gstelmack
04-04-2007, 08:43 PM
So, my wife and I use Virgin Mobile for a pre-paid cell phone plan. We use our phones mostly for emergencies or the occasional find-each-other-after-splitting-up-in-the-mall issues, so maybe 2-3 minutes per month max. We signed up for an auto-topup every 3 months plan that basically means each of our phones is running us $5/month. For those doing the math, this means we are a huge profit center for the company as we maybe use $.50 worth of the $5/month they are getting out of us, but we are happy because it's much cheaper than any other phone option.
Then my phone tries to auto-topup this weekend and fails. Not because of the credit card (which actually shows the pending transaction / hold for the topup amount), but because their processor has some issue. 2 days later, it's still going on, and now I basically have no phone. They can try to do a manual topup, but there are two issues: first, they have no idea if the processor problem is fixed so it may fail as well, and second they can't do the $15 auto-topup this way, only a $20 manual topup. So, they want to charge me an extra $5 for a problem on THEIR end. And this means that if an auto-topup fails, they throw their hands up and make you do a manual one. To me, this stinks to high heaven. They ought to be able to reset the auto-topup to try again in a few days, and reactivate my phone (they have $90 sitting on account that would take a 6 HOUR phone call to chew through). Heck, with my account standing, someone ought to be able to say "We're sorry, we'll just fool the system into thinking the topup happened, and in 3 months it will try to auto-topup again, and by that time we'll have our heads out of our asses and our system should be working." I'm not asking for that, but I am asking that I don't pay extra or lose my phone because they screwed up.
I have the nastygram (well, okay, I was actually nice and patient, but I wanted to yell and scream in it) e-mail in saying two front-line phone techs can't help, so get me someone who can, but in the meantime I'm doing my research in case they decide to be all corporate and I have to switch (on the principle of the thing, I'll go back to a $30/month carrier rather than stay with someone who can't fix what should be a simple issue).
So, anyone have other prepaid cell phone plans that don't charge too much per month (I'd love to end up in the $5-$10 per month range for only a couple of minutes used) and have decent quality? I've seen some TracFone stuff at Target, but I'm not sure what else is out there. Suggestions?
Then my phone tries to auto-topup this weekend and fails. Not because of the credit card (which actually shows the pending transaction / hold for the topup amount), but because their processor has some issue. 2 days later, it's still going on, and now I basically have no phone. They can try to do a manual topup, but there are two issues: first, they have no idea if the processor problem is fixed so it may fail as well, and second they can't do the $15 auto-topup this way, only a $20 manual topup. So, they want to charge me an extra $5 for a problem on THEIR end. And this means that if an auto-topup fails, they throw their hands up and make you do a manual one. To me, this stinks to high heaven. They ought to be able to reset the auto-topup to try again in a few days, and reactivate my phone (they have $90 sitting on account that would take a 6 HOUR phone call to chew through). Heck, with my account standing, someone ought to be able to say "We're sorry, we'll just fool the system into thinking the topup happened, and in 3 months it will try to auto-topup again, and by that time we'll have our heads out of our asses and our system should be working." I'm not asking for that, but I am asking that I don't pay extra or lose my phone because they screwed up.
I have the nastygram (well, okay, I was actually nice and patient, but I wanted to yell and scream in it) e-mail in saying two front-line phone techs can't help, so get me someone who can, but in the meantime I'm doing my research in case they decide to be all corporate and I have to switch (on the principle of the thing, I'll go back to a $30/month carrier rather than stay with someone who can't fix what should be a simple issue).
So, anyone have other prepaid cell phone plans that don't charge too much per month (I'd love to end up in the $5-$10 per month range for only a couple of minutes used) and have decent quality? I've seen some TracFone stuff at Target, but I'm not sure what else is out there. Suggestions?