So, I'm switching from Verizon to Virgin Mobile and I called Verizon about a week ago to ask about the process of cancelling my service. My contract is up and I wanted to go with Virgin Mobile because it's supposed to be $45 less a month for me. The guy I spoke to at Verizon gave me the impression that, as long as I cancelled before my next bill is due, I wouldn't owe anything else and then my service would just stop on the 18th. Today I called them back to officially cancel, since I got my Virgin Mobile phone and it is activated and running. ...And I was told that I am required to pay for another month. Now, this would be just fiiiiiine with me if I'd been told before that I'd still owe them money because then I would have held off on getting the phone and paying for service with Virgin Mobile, that way I could, you know, afford to pay another $60 to Verizon.
This all happened after a grueling day of battle with Virgin Mobile's customer service, however. It was like the molding icing (Verizon) on a festering, rotting piece of cake (Virgin Mobile).
Virgin Mobile charged me three times for my first month of service. The service is $25 a month. I was charged three times for a total of $75 (plus some tax). And what did I get for three times the amount I should have payed? My voicemail doesn't work, my internet doesn't work, and I had to fight for text messaging which finally works.
The last time I called Virgin Mobile I demanded to speak to a supervisor because not a single other person had helped me at all. They all kept telling me to do different things that even to me seemed completely ridiculous and unlikely to fix the problem. Virgin Mobile's customer service people really have no idea at all what they're talking about. The supervisor finally got me a refund of $26.50, half of what I am owed. But at this point I've still paid double, have no voicemail, and no 3G internet. ...And may owe Verizon $60. I'm waiting to be called back by a Verizon supervisor to find out for certain what is going to happen with that.
Update on the situation: I recently went to check my voicemail to see if maybe, just maybe it might be working. I dialed my voicemail... and someone picked up. Someone picked up and spoke in their very real I-am-a-human-picking-up-the-phone-when-y
I called back again and they answered again. No, it definitely wasn't a one-time thing, as the virgin mobile person I promptly contacted tried to insinuate. No worries. She'll make out yet another report about it so it'll be good and investigated.
The whole point of this was to try to save money. My finances are feeling so very sad right now.