Virgin Mobile service. Thoughts? (Rant ahead...)

So I got a smartphone recently (FINALLY) from the Virgin Mobile network. The Phone is a Kyocera Rise. got this phone because it didn't cost me my life and it has a QWERTY keyboard (I REALLY need that). So I get service activated and everything works fine while in El Paso Texas. I get to my home region later that night (100 miles southeast of El Paso) only to find no service. That was July 3rd. Called them about it on the 5th. They told me the tower was getting upgraded and service would be restored by the 9th. The 9th rolls by and STILL NO SERVICE! Call them again. Tech department screwed something up and it would be the 15th when they fixed it. 15th rolls around and still no service. Call again and told the problem is rather big so restore date pushed to the 22nd. That rolled by and guess what? STILL NO FUCKING SERVICE!!! I called them back like 10 minutes ago and was told they expect to be back on by tomorrow the 25th. What you wanna bet it won't be back?

At least they got my pissed off rant documented and promised to credit me for the service outage period. They better if they want to keep me on their customer list. I'm about ready to dump them for something else that works and is no contract. If they don't have service restored by tomorrow, I'm dumping them for something else. This is their 3rd chance. 3 strikes and they're out.

Thoughts?

 

So let me see if I am able to help you with this. I used to work for Sprint, and now for Kyocera(oddly the perfect person for your issue). I will say that in many areas across the country, Sprint is upgrading the towers from 1900 CDMA 3G to 800/1900 4G LTE service. As far as the dates go, it's possible that the service on the towers were delayed. Sprint has run into a lot of problems doing the upgrades and are pretty behind what they planned on. Hope this experience does not give you a bad impression of both Sprint and Kyocera as you are getting the best deal for cell phone service out there currently. It seems that you just happened to join at a time when the company is in transition and this type of thing is to be expected. Hope this helps ease your concern a bit.

Mike

 

All U.S based cell phone service providers are terrible. You can change companies but your likely going to face similar poor service. I've tried all of the main companies ATT, Verizon, Sprint (as Nextel), and I just signed up for T-mobile. It's the same crap, just a different name.

 

So I've noticed.

Been through most of them. Was never happy so I went no contract. Sure did cost me a few time breaking the contract but I had enough...

 

Have you tried updating the PRL? I forget how to do it on sprints network, it may require a complete phone reset and re-activation. If your device is 4G enables and has a sim card then it wont have a PRL.

 

You don't travel much outside US, right?
Down here (and it's probably the same in most of LATAM), we get EDGE speed in our HSPA network... and that's only when the connection doesn't drop every 5 minutes. And try calling Customer Service/Tech Support: first you're lucky if they pick up (you always get a message saying all reps are busy), and if they pick up, you're lucky if they don't hang up within the first minute... even if you get that far, they just say they're having issues or some other generic bullshit.

 

The end to my rant on Virgin Mobile and it doesn't end happy at all...

So I called Virgin Mobile tech back today to see about that service outage. they're up in the town I'm outside of. I still have no service. They check my address again and say I'm covered. So I go check my address on their coverage map. Their map is wrong on my location. I live 30 miles north of the location they show. My TRUE location is out of their range. I talk to 4 different people and it goes something like this:

Me: "Your map is wrong. I live 30 miles north of where you show my address at. That location is not covered."
Them: "But our maps show your address is covered."
Me: "WHAT PART OF 'YOUR MAP IS WRONG ON MY ADDRESS LOCATION' DO YOU NOT GET???!!!"

They finally get me over to the department that cancels service. After going through that conversation again they cancel my service. So I then ask them about getting refunded for the service outage from the day I signed up and was promised a refund complete with a recording of conversation and a note on my account. They say it's not gonna happen. Too bad. I ask them what about the lie of my location being covered when both that and where my address are wrong. I get told sorry they can't do anything for that.

That's when I lost my shit and cussed them out so hard I'm sure even a sailor would have his jaw hanging. Then I hung up.

Fuck Virgin Mobile to hell and back...

EDIT: Anyone want a slightly used Kyocera Rise phone?

 

Welcome to the cell phone world. I know this time it's going burn for a while, but don't get too hung up on it. (Trust me not worth raising your blood pressure for.) These providers have no obligation to their customers as they are near monopoly level corporations. You can argue they belong in the same category as airlines and banks, very large, little competition, and important service. They can get away with poor customer service because of that. Just be happy you could get out with no contract cancellation fee's. Those hurt.