Complaint Review: Virgin Mobile - Imperial Beach California

I had something very similar happen to me, and after all the aggravation and loss of money, I went with T-mobile's $1 a day plan (you pay a dollar only on the days you use it, 10 cents for outgoing/5 cents for incoming text, and 10 cents a minute for non-t-mobile connections between 7 am and 7 pm (free after). I live in Australia, and came to America for the birth of my first grandchild. I set up my phone in February in anticipation of my April/May holiday, and received the welcome letter from Virgin telling me my phone had been activated. I also attached my credit card for automatic top-ups. I'd used this prepaid phone two years ago with very little problems, except they kept telling me they'd set me up for international calling (necessary to dial back to the office in Australia) but they never did for the entire trip despite many phone calls. When I arrived in the States in April with a fully charged phone, it would only dial customer service. 6 phone calls later and I still did not have a functioning phone, despite all the back and forth. Firstly I was told it was an accounting issue where they had the old number still on the account and it would be working in 4 hours. Then I was told it was not that error but another error and they would submit a work order (which was supposed to be done by the first lady). I asked for a supervisor, and she came on, and then kept me on hold so long the phone went dead (I was not near a power point and did not have a car kit). When I got the phone charged back again, I called again and was told that none of the three people had filed the work order to see what was wrong with my account (It was NOT the phone, determined by multiple reprogramming and various other troubleshooting methods, like taking the battery out and recycling the phone, etc.). I was promised that this man would submit the work order and I would hear back in 24 hours. You guessed it. No return call, and the 4th person confirmed no work order was filed. I again asked for a supervisor, and was disconnected. Persons 5 and 6 were redial and his supervisor, who finally determined that they never put any money on my account in February, and there was no explanation for why this was so, especially considering the aforementioned attachment of my credit card to the account. Finally I told them to stick it and went to T-mobile because it'd been over a week, and I was needing a phone so my son to reach me to tell me when to go to the hospital for the birth of my granddaughter. I would have been very upset to miss that, especially as I was one of the three in the delivery room!! As it was, the kids were with me and everything went fine, and I have a beautiful granddaughter. And T-mobile has a customer for all my American needs, as they were very kind, their product works beautifully with no hassles, and the worker at the store set up my phone FOR me for free, and had me up and running with a working phone before I left the store. My entire experience from walking in the door, to walking out 20 odd minutes later with a working phone, was wonderful. Never again Virgin Mobile. You know where you can stick your phone.