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Virgin Mobile has hit a roadblock trying to introduce its new $40 unlimited Broadband2Go service that was due to launch today. It turns out the company cannot figure out how to update its computer systems to accept and properly bill the new unlimited service.
The prepaid division of Sprint issued a sheepish apology on the company’s Twitter feed postponing the introduction of the new service, now promising a launch “within the next two days.”
The launch failure by the prepaid provider comes after considerable press attention about the introduction of the new unlimited plan and yesterday’s press release heralding unlimited mobile broadband that nobody can actually buy.
The result has been customer confusion and accusations of “bait and switch” advertising.
Stop the Cap! has received a number of e-mails that confuse the company’s old pricing, still on the website, with the new pricing still to take effect. Most believed the company was playing games with the word “unlimited,” thinking Virgin had actually limited the new “unlimited” plan to just 1GB of usage. But that’s the old usage-limited pricing.
Virgin Mobile customer service has not helped. Several of our readers called the provider which relies on an overseas call center. Those customer service representatives never heard of the company’s unlimited service plan and denied they had one.
Virgin Mobile’s social media outlets acknowledge the problems, telling readers their customer service department cannot accept new orders or activations. That has sparked some negative comments, especially on the company’s Facebook page.
We recommend consumers avoid signing up for the service until the unlimited plan appears on Virgin Mobile’s website. We also recommend you stay away from phone activations — Virgin Mobile’s overseas customer service agents do not inspire confidence. Some customers who jumped the gun and “topped-up” their Virgin Mobile accounts now find they are paying for Virgin Mobile’s original pricing. Customer service will not apply funds to the new unlimited service until after the customer exhausts their current usage-limited plan.
Other stories of interest:
- Virgin Mobile Introducing Unlimited Mobile Wireless Broadband $40 A Month on Sprint Network
- Virgin Mobile Introduces Prepaid Broadband2Go At Prices2High
- Virgin Mobile Broadband Increasing Usage Allowances, While Maintaining Existing Pricing; Cricket Could Be Next
- Verizon Wireless Introducing Prepaid Mobile Broadband – 5GB for $80: ‘Way Overpriced,’ Critics Say
- AT&T Calls ‘Data Connect Unlimited’ Customers for Overusing Their ‘Unlimited’ Service
Crap happens. I’m looking forward to VMo getting this all sorted out…when the unlimited plan goes live I’ll be grabbing a data card from Wal-Mart…I’ll be interested to see what the limit *actually* ends up being when it comes to throttling/disconnection/etc.
Also, wonder whether T-Mobile will do anything to their prepaid offerings to match this. I’ll bet AT&T and Verizon will do absolutely nothing.
I wouldn’t worry much about topping up early. Worst case is you’ve signed up for the wrong plan for one month. It’s not like a typical contract-based carrier where once you’ve signed up, you may be locked in for years.
I agree Ian and Greg…I have the Broadband2go USB and It works quite descent. I haven’t had any lost connections and it works just as well as my boyfriend verizon’s air card and my mom’s sprint air card. I have a Macbook and am not sure if this is why it works so great. I will just continue to purchase the $10 100 MB plan until unlimited is launched. I am a little disappointed but I love not being in a contract.
I was topping off my VM broadband2go August 24, 2010, for $20. Now all my screen has been saying for the past 2 days is “Esperate Alli” when I try to log in my account . . . it says account # not valid. I called tech support 4 times, the latest this morning, all they keep saying is they are working on the problem and to try to log in again in like 24 hrs. In the meantime they’ve taken my $20 and the clock keeps ticking on my 30 days expiration of my megs. So now I got no internet at home for the past 2 days!! Come on VM get this problem fixed or give me my $$ back!!!!
Try writing social@virginmobile.com and explaining the situation. Their social media people seem to be more responsive than calling the overseas customer support centers.
Make sure you include your Virgin Mobile number.
I agree – the socialmedia folks seem much more responsive than the call center drones.
I had the same problem as Cosmo and posted a comment on the Virgin Mobile Facebook page. Within about 15 minutes a Virgin Mobile rep commented back and asked me to email social@virginmobile.com with my problem and acct #. I did, and they got back to me within an hour:
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Hi Kevin,
Thank you for letting me know about this. I’ve sent your issue through to Care and they should be reaching out as soon as they can. If you do not hear back within 24 business hours, please let me know.
Thanks,
Lisa
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I’ll post any followup or resolution here.
I was contacted by the Executive Escalation Dept at Sprint and explained the issue.
This morning, suddenly everything worked fine.
I don’t know if they actually did anything specific for my account or if VM just finally got it’s act together and fixed their system problems – either way, I’m good to go.
But, does it work? Is it functional or would it be a good idea to wait until they get their feces together?
I agree that “crap happens” however, this type of thing really shouldn’t happen. It sounds like end-to-end testing was either not done, or done poorly. It really is pretty pathetic and points to poor execution; no excuses. That said, now that it’s apparently working, it really is a good option for people to consider.
Now that it’s working – I’ve had few complaints.
I’ve only used it in a couple places, but have always had a strong signal and good connection.
I’m only using it for relatively lite bandwidth stuff – email, web browsing, etc and haven’t tried to do any benchmarks for bandwidth.
One thing I did notice – and I don’t know if it is because my current plan is the old, pre-”all you can eat”, $20 plan (I activated before the new plans were available, after being lied to by a VM phone rep) – but it looks like that $20/mo (30 days/300MB) is still available. It is still listed on my login page (along with the old $10 and new $40 unlimited plan as an option to purchase. I was under the impression that that plan was supposed to be going away.