Virgin Mobile

Like Boost, Virgin Mobile is held back by its reliance on Sprint's mediocre network. Unlike Boost, Virgin can't count on other aspects to bolster its profile. Virgin has a limited section of plans, especially compared to other prepaid carriers. It offers the worst selection of phones among all the carriers we evaluated; and there's no way to bring your own device. Only decent customer support keeps Virgin out of the very bottom of our rankings.

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Virgin Mobile’s unlimited music streaming, low rates and multiple payment options for new phones make decent cellular service affordable. However, when it’s pitted against the best cell phone plans from the major carriers – or even other MVNOs – its lack of features becomes painfully apparent. If you want a family plan but don’t live near a Walmart, if you want to call internationally without breaking the bank, and even if you just want stronger cellular service than the Sprint network provides, Virgin isn’t for you. It’s come a long way but still falls short of our recommendation.

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The nation's largest wireless carrier, Verizon Wireless stands out for their fast, reliable network and large selection of prepaid plans. Though they have relatively limited phone options, that shouldn't be enough to deter you from exploring their high-quality service.

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Based on my overall experience I personally wouldn’t recommend Virgin Mobile. The cell coverage was the biggest deal breaker for me. Our family couldn’t risk being out of the coverage area in case of emergencies, and that’s part of the need in having a cell. Secondly, I wouldn’t recommend them based on my customer service experience either.

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The usage reflected on the website is way way more than i am using as indicated by my phone usage app, why is this? My phone cycle is set correctly on my phone yet my showed that my usage was 988 MB while Virgin is billing me for 1441 MB on a 1GB plan. My wife's phone cycle is also set correctly and her phone showed a usage of 449 MB while Virgin is billing her for 796 MB on 500MB plan. I have called to discuss this but your rep basically said that your accounting of the usage is correct and we can't discuss it any further. We've just signed up with you guys, and this is the second time you have overcharged us, I have been ripped off. We own our phones and have no contract, if you are unable to play fair then I am obliged to cancel both our accounts. Less

First of all I'm writing my review based on my own real honest experience. I joined Virgin Mobile in January because they had the best cellphone plans. Everything was nicer and "cooler". I found their customer service very casual and friendly. I started having problems with them after coming back from my vacation when I noticed in my account that I was being charged for a few international roaming text messages. I called Virgin and told them that I was 100% sure that I had not sent any text messages during my trip so they took it away from my bill. A few days later I went to check my account online and for my surprise I was almost exceeding my data limit of 1G. Again there was something wrong because based on my usage I knew I hadn't used not even 25% of 1G. There wasn't any problems with my phone and I had no automatic updates on or push notifications (and I'm a techie guy so I know very well how my gadgets work). So again I got disappointed at them. I turned my data off to avoid any over charges. On the next day I went on their website to check my usage and my data usage had been increased - with my phone off! Then I also took a look at the text message usage and there were several text messages that according to their website, were sent from my phone on a night that I had stopped using my phone at 7pm. I called the customer service and I felt like they were treating my like if I was dumb, they even said that it's probably because I lent my cellphone to someone. Ya right! I don't let anyone touch my phone plus it's password protected. So right after talking to them I called my former cellphone company and transferred my number to them. What is funny is that according to their website my cellphone kept sending messages until around 5:30pm even though I had transferred my number to the other company at 2pm! So clearly there is a problem going on. It can be mechanical or done or purpose to take more money from their customers. It's up to you to judge. Less

I joined Virgin a little over a year ago and now i strongly regret my decision. In December '12 my phone was having some issues so i sent it in to get repaired. First time i phoned them she tried telling me my phone was beyond it's warranty so i would have to pay. Funny enough all my legal paper work said otherwise. So, after two weeks or so i finally got a loaner phone. They then sent my phone back to me saying there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. Funny enough, the day i sent the loaner phone back my phone randomly shuts off and will only turn on to the galaxy s2 screen. I tried taking my battery out, taking my sim out, plugging it in to my computer, etc. When i phoned them to tell my issue all this moron could say to me was "my computer says your phone is fine." Well.... if there is nothing wrong with my phone, and nothing wrong with the battery (which i only told them about a thousand times) then why is it not working? I spent hours on the phone with them sitting on hold for long periods of time which seems odd as they never had anything useful to say when they got back on the line and certainly were in no way helpful. Long story short, i ended up not having a phone for over a month. I don't know if they just hire incredibly stupid people or if they are not trained properly (scary thought, who seriously manages that place?) but it is a horrible experience talking to these people. They do not listen, they do not help and the women supervisor there was extremely rude. I hope that anyone thinking about joining virgin will read these reviews first because they are dirty cheap rip offs. Maybe its time the Virgin big boys there do some 'Undercover Boss' and fix this awful place. Once my term is up i will be switching to a phone company with more experience because clearly the virgin is no good. Less

Virgin Mobile was and still is my first cellphone carrier, I've been with them for about a year now. My family members have been with many different Carriers, Fido (which was a horrible experience for my sister), Bell and Telus. I can say that so far I have been quite pleased, I've never had a dropped call. My plan is cheap and I get everything I need from it. On rare occasions my phone used to not get texts from certain people randomly, but I pretty sure it was because Our phones weren't compatible (my phone, not VM, is stupid) :P I love their website it is very Informative, and easy to use (although slow at times) and I love their VIP member benefits, I'd recommend VM to anyone :) Less

I wrote a long text with this title some weeks ago (except the '- Part II?' in the title) in the title, and i'm still at the same point, waiting. Last Friday, i checked my Virgin Mobile account to know the amount of money they billed me for the month. This amount of money can change from few dollars to few pennies, and i always pay exactly this amount of money every month, without any waiting time to pay them. But, last Friday, the 26 of October 2012, i saw that they billed me the price of the two temporary phones they gave me for the waiting time of my phone repair. As i said in the other message, i received my phone still broken with the reason 'Wrong serial number' after three months of wait. Anyway i will not tell the whole story again it is very well documented in the message i wrote here some weeks ago. At the end of October, i checked my Virgin Mobile account, and i saw the i owe them the price of the temporary phones ! I was completely destroyed, the term is may be a bit too loud, but i don't have any other word to describe how i was feeling. I kept it, cause i thought that my still broken phone would be repaired, or better than that and that's what i want at this very moment : A new phone ! A new guarantee ! and a minimum of respect !!! So i called last Friday (the 26 of October 2012) to know what was the meaning of that ? The Virgin Mobile Specialist told me that this was the amount of money ask for my temporary phones. I said how could i send you the phones if i don't have any envelope, any returning address, and how can i trust you if i sent it back ??? How can i trust a company who gave me so many hard times, so many unbelievable situations, and why there is nothing made to have my phone repaired again !!! I said that i made a complaint and i received two emails one from Candice the other from Monique who are two workers for Virgin Mobile. They asked me personal information which i refused to tell on first instance, and that i told on last instance cause there were no way to call them. So, going back to the talk that i had with the clerk on this Friday the 26 of October, he said that Virgin mobile called my at 13:47 on this same day and i admit that this part was my fault, cause i have a call block application (for all these 1-800 or 1-877 spam phone numbers) who locked their calls. So i told to the clerk that i would uninstall the application, and i ask him when i will receive the second call, He told me may be this week end, i'm not sure about it, but on Monday, be prepared to receive a call from them (Virgin Mobile Canada). Monday, knowing that i didn't received the promise call, i called another Virgin Mobile Specialist who told me that i have to wait 5 days to have this call. I said 'Why five days ? I was told that i would received this call this Monday ?' So he said, wait till Wednesday night, and if you don't have received any call from us, call us and we will make something about it. I didn't received any call from Virgin Mobile Canada. On the same talk that i had with this clerk, i ask him : 'And what about giving you the temporary phones back that i have now' He said that i would received a prepaid envelope from Virgin Mobile Canada and that i would be able to send them the phones back. I didn't received any box, any bag, anything ! So after all these situations, i really don't know what to think, i have hard time believing them, and most of all, i feel like someone who has been a joke, a point of no respect at all, a simple client who doesn't have any value. Am i missing something ? or do i exaggerate about what i'm going through. On the bottom of that, i have been treated for heart and lung illness, that's something private i know, but that is what make me worry more than everything. My actual phone wich is a HTC Sensation HTC-710 went down (off) without any reason my phone is powering down, silently and there is no way to know it, except to look at the phone from time to time. It take minutes and minutes to have it power up. I've miss two important urgent phone calls, and this situation do worry my family and yes my old father and mother who, lastly, tried to call me without any response. When i grab my phone i saw that it was powered off again, and when i powered it up i saw that my parents called my about 7 times during a a lapse of 3 hours. I do not tell any lies in these sensible and very hard to live situations. Just for this single situation it worth more than a simple phone, it worth something to be made now !!! Please make something ! Please Less

I got a blackberry curve 9360 (very good phone btw) and got a $40 my peeps plan and i loved it i never called virgin mobile for anything out of the ordinary only when i got charged $10 from jamster and they fixed it right away! (with great customer care!) i do get 1 bar in some places but that happens in most phone carriers. but i love it and the member benefits just is the icing on the cake Less

Ever since I've been using Virgin I've had intermittent problems receiving text messages from other carriers, spending dozens of hours on the phone with customer service and tech support. The coverage is also pretty crap. Since I started using their service, they've raised the prices on text messages twice. As of August 1, they're planning to raise the cost of a single outgoing text message by an outrageous 5 cents to 20 cents per message---this despite the fact that text messages cost the company virtually nothing. Although Virgin is marginally better than Bell (which I left over outrageous prices and crappy customer service), and a lot better than Fido (which has the world's worst customer service), their phones are expensive, their service is geared towards kids, and their prices are just getting ridiculous. I'll be switching to Speak Out. Less

This is one of the most frustrating companies that I have ever dealt with. Customer service reps are not empowered to do simple things..like get your order straight. Each month the plans don't change, and each month they bill the same, and then to add to the frustration and aggravation, you get to go on hold for anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes and listen to what they are listening to. I have lost count on how many times I have made it to the goal line, had my call answered, and then been cut off, only to have the pleasure of starting over again. It is obvious that Richard Branson has never had to be a customer with his own company, and by that I mean calling into the service center, and see what the rest of us shelps have to put up with. To top it off, JD Powers has given them some sort of customer service award, my guess is that this is another reason that the managers will never call their own company, as they have this belief that all is well. Well its not, this is by far the worst customer service experience I have ever had, and I have lost track of all the hours in my life that I cannot get back waiting on hold for "One of their friendly customer service reps" Bye Bye Virgin, or at least until you send my bill to collection, because I am not paying you another cent until I get a call from someone who actually can do something. Less