Let it be known, I created this account specifically to write this review...

Now, to be fair, my account was actually with Helio. However, Virgin Mobile took over Helio long before I signed up with them. My girlfriend added me to her plan, which she had for nearly a year prior, and she said that it went way down hill after the buy out. Regardless, I dealt with Virgin Mobile the entire time. Many of my problems involved the phone itself, which was a Helio phone. Still, it became Virgin Mobile's problem when they allowed people to continue to receive these pieces of garbage.

My 4 1/2 month tenure with Virgin Mobile was nothing short of hellish. I estimate my number of calls to customer care in that period approaching 100. This is NOT an exaggeration. My problems varied greatly, and pretty much every problem you can dream up, I had it. My phone went bad just weeks into me signing up. It began as a "text messaging not working" issue, and ended as a "completely shot internet issue" when one of their reps permanently destroyed the internet connection on that device. Somehow. That's the kind of stuff that happened regularly; I called with one problem, and hung up with a new one. The replacement device they sent me was a refurbished phone, which worked properly for about a week. From there on out, it was one nightmare after another. I had text messaged not send and receive for no reason (which caused me big problems), internet not working for nearly half a dozen different reasons, outages related to the entire network, our plan, AND just my line. Again, it was one problem after another. Then came the customer service....The lowest ranking people are actually nice. That's where the praise ends. They are horrible at speaking english, they know NOTHING about their products, and their procedures are excruciating. Once you get to tier 2, they get shady. I was lied to repeatedly about various things. I had one guy promise me a brand new Ocean 2 phone, going as far as to say the order was placed, only for the next guy to tell me they cannot even do that. I had another guy tell me they could waive the ET fee, and the next guy tell me they couldn't do that either. I had them promise credits on our bills that never showed up, and even when they did, I was lucky to get half of what they claimed. These people literally had me in tears and on the verge of a nervous breakdown on multiple occasions. Finally, I got a zeroed out bill (which amounted to about $140 credit; a fraction of what was actually owed to me), and bailed.

Not only was their handling of my problems grotesquely unprofessional, some of it was illegal I'm sure. What I have shared is merely scratching the surface. Everything about this company is horrendous, all the way down to the hold music, which repeats the same three songs at all times. I swear if I hear "All The Small Things" by Blink 182 ever again, I might literally lose my sanity. Stay as far away from these people as possible. Lets put them out of business in fact. They still have my girlfriend cause we cant afford to hack any more fees at the moment. I will forever look back on June to October 2009 as a living nightmare, and one of the absolute worst times of my life (and I've been through things the average person can't imagine). Again let me stress, I am NOT embellishing. This experience was unfathomable. This site should be changed in that we can give 0 stars, specifically to accommodate Virgin Mobile. Even then, it would be offensive to other things receiving 0 stars.

I hate calling this customer service department. The people are polite but the service SUCKS big time. I can never just activate a phone. It always takes me at least 24 hrs. Once it took four days. Today, I bought a new phone (lost old one) and attempted to activate and transfer all my minutes. First you have to jump thru hoops to get a live person (which is not unusual in todays customer service world). I went thru all the steps and was told the serial number is already associated with another phone. I just bought the phone today on my lunch at Target. Now they have to put a ticket in to clear the serial number. This happened when I activated my last phone, the one I lost. I have to call back and be tortured again tomorrow. Also, there website stinks. They redesigned it a few months ago. The graphics are grainy and I can no longer sign in. They went for an OK website to one that is awful. I get an interface that looks like an thesis outline. If I try to go view my account it stays on the same page. Am I the only one this is happening too? Also, I find their plans very confusing. OK so you ask why do I stay with them...$$$. From all the choices available to me that I have researched, they are the cheapest. Once I have had my phones activated, I have had no problem with losing money. The phone has worked fine. I was happy with the phone I lost. It's just their horrendous customer service. From the number of poor ratings here and elsewhere, I'm guessing they don't give a damn.

virgin mobile sux ass!
so good luck if u hav this company they steal ur money off ur account when u top up
they cost like 15 cents per text.
and they dont reply 2 ur messages when they kno u figured out they rip u off.
=]
can u hear me now?

Believe me, take your business to another prepaid/pay as you go company. I moved to Consumer Cellular. They have good prices, SIMPLE billing and nice people.

GOOD LUCK trying to figure out what you are paying for with Virgin Mobile. I would buy minutes, then check my account and find the minutes were gone. I have no idea. It seems I was always topping off. I'd have to quit my job and spend my full time trying to figure out what they are doing.

Also, when I transferred to Consumer Cellular, Virgin continued to bill me. When I called to ask them to stop billing my account, they said they had no information on that and that I need to go to my bank. Can you believe that? I need to go to my bank and have my card canceled in order to stop their billing. So, I did it. But, it was a major pain. In order to get my money back, I need to file a dispute with the bank.

So, take a look at the all terrible ratings and think about the strong possibility that you will have a terrible experience with them. Do yourself a favor and go with Consumer Cellular, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, etc. Anybody else.

I'm not a paid blogger/advertiser for anyone either. This is just my experience.

Phones are well priced. There are alot of dead zones, no service. Customer service does not exist after you go through alex, the voice you get a person that can not speak english and then they hang up after twenty min- on the phone. You ask for a supervisor and they wont even give there name or ID #. The best part is them charging your credit card when it is not on file to do so. And admiting fault, and then say there is nothing they can do about it. I droped them like a hot potato. My bank was great, they got my money back. DO NOT EVER GIVE THEM YOUR CREDIT CARD. iT JUST IS NOT WORTH IT.

So three days ago my mother who lives in Salem Oregon bought me a jax phone and a twenty dollar top up card and mailed them to me. They arrived this morning and i tryed to activate it over the phone which was an epic failure (their voice recognition software is terrible). So i decided to acctivate it onlinne as the package directed. I activated my phone and added the top up card to my account and for the first ten minutes or so my phone worked fine i sent and recieved around twenty texts and then all of the sudden it stopped working. I checked my phone balence and it said zero (I had enrolled in the unlimited texting plan) I called and fought for about ten minutes with the computer and it finally let me talk to a representitive who told me (in a very demeaning tone after he confirmed that i was sixteen) that my top up card (which was in the mail with post marks to prove it as well as a reciet from the fifth when it was purchased) had been bought that day in vancouver washington (the city where i live) and had been used that morning. I told him that that was completely impossible and when he persisted in arguing with me and telling me that i was mistaken about how i got the card so i asked to speak to a supervisor. He told me that she was out and he would have her call me back in about ten minutes when she returned.
Fourty minutes later i decided to call back again and i got a very sarcastic man who kept refusinng to allow me to speak to a supervisor and placing me on hold. He then told me that it was not their responsibility to fix their error that it was the seven eleven where it was bouught at which point I asked again to speak to a supervisor this time in a very demanding manner.
I waited for fifteen minutes and finally a female supervisor who refused to identify herself answered the phone. I explained the situation to her and she agian told me that the card had been purchased and used in Vancouver that morning and that the card i had in my possesion was their used card..... even though my card had been in the mail for the last few days (have i mentioned i have the postmarked envelope as well as the reciet?) and that is was not Virgin mmobiles responsibility to honor the card because "I was ovbiously lying about where and how i got it because I had had to have either gotton the used card from whomever had used it or my mother had stolen it". At this point I lost it. I think its a very basic rule of any customer service representitive handbook that you do not under any circumstance call a client and her mother liars and theives. I am completely disgusted. Its very ovbious to me that they made a mistake and put the balence into the wrong account. I was friendly and polite the whole time even the second time but I was treated like an idiot, a liar and a theif.
My mother called them back and interestingly enough they were very polite and helpful to her and they say that my phone problems should be worked out in the morning. It pisses me off that Virgin Mobile treated me that way because I am in their eyes a child. I am not a moron! Yes I am sixteen but I am also a sixteen yearold that attends high school, college and working 28 hours a week. I have money to spend on this phone and I should be treated the same way as an adult. I am truely and utterlly disgusted with the way they treated me and as soon as this month of service is over I am switching to Cricket.

A cautionary word to people who have a $20.00 every 90 day top off plan, Virgin has put in a deceptive NEW MENU ITEM that will lock you into a 200 minute ($20.00) every 30 days when you go to top off! When I called from my phone right after I hit that wrong key, I used up 3 minutes, thus according to Virgin does not allow them to transfer that $20.00 to my former plan because it no longer is 200 minutes! But according to the rep I spoke with if I waited until just before the 30 days ended they would credit me the remaining minutes back into my 90 day plan. I called after 30 days and was told that they don't offer any such credit. But after much haggling, they would give me $7.50 of my remaining $16.00! Then they hung up on me. I called back and was told nothing in my account info showed any credit offer and they were not going to give me any of my remaining $16.00 back! Told the very rude service "manager" that I would like to transfer my balance from what is a 10 CENT-PER-MINUTE PLAN to a higher 20 CENT-PER-MINUTE PLAN and if I couldn't get her to do that Virgin would lose a customer. SHE DID NOT CARE! We're sorry sir, but we don't want you to have a service plan that meets your limited calling needs even though we'll be making twice as much per minute! As Spock would say... Very Illogical.
I took my two active Virgin phones out to the garage and smashed them to bits! (surprisingly very refreshing!) Then I went down to a T-Mobile store, bought a phone and a $100.00 (1000 minute) top off card that does not need to be refreshed for 1 YEAR! The very helpful rep set up the phone on the spot, filled me in on the plan and gave me a half price discount on a protective case. So I went from Virgin's 20 cents to T-Mobile's 10 cents per minute, don't have to top off every three months and most importantly I don't have to deal with less than honest Virgin reps who don't care about long time customers.

Thank you all!

I planned on purchasing a new Virgin Mobile phone and decided to track down the old one.
I purchased a $20.00 top-up and activated on 9/14/09....I thought. You guessed it!
Virgin Mobile snagged my $20.00!

I sent 2 emails to 'our team' and both times received bots. Judging by the comments, I'm
not in the mood for confrontation with the customer service who may be located who
knows where. Same as Helio!

NOTE. BBB has received 1,682 complaints within 3 years and the address is 10 Independent Blvd; Warren, NJ 07059. Start writing!

Update!!!

I finally called Virgin Mobile approximately 2 weeks ago (no activation) and definitely expected a confrontation. I encountered one of the nicest, understanding & patient customer service representative! I am pushing the rating to '3'.

No 4 or 5 rating, because of the initial inconvenience.

I enrolled both my mother and my husband in Virgin Mobile because both required very limited use of a cell phone. My elderly mother has since moved in with us, and my police officer husband had to quit the force because of brain cancer. I THEN discovered that Virgin Mobile had continuously, automatically withdrawn funds from their checking accounts - Mom has a balance of $163, and my husband a balance of $215. I was told that Virgin Mobile doesn't give "refunds" - I don't consider it a REFUND to expect to have my UNSPENT money back. I call that stealing. Instead, I was told that our only recourse is to use up minutes, and we would now be charged A HIGHER RATE PER MINUTE. What a crummy way of treating people. I will never use Virgin Mobile again and will warn others not to, either.

This has been like a bad relationship, without the black eye. VM has cost me CA$H and
hours (zillions) on the phone. It was at the point where I put them on the speaker phone just so I could multi task. I knew eventually I would get another smoke and mirrors trick.
This company started looking at me in a new way after I filed a complaint with the Attorney General of Oregon, where I live. I also kept their email address for executive escalations and a Guy named Don Van Riper (aka?). This company is 1000% about taking your money and aggravating you beyond belief.
Virgin Mobile is not for the mentally frail! They recently invited me to be a part of a PULSE PANEL for VM and welcome my feed back. I think they are stroking me so I stay quiet, but no more. If you are a Masochist try VM. They could never give me enough FREE anything to make up for all the lost time I spent trying to solve the unsolvable.
RUDE-MONEY GRUBBING-FRUSTRATING-LOWER THAN WHALE DUNG.

If you have an enemy give them a free Virgin mobile cell phone and a 20 dollar card.
You will enjoy knowing that that one enemy is in constant torment and stressed to the gills. Has no spare time anymore because he will be on hold with Virgin Mobile.
Thanks and this is no lie,
Been there done that and they really do suck.
The 4 and 5 star ratings, the few there are, must come from company
executives just to water down all the complaints.

Totally Sucks....Nothing about their service is worth mentioning, thier website sucks, you can never reach a live advisisor, they are not even worth a try. how r they in business, and how long is anybody's guess!! With so many complaints over 90%, and attitude like they are the only ones in business, they wont be long in the business!

Ok, when I got my first phone from Virgin Mobile one year ago, the Marbl, it was crap. The keys had about a second delay, no picture messagging, no camera, pretty much the most basic thing ever.
Then I got the slash, a pretty nice phone. Nothing fancy, but a normal, good phone. First, I signed up for mobile email. It told me standard messaging rates would apply for outgoing messages. No problem. However, it din't tell me that I would be charged for every single email i received (which is a lot). So, a month later i am out of minutes, because of this stupid email app, which was quite hard to remove.
Today I bought a top-up card for $20.00. I needed to use this top-up card for texting and calling. So, I went home and put it in. It said my cash balance had been added, but i still had only $1.94. Then I saw below it said I had 200 minutes left, in a minute pack, and my minute pack would expire after a month. What is this? I don't want a minute pack! I want $20 on my account! I was planning to buy a text pack with five dollars of my balance but it won't let me, either. So now I'm stuck with 200 minutes, which will expire after a month, which I will not use, and no money for texting and I have no idea how it happened. All I did was put in the pin number and press top-up now. And I heard the customer service is terrible. I don't reccomend this company to anyone.

BEWARE OF THIS COMPANY! Horrible customer service!!

I have been paying for my elderly mother's top up plan for many years. She'd been in failing health & didn't use her phone much at all in the last few months. Virgin kept taking the $20.00 fee out monthly til the point where we had a $250. Credit balance.
MY MOM PASSED AWAY IN AUGUST & THEY REFUSE TO GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK!!
They sight their "no returns policy" as the reason.
So even if a person is dead & cannot use the phone, they will not make a refund. This is shameful!
I will make it a point to discourage anyone from using their service....dead or alive.

I would never recommend this company. Never never give them your credit card to top up automatically. They have ripped me off twice now. They will swipe your cc continously to take as much out of your account as possible. Then when you notice it and call, they will tell you there is nothing they can do about it. They will tell you have to contact your bank and contest it. Your bank can't help you as Virgin Mobile has taken the money already. You have no recourse. They took me for $256.00 - after that I dumped them.

Their customer service is given the option to just not help you. I am making it a mission to let everyone know via web and word of mouth that this is a terrible company.

I recently just switched to Virgin Mobile & im very impressed by the service!
I got the rumor2 & im totally IN LOVE with it! :)
Its so simple to use, the keyboard is SO easy to use
I would definetley recommend this company

Dear folks at rate it all,

PER:  Virgin Mobile.

I have been with Virgin for 2 years and it has been quite an experience, both good and bad.  My experience is compared to all other prepay cell experiences.
I have tried them all.  Virgin has obviously going through some "growing pains" and still is.
However there has been some improvement in the last year.  I don't know what other peoples experience has been, but here are mine.
I have had some very rude (mostly youngsters) agents that having problems with the English language and some real attitude problems.  I have come to grips with the reality that the younger generation does not realize who actually pays their wages!!!

I complained so much that finally I was contacted by an individual name of Don Van Riper (alias or not, I don't know), buty I did get some results.  The emai still gets a response, so I will share it for others that might be frustrated.

I have been dealing with this ongoing issue with VMU regarding my sons phone since JULY 28th 2009. I was awaken by my bank on 7/28 to a phone call stating that there was a charge coming thru my account for $21.20 and that I did not have the money in the bank for it. I instructed them not to pay it because it was not any transaction that I had requested. for that I received a $34 fee.

I spoke to VMU nearly 25 times in the next week, as each time I called nobody neither understood what I was talking about or cared to resolve it. I was hung up on OVER 10x by agents who were either "transferring me" or "putting me on hold". Finally I got a supervisor by about the fourth day of this fiasco. She was AWESOME!!! she sat on hold with me while we waited to speak on three way with Paypal to resolve the issue. she was patient and gave me correct information.

The $21.20 was finally refunded back to my pay pal on 8/4....HOWEVER by this time, paypal had already resubmitted the transaction to my bank for payment. so; as the 21.10 was credited to paypal, the same $21.20 had been resubmitted to my bank that morning. this time however I Still did not have an extra $21.20 lying around and I received another $34 fee. so, that totals $68 I am out due to an error in your system or glitch; whichever it is. I was told by that supervisor that once the initial $21.20 had been investigated and returned that the retentions department would apply a credit to the cash balance on the phone to use for the future account payment that would be due 8/26. yet today, this has not been done.

I spoke to RENEE in the retentions department last week (8/25) and she put a credit of $30 onto the account to hold the service until it was taken care of (which she stated would be 24-72 hours). Now I am being told that " your refund of your service fee has been denied because you used more than 15 minutes"... THAT IS NOT EVEN WHAT I HAVE SPENT COUNTLESS HOURS CALLING ABOUT AT ALL! I NEVER ASKED FOR OUR SERVICE FEE TO BE REFUNDED, IT SHOULD BE $68 THAT I HAVE INCURRED DUE TO BANK FEES CAUSED BY VIRGIN MOBILE FOR A TOP UP THAT WE NIETHER NEEDED OR REQUESTED. I WILL BE POSTING THIS EXACT LETTER EVERYWHERE ON THE INTERNET THAT I CAN POSSIBLY THINK OF BECAUSE IT IS THE CONSUMER WHO GETS THE SHAFT WHEN SOMETHING GOES WRONG. MY HUSBAND AND I WORK HARD FOR OUR MONEY AND WE DO NOT FEEL THAT IT IS CORRECT FOR YOU TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF US IN THIS WAY. IT DID NOT TAKE AN ACT OF CONGRESS TO TAKE THE MONEY OUT OF OUR ACCOUNT, SO WHY SHOULD IT TAKE ONE TO GET IT BACK. I WILL BE CALLING THE FCC AND ANYONE ELSE WHO WILL LISTEN.

I had been pretty satisfied with Vm but recently heard some news that makes be question them. I heard they are offering a plan of 120 minutes for only 10 dollars but they are only offering in certain areas or for certain people, like lower income people, im not quite sure. Im trying to find out more info, let me know if anyone knows anything. But having been with them for awhile and hear that there offering a break to only small number of people makes me feel alienated.

i hate that comppanny if ther was a -100 that is what i would pick thise comppanny sucks i have too wate 30 min until the phone will recive a update its horible they need too do something about it i hate the phone i thought it waz cool at first but i waz soo wrong ! dont go with th company!

I would rate virgin mobile lees then a one because ive had a virgin mobile phone called the wildcard at the time i thought the phone was cool but now what i know you cant buy a phone based on the look and how cool the plan sounds. i lost the phone and i been with virgin mobile over a year so they should be able to send me a new phone but they refused to do so. The operaters are very rude and nasty to customers. Hopefully if you read this you would think twice before getting a virgin mobile plan. but however this is only my opinion.

If I could give this company less than a one i would. They are extremely terrible with their customers its almost like they don't care. Considering they ripped off a sixteen year old.

I am a sixteen year old kid so i am unable to sign a contract and i went looking for prepaid phones and i found virgin mobile. So i bought a new slash i tried to hook it up right away when i got home over the internet. I got all the way up to the choose your payment method part. I had picked a monthly plan and chose to use my debit card to pay for it. After about a second of waiting it had told me that there was a problem with my card. Okay no problem right? Just try again. so i did. Finally i gave up and went to my debit card's website only to find that Virgin Mobile took $54.93 off of my card, and i didn't even get a phone number. (I'm 16 that's a lot of $ to me)

So by this time i was very angry, so i called customer service with high hopes to get this resolved, and they told me that they were having technical difficulties and call back in an hour. So i did then they proceeded to tell me to wait three hours, then 24 and finally 72. By this time i was fed up and i went to the Walmart i bought the phone at and he got it activated, but i had to pay in top up cards. So so far that's $108 this crappy little phone has cost me.

When i called back the next day to check how things were going with my debit card they told me that they had no record of the transaction so if it was still pending on my card (which it was) the funds would be released back to my card within fifteen days. However, when i checked my card it showed that the transaction had been posted meaning they took the funds from my bank account. By this time i wanted to go strangle Sir Richard Bronson for even creating this company.

So i called to scream at the customer service reps some more and the guy told me because they have no record of this transaction it couldn't have ever happened. So i asked him if he wanted me to print my bank statement and mail the shit to him. He told me to calm down and basically proceeded to call me a liar. So i told him to log on to my bank account online (not smart i know but i wanted my money) to which he refused. When asked to put a supervisor on, he also refused. Frustrated i hung up. Then i gave my mom the phone and she was able to get a supervisor who told her to get the banks fax number which we did and the lady told us that i will receive a check in the mail in 2-3 weeks.

It has been a month since then and my bank still says they have received no call. It must be the fact that i'm sixteen that makes them think they can toy with me and get away with it. But currently the Better Business Bureau is processing my complaint. Oh and btw your all right they suck at English.

DON"T BUY IT DON"T BUY IT!!!!

i bought it last night. We finally got it working this mornign only to find out that even though they show I'm in covered area, i only get one line and only if I stnad in a certain place. If I even try to move the phoen to raise it to my ear I lose the signal. So I called and asked for my 60 dollars back and cancel the service. THey said because I used 17 minutes (10 minutes was just redialing from different places trying to get a signal that would hold) they would not refund the money and they cancelled the accoutn and kept my m oney! I called and talked to 5 reps and a supervisor trying to get help and everyone said their policy is they won't do it. so.... DON"T RISK IT! DOn't BUY IT!

i have never dealt with virgin mobile , some how a charge of theirs ended up on my credit card . i disputed it . thye took it off but put it back on saying i used the minutes . i have caleed and e-qamiled the company since april 29 and they refuse to talk or give me a answear . the name that appears on the bill is not even that same as the credit card or i do not even know the person . all i get is they will et back with me in 72 hours. the company is no help. they seem they are owed money and do nt care who pays as long as some one pays, like i said i get idoits on the phone htat say they will file a comnplaint and i will get a call back. i have never dealt with this company , and i will never deal with them . i have used sprint since 2007 . and before i had never hada cell phone. oh the name that appears on the bill they keep charging me for is Lori Zimmerman, i wished i know who she was mayber she can answear virgin mobile don't care as long as they get their money

This company is great! I havent had to pay for a minute so far. There are many ways to get free minutes through sugar mamma, studio v, and kickbacks. By entering the code fLdpvVOw you will earn a free hour of talk!

Here's a bizzare one for you.

I've been using a Virgin Mobile phone for about 4 years now. I use it only for outgoing, emergency calls. Every 90 days I get charged $20 automatically to keep the phone active. Since I don't use the phone very much and the money never goes away, it just keeps accumulating. Well, it did until today. It turns out that the Virgin Mobile accounting software can't handle balances greater than $400. So I'm in a strange position. My service is about to expire and I can't give them any more money because they can't count above $400.00. I'm pretty much forced to find a new company to do business with.

How's that for a great way to treat your customers.

I have used virgin mobile for a few years now and I am slowly, but surely, getting ready to jump off my prepaid plan with them. At first i didn't mind always buying the prepaid cards and using the minutes as i needed them. It was a little pricier, but i didn't mind because I liked the Virgin company. But now i hear that they released a new reduced rate plan for people that are unemployed. Apparently, if you are unemployed or on welfare, you get some kind of reduced price on the prepaid cards. Im not 100% sure of the rates, but I know its significantly less than their regular plans, BUT you have to be approved before you can use the plans. It just bothers me that these reduced rates aren't available to everyone, but just to people who lost their jobs or on welfare. Virgin either needs to offer this to everyone, OR just not offer a plan that helps only a selected few, because right now everyone is suffering in this economy. What does Virgin want to be, the cool cell phone company it first came out as? Or the Welfare cell phone company who is forgetting its original target consumers?

I really dislike Virgin Mobile. They allowed someone other than myself to access my account. Now, I can't access either account (I have 2). I tried to call them, but the person who answered could not speak/understand English even on the most basic level. I will change carriers ASAP

I've used multiple other carriers but continually come back to Virgin because nobody else compares to their service.

If you want to earn 60 free minutes for activating and topping up, please use Kickback Code 049O60qH . You will get 60 and so will I. Thanks!

I love Virgin Mobile!
It's awesome!
they have really reliable service!
the texting is awesome!and call quality is good!its also very afordable!
but i recommend using the internet to do everything regarding your phone!
I totally recommend it!
phones are not all that flashy,unless you're willing to dish out some $$$$$$$$$

I've been a long-time customer of Virgin Mobile. You can save a ton of money if you go to their website and do some research about the plans before you sign-up. To give you the best "pay as you go" rates in the business, Virginmobile has outsourced their customer service department. DO NOT, AND I REPEAT DO NOT depend on their customer service reps for friendly, efficient, or money-saving advice or recommendations. If you are not computer or internet savy, Virgin Mobile is not for you! Almost every aspect of their service can be managed on the VM website. Selecting and buying phones, choosing a plan, activating your phone, swapping your phone, changing your plan, earning free minutes, altering settings, and looking at and buying accessories are only a few things that can be done, by yourself, from Virgin's website! This all sounds great!! Does it not?? IT IS NOT ALL GREAT!! If for some reason, after 10 or more years of loyal service, you should have a problem and have no other choice but to call their customer service department, get ready for some of the worst mannered, ill-tempered, and most incompetent people in the mobile phone industry! After swapping my old VM phone,for a phone that could access the web, I had to call them because the new phone would not access their network. For 2 weeks I was being charged for a service that I could not use and they could not fix. After they opened an investigation that lasted for 72+ hours, the problem was still not resolved. When an investigation fails, they escalate the investigation. Finally after doing my own investigation, because of their failure to fix my problem, I realized that for some reason VM had turned-off my access to international calling in my "service-settings". This is one of the things that you can not change using the website, when I called customer service and told them what they needed to do, it was fixed. Why could they not fix this simple problem? I was just glad my phone was working properly! I then had to call to try and get reimbursed for the money that was being charged when my service did not even work. When I explained to a customer rep that my problem had been fixed and I needed to get back the measley $1.50 (.10 cents per day for the 15 days my phone did not access the service) he said, " I see now that your problem has now been fixed and I think that you knew that you could use your service". I realized, after further explaination, that he was not listening to what I was saying, and I asked to speak to his manager. He told me to hold and after 2 to 5 minutes the same guy came back and told me the same thing over again! Again, I asked to speak with his manager and he said,"ok, please hold forever". After 10 minutes on hold, he finally just hung-up on me. I called back and talked to another customer service rep that listened and returned the money lost when my service was down. The moral of my story is, if you know how to be your own customer service rep you will save a ton of money with this outfit, but if you have to call VM, your at the mercy of the disgruntled employee at the other end of the line!

I have been the recipient of bad customer service before ---but Virgin Mobile TOPS the list of bad experiences with a business in my life. I actually sought out a site where I could warn others about this company. I am going to return my phone and try another.

The website does not work properly. I have topped off using cards and it does not register (even though it says I topped up successfully). The phone line customer service involves long hold times, reps that barely speak English and who are unable to help you solve a problem....when they realize they cannot help you they just hang up- seriously! The email support is just canned messages- that also do not work- they recommend that you call their helpful advisors then----full circle.

I have been just trying to get my phone to WORK now for three weeks and I am done. I'm just cutting my losses and moving on to another company.

PLEASE---be warned--this is a terrible company to work with!!!!!!!! I just hope to save you from the hassle of dealing with them!

Virgin-Mobile is the absolute WORST phone carrier. I have never dealt with a phone company as inept as VM. Their helpdesk is a bunch of people who haven't a clue how to resolve a problem with the phones. The extent of their advice is to re-program the phone. Duh, who couldn't know that?

ANYONE who risks doing business with this company better have a lot of time for phone calls to their helpdesk and additional phone calls to their management to escalate-which, incidentally does no good.

After a dozen calls to their helpdesk to help fix a phone that didn't work out of the box I called to cancel the contract. They had the audacity to say they were going to charge me a 175 dollar disconnection fee.

There is a reason that VM is considered one of the "bottom-feeders" of the communications industry......BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My rating is a hard earned ZERO stars....and they do work hard to achieve that rating. I had to give them 1 star because that is the minimum.

ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE!!! THE INTERNET CONNECTION FAILS ON ME 4 TIMES FOR AT LEAST A WEEK OUT OF THE PAST 3 MONTHS....WHAT IS THERE PROBLEM??? POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE AS THEY HANG UP ON YOU. DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS PRODUCT......

Pros: constant reception, awesome selection of ring tones, reasonable prices

Cons: Customer service is horrible, problems with paypal, problems with top-up cards. Have lost $100 to the company and do not see it being returned unless, possibly, I were to sue them.

*****5 STARS***** Finally to an Alternative to TracFone, BOOST Mobile, Metro PCS, Virgin Mobile and ALL others like them...before spending your hard earned money on the services above check the company below!

No credit check Nationwide coverage
competitive plans find out more

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A P E X GLOBAL WIRELESS cell phone plan provides a third option for those who don't quite fit into the standard contract monthly rate plan or the pay as you go plan. A P E X GLOBAL WIRELESS plan has some advantages that just might suit you better than either of the other two options.

The main advantage of an A P E X GLOBAL WIRELESS plan is that the subscriber does not need to enter into a contract, go through a credit check or supply a security deposit. In this way it is similar to the prepaid pay as you go cell phone plan. However, the A P E X GLOBAL WIRELESS plan requires a monthly top-off, or payment towards the plan's minutes. This is commonly US$40-60, which can be purchased one of several ways.

The monthly required payment makes the A P E X GLOBAL WIRELESS plan similar to a standard plan, with the added benefit of free nights starting at 7PM, free weekends all month long and nationwide coverage. You get more minutes and monthly service features compared to pay as you go plan. Plus many of the same standard features that compliment contract plans such as text messaging, internet data plans, mobile to mobile, conference calling, voice-mail basic and enhanced.


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TERRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The very worst in customer service. Trying to get an english speaking person in the US is almost impossible. You get a flip who keeps appoligizing and never getting anything done for you. If you as to speak to a suppervisior you get hung up on. Really the most unprofessional hired people in the world.

I hate the intro add when you call in and the music is the worst!!!!! Not to mention the promts you have to go through to speak to a live person - than you get an ignorant person from a country that can not understand or you can not understand. This all goes on and on and on until you hang up and call back to find someone in the US. Make sure you have at least 3 hr of time to waste on this service.

I hate Virgin Mobil!!!!! Lousy service this is not even beginning to expound on the cheep phones they sale....oh don't get me started. The worst service ever even worst than Qwest if that is possible. Never Never get this service!

I like its service without long term contract. The call quality is also not bad.
However, their sugar mama program is a not like what they say. It is said that each customer can earn up to 75 min per month by watching ads online or replying text messages. However, since I signed up for 4 months, I never received any text message from sugar mam for earning minutes. I was told by their customer service that because "there are no new text messages available".
As for watching the online ads, the first month I indeed got 75 min of free airtime, however, in the following months, I got less and less ads to watch. In the 3rd month, I only got 34 min even if I checked on the sugar mama webpage every day. This month (Jan), till now (1/14), I still got no ads to watch. I ever called to ask the customer service, and was told the old customers (at that time I only started serice for about 3 months) can get less available ads to watch than new customers. so that is, sugar mama is only for attacting new customers, after that, they would provide less and less, even no, ads to watch, so that you cannot get free minutes any more.

so my point is, if you like cell phone service without long contract, vm is indeed good choice. but don't expect you can easily earn free minutes after signing up sugar mama program. they would treat old and new customers differently.

And for new customers who want to earn extra free airtime from the start:
enter code wsH9FPTp when activating your new account online and topping up at least $20 within 45 days, you will get 60 min extra free airtime. This code doesn't expire

I have used vm (virgin mobile) for almost a month. It is really hard to find a cell phone that will work at my house. I've had tracfone & net 10 (both owned by the same company) and both worked really well here. Tracfone was entirely too expensive and the net 10 phone was a piece of junk. However, Both services have excellent coverage. Anyway just before christmas Target had a sale on VM phones. I found the UT starcom arc phone for $30 instead of the usual $50. Instead of buying a minute card for the net 10 phone I bought the arc phone. I came home- got on the land line and activated the phone. Much to my surprise when I called the VM customer service # an American answered the phone! I am not racist and have nothing against people from other countries but when you call tracfone's or net 10's customer service # you get someone that does not speak english very well at all. They are extemely challenged when it comes to english. This makes as much sense as going to mcdonalds and ordering sushi! If you can't speak english why would you work in customer service for english speaking people? Anyway, There are some things you should know prior to activating a VM phone if you're in the market for one. Do EXTENSIVE research before you ever buy a phone. One good idea is go to yahoo answers-type in virgin mobile & chances are people have already asked questions that you may have and much more. Also vm has 2 types of plans to choose from. Pay as you go and monthly plans. I'll copy and paste both to make my point.
PAY AS YOU GO (like tracfone or net 10)

CHOOSE A 30-DAY MINUTE PACK
Price Minute Pack Per Minute Value
$20 200 = 10¢ / Minute

$30 400 = 7.5¢ / Minute

$50 1000 = 5¢ / Minute

As long as you buy another Minute Pack within 30 days, any unused minutes will roll forward for the next 30 days (up to 5000 minutes). If you don't purchase another Minute Pack within 30 days, your unused minutes will expire at the end of the 30 days.


TEXT & MESSAGING (includes pic. messaging, instant messaging & email)
$5 / MONTH = 200 $10 / MONTH = 1000 / $20 MONTH = unlimited

$5 / MONTH = 5MB $10/MONTH = 20 MB $20/MONTH = 50MB

MONTHLY PLANS
Start your nights at 7PM. Add unlimited messaging for $10/month
Price per Month ANYTIME MINUTES 7PM NIGHTS / WKNDS
$24.99 200 500

$34.99 300 1000

$49.99 400 UNLIMITED

$59.99 600 UNLIMITED

$79.99 TOTALLY UNLIMITED CALLING

TEXT & MESSAGING (includes pic. messaging, instant messaging & email)
$5 / MONTH = 1000 $10/ MONTH=unlimited
ADD DATA PACKS (MOBILE WEB, VIRGINXL & STREAMING MUSIC/VIDEO)
$5 / MONTH = 20MB $10/MONTH 50 MB

All of this is directly from virgin's website. The data packs are internet use. When you buy the monthly plans you need to know the minutes DO NOT rollover. They only rollover w/ pay as you go. The monthly plans are cheaper bet in the long run you will save $ w/ pay as you go. Chances are you will not use all of the minutes w/ the monthly plans. I bought the $34.99 monthly plan, have 1 week left in my month and have only 24 anytime minutes and have only used 270 out of 1000 night & weekend minutes. I am losing big time here. I have used a total of 546 minutes. If my monthly plan ended today I would still come out saving $ over tracfone or net 10. Tracfone with double minutes: $40=400 mins. Net 10: $30=300 mins.-$60=600mins. Tracfone is clearly the most expensive of the 3. My point to all of this is to be sure about what time of the day you will use your phone the most. Choose your "plan accordingly. Don't think you will adapt your talking times to fit your plan because it might work at first but ultimately you will likely benefit more from a "plan" that is more lenient. Something like 1000 mins ($50) in general. The mins will roll forward and you don't lose anything. With vm however, you are required to add a minimum of $20 to your account per month (pay as you go) in order for the minutes to rollover. In order for your service to remain active you must add a minimum of $20 to your account within 90 days. If not- you have no service. You can buy a card for $90 that will extend your service for a full year and it comes with 450 anytime minutes. If it sounds like there are too many catches to it...well... there are but you'll find catches with any service provider. What it all comes down to is $ and convience. Back when convience stores started selling bottled water I thought-What are they going charge us for next... our time?... the air we breathe?...They definately found a way to charge us for our time. Look out people...You may need to learn to regulate your breathing!

I signed up for a Virgin Mobile plan that seemed like it was great. $25 for free incoming text messages, free incoming calls, 50 or 100 daytime minutes...sounded great! I got a free phone from Virgin at the mall but I had to go home and activate it over the phone. I called and after waiting about 45 minutes a total dumba$$ answered and took me through the signing up steps. He told me my phone would be ready in a few hours. The next day my phone was STILL not working so I called again. This time some bimbo answered and took me to the steps again. When I told her how I NEEDED to have a phone and could not wait any longer, she began to insult me. I found it amusing that someone so stupid would try to insult me. Again I waited 12 hours and my phone was still not registered. I called again and said that if my phone was not activated soon, I would just cancel and go to a new company. The person began to insult me and ask if it was because I could not afford $25. What a moron! I ended up calling and cancelling the complete Virgin plan. I took the phone back to the mall. I signed up with Koodo mobile and am extremely happy with them. Virgin has the worst customer service ever! Why would they hire such brainless idiots?!

Tried to transfer my number from Tmobile. Customer service at Virgin tried their best but the jerks at Tmobile wouldn't let me keep my number (I thought it was the law). Anyways my point is that my experience with customer service was excellent! And more... Today my wife and I just upgraded our phones, we found some Black Friday deals we could not resist. Was able to transfer our service (credit and numbers) in just a few minutes! One last note, Virgins service area is better than Tmobile and NO rotten stinkin contracts... thats my favorite part!

Customer service is so bad I couldn't even BUY a phone from them! Didn't have the phone I requested in stock. I rang 2 weeks later to follow up order. After being transferred 3 times I was told it had been despatched. Rang 3 days later to find out where it was. The man said he couldn't help me as I had no order number (they never gave me one! and others had found the account by searching for my name) I was then disconnected twice when they tried to transfer me. Finally they told me it hadn't even reached the delivery department and they still had no stock. Then I had the "customer service team leader" call me who tried to put me through to sales again but couldn't because he had called me after hours. He told me to call them back in the morning. I tried to change the model of phone requested, and was told there was no stock of that one either and would have to talk to sales again. Finally gave up and cancelled the order. If this is how they treat someone trying to sign up I hate to think how they treat existing customers!

I purchased a $300 motorola razer from virgin mobile and have had nothing but prolems..the first time i called them i could not send or recieved picture texts it was escalated and i was told someone would call me back well the never did and issue still ongoing. Second time i called I now have a texted messsage stuck in my outbox that wont let me delete, it says operation failed yet again they escalated it and again issue is still ongoing. So now i have 2 issues that are over 5 months old that still havent been resolved.
So I decided to call back and find out what the resolution is, they cannot tell me anything about my old tickets. They cant find them so they go through more troubleshooting and now i have a 3rd issue that is now cause by the person troubleshooting i cant use VXL im getting network unavailable and they cant fix the problem they just caused and escalate another ticket.
to sum it up Virgin mobile sucks and im currently looking for a new provider

worst customer service ever! i called twice and got hung up on both times. I bought a ring tone online,they took the mony and now i do not have the ring tone on my phone.

One star is too many. Customer service is, at best, substandard. They are not listeners, nor problem solvers. Everything is a canned response. Would not recommend this company to anyone. Go with a different carrier and save yourself a major headache

Ok, I am so sick of hearing complaining cry babies on all these blogs. Bottom line is you get what you pay for. It seams as if 90% of the complaint are coming from prepaid users, duhhhh, what do you expect. I am in the market for a new provider and it sounds like the same complaints as metro pcs. Dont blaim it on the phone, blaim it on the HR department. They're the ones who's hirig these inexperienced people to give us horrible customer service. If it helps, I get bad customer service with my bank, my utilities, and my mortgage company. Welcome to the real world, quit complaing or try sprint, verizon, or t-mobile, I'm sure you'll stick with Virgin becasue there customer service is all the same.

From: Tired of the cry babies.....:(

Virgin mobile is great until you have a problem. I have yet to find anyone in their call centre that is capable of understanding basic English, let alone speak it. There doesn't appear to be contacts in an English speaking country. I have what I feel is a simple problem with one of my phones, but each time it is supposedly fixed, the problem becomes more and more compounded. I thought Optus and Telstra were bad, but they offer full Gold service compared to Virgin!

The service for Virgin Mobile works just fine, however if you ever have a problem, you should grab a bottle and rub it until a genie appears. I have been waiting 5 Months for Virgin mobile repair my text messaging. I can send all the texts msgs I want, I just can't get any. Today (9/30/08) I called again to check on the status of the investigation, and guess what, they are still investigating. 5 Months!!

Virgin Mobile monthly plans are GREAT! I have been with virgin mobile for 3.5 years and have switched plans according to my needs without incurring termination fees. I first started on a prepaid pay as you go top-up card which I agree can get expensive. My customer service rep noticed that I was spending a lot given how much I used it. She helped me get a better deal using the monthly plan. Some months of the year I use more minutes so I just upgrade my plan for that month and downgrade when I find I'm using less. Also they have great international rates. I always get a good connection on these overseas calls. I have not needed to call customer service for over a year. I use the website to do everything. Virgin sends me text messages when they are about to charge my credit card so that I can bring up any queries I have with them before I get billed. All my bills have been accurate on the monthly plan. Many of my friends have been given the run around by all the various wireless companies. I don't think virgin is any worse. I recommend Virgin because of their no contract policy which means no $200 cancellation fees if they drive you nuts on the phone giving you the run around. Very happy customer. Best cell phone decision I have ever made

My daughter has had a prepaid phone through Virgin for some time, the past month we noticed she seemed to go through her minutes really fast.
She put $20 on her phone on Sept 5th and kept track on line of how many minutes she used. Grand total of calls should have been LESS than $5, but out of the $20 put on the card about 2 weeks ago, less than $5 is LEFT. Actually the remaining amount of credit is nearly equal to the calls she actually had with the phone!

We called this evening to get help,and correct the problem. She got a run around, and by the time she was done with customer service she felt humiliated and angry. She's going to close the account, and is considering whether and from whom she will get a replacement phone.

Find someone else to work with, or at least don't get attached to your number or your phone, so you can easily change services when you've had enough of them.

I would agree, one star is too many! I had my service disconnected. VM's error, they had trouble processing their billing. So, when I called I was told that my service would be reactivated with no extra charges. Well, I was billed for an entire new month. When I contacted customer service, they had no record of a charge. Then a month later, they contacedt me to tell me I had changed my plan and that was why there was an additional charge. I have been hung up on, sat on hold for 45 minutes and received "scripted" e-mails which showed they had not even read my response. There customer service is awful. I disputed the charges on my credit card and have been told they will discontinue my service when they receive the dispute. I am thinking about reporting them to the attorney general's office.