Gabriel
Anderson,#2UPDATE Employee
Sat, June 09, 2012
The information you recieved from what you called "Sprint Mobile" is incorrect. I will describe the process of buying pre-paid airtime and applying it to a monthly plan. Always treat airtime as if it is NON-REFUNDABLE. There are some circumstances in which airtime can be returned, but that is only if it has not been applied to an existing account.
When you buy airtime you will usually end up with a pin number either on a scratch off card or on a receipt. This pin number has no effect on your account or minutes until you apply it. The directions for applying airtime can be found on the card or receipt. Once you apply airtime it moves into a pre-paid account. At this point it is no longer refundable where you bought it. It is like paying an electricity bill. You have used the service and can never recieve a refund for a payment you already made.
From here things can become tricky. Let's say you just made a payment and applied airtime. What happens if you break or lose your phone the same day? You still can't get a refund even though you don't have a phone to use the service anymore. Your only options are to buy another phone or you could contact the pre-paid company and have your service temporarily suspended until you get a new phone (still must be within 30 days I believe). Now let's say you just bought a new pre-paid phone or aircard and you set up the account and apply the airtime you bought. You find out a few hours later that the coverage is terrible where you live. That would be something you would want to find out before buying the airtime because it is still not refundable. The phone or aircard is refundable but not the payment to the account.
Now I will address your specific situation. You say you USED 5 Gigs in a couple of days. That means Virgin Mobile does not owe you a refund because you USED that much data. You actually used more data than what $50 dollars typically buys on any mobile carrier. All in all you were able to download tons of stuff and surf the web for 50 bucks and still managed to get your money back for the device.
There is no such thing as a termination fee for pre-paid accounts. Any airime applied to a pre-pay account is automatically lost when the account is cancelled or your service days end. I have no idea why Virgin Mobile promised to send you a check for airtime that you USED. They were under no legal obligation to do so. If they said they sent you a check then they did though. If you still feel they owe you something after reading all this you should give them a call back and make sure they have the right address to send the check to. If they pay you, you will be the one who has ripped someone off. 5 Gigs of free data. A Ripoff Reversal.