Complaint Review: Defense Mobile - Internet

 December of 2015 we switched our family’s wireless plan to Defense Mobile. They were a relatively new company that catered to veterans and veteran’s families exclusively. My husband served in the Army. They had reasonable prices, had the use of Verizon cellular towers, they employed veterans and they promised to devote 10% of all profits to veteran charities. We brought over 4 phones from our previous carrier and ported 4 phone numbers we had had for 12 years. In the beginning, customer service was exceptional. Each time we called in it would be a military veteran answering our calls. Any email we sent would be answered quickly and courteously. Then, around May we began experiencing issues with data. Our calls went unanswered as were our support ticket emails. On Defense Mobile’s facebook page there were rumors the company was going under. On their website they stated they were reorganizing and not taking anymore customers at the moment. On May 16th Defense Mobile posted the following on their Facebook page and DefenseMobile.com: "DEFENSE MOBILE'S GSM MOBILE SERVICE IS WINDING DOWN Some of you may have heard that Defense Mobile is going out of business - we are happy to inform you that this is not the case! There has been some misinformation on our call center message and in the press, which we are working hard to correct. Defense Mobile is still operational and providing service to its current veterans and military service members. Over the next 30 days, Defense Mobile will be winding down its GSM mobile service. However, our CDMA (V) and CDMA (S) networks will remain fully operational. Defense Mobile has temporarily stopped activation of new members but we expect to resume activating new customers very soon. We apologize for the confusion while we go through this business transition! If you are on Defense Mobile's GSM network, you have a few options. You can switch to another carrier and get a new phone number or you can bring your number to another carrier. Please click the button below to get more details about your options and to view a special offer from Cricket Wireless. If you have any questions or problems, please submit a support ticket by clicking the button below. If you would prefer to call us, you can contact Member Care from 9 AM ET to 6 PM ET Monday through Friday at 800-823-9134." . We stuck with Defense Mobile as we believed this press release. Bad idea on our part. On June 7th, all of Defense Mobile customers lost service for approximately 12 hours. During this time, Defense Mobile did not reach out to it’s customers in any way to give us an update. Nothing on their facebook page, or through email. As a matter of fact, through out the day their new customer service reps (at this point they had ditched the awesome veteran service reps and had outsourced) were telling customers Defense Mobile was out of business and to switch carriers ASAP. The evening of June 7th-around 9:30pm, Defense Mobile FINALLY updated their facebook page with the following message: “We apologize for the service interruption. We realize that many members experienced a service interruption today, and outgoing calls and SMS messages have been temporarily disabled. We have been working diligently to resolve this issue. We expect to have service up and running no later than midnight tonight. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused and for the delayed notification.” Once again, we stuck by Defense. On June 29th we woke up to no service. As did the rest of Defense Mobile’s customers. Calls to them went unanswered. Emails were ignored. The few people who were able to get through, reported on their facebook page they were told DM went out of business on June 15th and it was unlikely anyone’s number could be ported. We went to Verizon that day, June 29th, to switch our service. We immediately encountered problems porting our numbers. Our numbers were shown as inactive, which meant they were dead. It was rumored Total Wireless had access to our numbers so we tried going through them. We began that process on July 2nd. On JULY SEVENTH Defense Mobile sent this email out: "DEFENSE MOBILE'S CDMA (V) MOBILESERVICE HAS BEEN TERMINATED Defense Mobile has been honored to provide your mobile voice and data services. Unfortunately, we no longer are offering services on our CDMA (V) network, which is the network compatible with your mobile device. It is not possible for you to remain on heDefense Mobile network, we cannot switch to our GSM or CDMA (S) network. You will need to switch to a new carrier as soon as possible. Due to carrier requirements, Defense Mobile CDMA (V) phone numbers currently in suspend may be deactivated as early as tomorrow 7/7/16. Please port your number to a new carrier immediately to avoid losing your phone number. To port your number to a new carrier you will need your account number and your 4-digit PIN number you set up when you activated service. If you don't know your DefenseMobile account number or Passsword/Passcode, please log into your account, follow the steps to retrieve your Password/Passcode, and gather needed information before porting out. Your account number is listed at the top of the page after logging in here. Note: All voicemails will be deleted upon cancellation of your mobile service or transfer of your phone number. If you would like to save a copy of any important or significant voicemails, there are several options available on the Internet, such as www.voicemailsforever.com and www.savemyvm.com. Total Wireless is offering assistance for Defense Mobile members to transfer their mobileservice. For more information, please call 855-848-8866 and a Total Wireless agent will help you transfer your number(s) and select a comparable rate plan. Regardless of the service provider you choose, you must make arrangements for alternative service as soon as possible. If you have not selected another service provider soon, you will lose your mobile phone number. Again, we sincerely apologize for this sudden loss of service. Thank you for your patience and understanding during this time. If you have already transferred your number to a new provider, please disregard this message as your account has already been deactivated and no further action is required.” Over a WEEK after our service being turned off they finally send this out. Total Wireless was also unable to port our numbers. We LOST our phone numbers. Even though we went the DAY they discontinued service to port our numbers, even though we tried going through Total Wireless, even though we were never late on a bill….Defense Mobile and the following people repaid our patronage and support by completely screwing us and thousands of current and former military members. MANY who are deployed. Everyone of the following people are responsible for this disaster. Our business was tied to my husband’s phone number. Thousands and thousands of business cards with his number handed out over several years are now useless. Not only has this cost us time and money due to switching services and having to buy new phones, it has seriously hurt the sole income that supports our family. The following people just got to continue on with their lives. So what they completely mismanaged a company, lied to their customers and left service men and women stranded with out phone service overseas? I hope this follows these losers around for the rest of their professional lives.: Brendan Reilly Andrew Reilly Anthony V Montoya Ray Bartoszek Charles Lax Peter Lurie Frederick Warren Peter Pace Stan Simpliciano David Trimble Basheer Shabazz-Williams Stephen Mohn Michaela Terrell Jerome Moore Michael Siscoe Jeff Golden Glenn Johnston