to hear of any frustrating experiences-- that's totally not our way. Tab balances and final owing amounts are always available online for you-- they do take until your last bill cycle completes to charge out.

If anyone needs any help at all still, feel free to shoot us an email to hello@virginmobile.ca!


Lots of Love,
Virgin Mobile

You're starting to sound like a broken record! LOL

[demand_oracle]

You're starting to sound like a broken record! LOL

+++++++++1

[Citypainter]

I just had a very similar experience to this original poster. About 6 weeks ago I switched from a Virgin Supertab account (which had a surplus of $88 they owed me on it) to a Prepaid plan, since I wasn't using my phone that much. I kept my phone and phone number the same. At that time my login to the member area on virginmobile.ca, which is based on phone number, became immediately switched so I could only see information related to my new prepaid account. Since that point I have been unable to access any records related to my old account, and no closure information or anything else was ever emailed or me or mailed to me on paper. I was told on the phone that my remaining balance owing would be paid to me after the end of that month, but I never heard any more about it.

Fast-forward 6 weeks to today, when I suddenly receive an ominous "Overdue Final Account" letter in the mail from Virgin, demanding that I pay them $155. Apparently they've "tried to get in touch" which is odd, since I'm still a customer and they have my credit card on file as well as, you know, my phone number. (They also said they emailed me but I've never received those either.) I called the 1-877 number in the letter and was informed that this is a "balance owing" from the phone I used on my old plan. Now, I'm absolutely certain that phone was paid for in full years ago when I opened that account, however, as above I have no records to prove anything since I can't login to see those old account records. It's basically my lonely voice versus a big corporation. With no leg to stand on and no desire to be hassled by a credit agency or have my credit rating damaged over a lousy $155, I paid the amount over the phone by credit card. But I feel shaken down for money I feel I did not owe and I am very annoyed. Trying to reason or argue with a person on the phone in this situation is pointless. My only hope is that the payment has been correctly applied and I won't get another surprise letter sometime in the future.

The worst thing is I just bought a new prepaid phone from Virgin the other day (it hasn't even arrived yet) so can't just quit my account: I'm basically stuck still being a customer of a company that has treated me poorly. Had this letter arrived a few days earlier I would never have given them more money. Then again, I'm under no illusion than any of the competitors would be any better, and life is too short to waste time fighting futile nonsense like this, so I'm moving on after this post. But it's good to see in this forum that I'm not the only one caught in a web of idiocy resulting from Virgin's poor account management and communication systems.

Thanks for giving me a place to share this story. Maybe if other customers share similar stories they'll be forced to make improvements to their systems and communication methods.

Gary

After finally ridding myself of any connection with this company, I feel the need to publish my story about Virgin Mobile.

When I first signed up with Virgin, everything was great. The reception was amazing, I was loving my first android device, and my plan seemed reasonable at $50 a month for just about everything I thought I could possibly need. The only had one real issue. Because they charge for paper bills, I decided to sign up for e-bills. I figured that this should be pretty painless. Except for the fact that they could not figure out how to simply connect my email address with my account and I would fail to receive bill notifications constantly. I had to call in twice just to finally get my email properly connected to my account.
Finally after many consecutive months of getting bills in the $70-90 range because of long distance, I knew I needed to switch out of Virgin because this plan was obviously not meeting my needs and I was paying far too much in additional fees on a regular basis. This of course is at no fault to Virgin, except that they design their plans in such a way that overages are practically inevitable unless you are extremely vigilant. This is neither here nor there.

After approximately a year with the company, I decided it was time to get a new number and a new provider so I called to cancel my plan (which was not tied to any contract; the exact reason why I refuse to sign contracts). When I call to cancel, I am made aware that I will have to pay for the remainder of the current months bill and because I didn't give them 30 days notice I will also have to pay for an entire additional month. I switched to the cheapest possible plan for the final month to avoid paying more for no reason, but I was obviously angry about this 30 days notice scam. I know that all it takes is a few clicks on the computer for them to cancel my account and whether I give them 60, 30, or 1 days notice, it won't affect them in a negative way financially. Rather, they enforce this 30 days notice to squeeze more money out of each departing customer and in return the customer is paying a bill for services that were likely not used, as was the case for me.

Now because of the tab, I knew I had an outstanding balance left on my account. I had paid my final phone bill, but I assumed that they would inform me of my final charges within the month relating to my tab and all would be well. After not hearing from them within 2 weeks, I attempted (repeatedly) to sign into my account to see my balance. It seems they had cancelled my account and apparently my online account as well. I just said "screw it, they have all my information... I should hear from them via mail or email soon". Flash forward 2 months and yesterday I receive a letter in the mail... It says my service has been disconnected because of my overdue payment (I've been disconnected for months now), they claim they've tried to get in touch with me but they haven't heard back from me, and they say they will pass my bill off to a collections agency which will hurt my credit rating if I don't pay immediately. Now this REALLY infuriated me. They have my address, they have my email, and not ONCE did I receive any type of notification of my outstanding balance. Now, I am receiving a threatening letter from Virgin because of their failure to take the right course of action and inform me of my bill. And the most important thing is that I check my own mail so there is no chance of it having been thrown out accidentally, and I check all my spam mail just in case of mistakes by the spam filter.

I don't know what kind of show they are running over there at Virgin Mobile but from my point of view its pathetic that they can't figure out how to send a bill to my address. They can, however, figure out how to send me a "final" notice that threatens me to pay up or pay the consequence. For someone with a great credit rating and someone who's never paid a bill late in my life, I am extremely disappointed with Virgin Mobile and I will never do business with them again. I've been with many phone companies before but I've never had to put up with so much BS just to close my account.

[gfunk]

I'm probably done as well, only been with them since July and looking to leave. Koodo has a nice canada wide promo plan now for $60. Retentions for Virgin didn't seem to do anything to keep me, I was even willing to sign a contract and they were only offering me local minutes instead of Canada wide mins (I currently have the $35 incoming plan, and getting a $5 discount for bringing my own phone). Had a few billing issues with Virgin as well as not getting short code text messages from some common services like visa and amex; I had called in a spoke with a agent, provided her the short code numbers it was coming from, she gave it to the 'techies' and I was told it would be unblocked in 6-8weeks! That never happend, called in again, this time they said it should be 1 month, still no dice. I was with Rogers prior to switching over, never had 1 problem with them, billing or otherwise. Last month Virgin decided to doublebill me on usage which they promptly corrected when I called in.