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Monday, June 28, 2010

Virgin Mobile: They Rescinded Their Offer of Compensation!

Blogfans: Don't even bother reading what is below, which is my newest communication with the Better Business Bureau. Short version: Virgin Mobile called this morning and the nice rep told me that her superiors would not permit her to offer us three months of service and so the offer was rescinded. She apologized for speaking too soon. Do you believe this?

A little while ago, I reported my lengthy, annoying experience with Virgin Mobile--this involved double billing, conflicting information from at least three reps and their supervisors, suspension of service, lack of follow through, being told to initiate a chargeback through the credit card company, being told the chargeback precipitated suspension of service, being told that reversing the chargeback would allow resumption of service, not having service resumed, etc. Eventually, I wrote a detailed report on all this on your site.
A few days later, I was thrilled to received a call from a Virgin Mobile rep, who acknowledged that we received incorrect information all the way through, apologized profusely etc. She offered us 3 free months of service. Though this did not compensate for the HOURS and HOURS we spent trying to resolve an issue that began with a double-billing, we accepted, thrilled that the company proved responsive.

This morning the rep called and said she had spoken too soon and that he higher ups did not allow her offer to go through. The reason? The phone had been locked. I pointed out that the phone was locked because the problem had not been resolved. (First call from us over double billing was at the end of April). I said to the rep: "So you are saying that this is it from Virgin Mobile; you are rescinding your offer; and that we will never use your company again?" She agreed.

This is doubly disgraceful. It would cost this company very little to make good on all their mistakes. To offer a "Carrot"--a few months of free service--is little enough. Then to rescind the offer...well, that is absolutely horrendous.

7 comments:

Shelley said...

So, is the next step the BBB? How do you manage to get landed with such horrible service? So, now can you believe anything at Virgin tells you - they can just turn around and say they had no authority. Crazy.

Funny about Money said...

Isn't that mind-boggling!

Yeah, I definitely would cc that complaint to the BBB, for all the good it'll do.

Our state corporation commission, which regulates the utility companies, told me that cell phone communication companies are unregulated. Under the law, they can do any damfool thing they want and no one can stop them. This presumably is why complaints about telecommunications companies are so rampant.

IMHO, that lack of regulation is a good reason consumers should boycott all such services until such time as federal and state regulation is established and decent customer service comes into play. But then, I'm a bit radical on the subject. ;-)

Frugal Scholar said...

@Shelley--The BBB can't really DO anything. My first complaint provoked an offer of free service--that's what was rescinded.

@Funny--Totally agree. But a college student is an outcast w/out a cellphone.

Duchesse said...

Lose your Virginity.

Frugal Scholar said...

@Duchesse--Very good! But it's too late: They rejected ME.

Crystal Stemberger said...

That's insane! I'm putting them on my Crappy Companies list with a link to this post. This is worse than anything I've ever had to deal with. I'm sorry.

Frugal Scholar said...

@Budgeting--Thanks for spreading the word. They were sooooo bad. I'm still shocked when I think about it.