[Electronics-talk] Virgin Mobile USA: Faulty Products, Horrible Customer Service

[Sean Lundy]

I'm posting this to more than one list, so it may be a little off topic on
a couple of them. If so, I apologize; I just want as many people as
possible to see it.

I recently bought a Motorola Triumph smartphone from the prepay cell
provider Virgin Mobile (owned by Sprint) for about $300. This phone is
supposed to include a feature called Zoom Mode, which acts like a
magnifying glass by dragging it over the screen. For some reason, Zoom Mode
wasn't installed on the phone they sent. After having to wait three days
for a response to my email, they finally offered to send a replacement.
Unfortunately, the replacement phone had the exact same defect. I had to
wait three more days for Virgin Mobile to tell me to call their tech
support, which I did. There was nothing the tech could do, so he asked for
a contact number and told me he was going to escalate and that they would
get back to me within three days, which to my knowledge never happened.

They claim to have a 30-day money back guarantee, so a couple days ago I
called them to inquire about sending the phone back and getting a refund. I
was told that I couldn't get a refund for a replacement. Long story short,
I ended up getting yelled at by one rep (whom I couldn't understand half
the time because of his bad English) and hung up on by a supervisor (whom I
also could barely understand for the same reason) after I explained that
both phones had the exact same defect. The problem was on their end, not
mine.

The supervisor told me they tried to contact me on the 9th. Even if this
were true, I originally called on the 3rd, so it took them six days to try
to notify me instead of the three the tech advised me it would take. I sent
an email to Virgin Mobile to tell them how disappointed I was. describing
in detail everything they had done wrong. I explained that I was legally
blind and I need Zoom Mode in order to use the phone to its full extent, so
if they had sent a notification by text, there's not really any way I could
know about it. I made a comparison to telling a paraplegic that he would
have to walk up the stairs to get to a wheelchair.

I have yet to get a response from Virgin Mobile. For every email I've sent
so far, I've gotten an auto-response saying I will hear back within 24
hours. After about three days, I finally get an answer with a script
apology, saying they took so long because they've been receiving more
inquiries than expected. Maybe they're getting inundated by emails telling
them how great their service is LOL.

I don't expect to ever get my $300 back from Virgin Mobile USA. I'm just
doing whatever I can to advise those who need adaptive technology, and
everyone else for that matter, against this incompetent, unethical company.