Hello (again) Virgin Mobile. Good bye Virgin Mobile?

Weird Stuff

After nearly a week of wasting my time with Virgin Mobile Canada, I am giving it my best last try using hard-learned customer support skills:

….Follow up to the phone call on Thursday and lack of returned call.

I am unable to activate my new HTC Wildfire S phone on a pre-paid plan. I enter SIM card and IMEA number, confirm the phone model and the next screen says “Oh no”.

I called and spoke to the service representative on Thursday and they escalated the issue to the technical team and promised to call back within two days. I was not given a tracking number despite asking for one.

I have just tried activation again and the problem is still there.

Unless this problem is solved by tomorrow (Tuesday) 12pm, I will be returning the phone and using a different provider.

The sim card’s number is 8….., IMEA number is: 3…..

I have another pre-paid phone with Virgin that I gave to my spouse. Unless this is resolved, I will be switching that number to another provider as well, as it will simplify plan and Credit Card management.

If you do manage the solve the problem, please email me, as I am hard to reach by land line.

Regards,

Alex.

As an aside, HTC Wildfire S is a very nice portable internet/Android device. Can’t comment on the phone quality, I am afraid. 🙂

(Update)

And now for the idiotic and absolutely irrelevant response two days later:

Good day to you Alexandre,

Thank you for sending us your concern and we hope that you are doing fine.  You got Jericho from Virgin Mobile Canada prepaid email department and we can definitely tell you what to do to activate your new HTC Wildfire S phone.  Let me go ahead and tell you what you need to know.

We’re sorry to hear that you are having a hard time activating your new HTC Wildfire S phone.  You must ensure your phone is compatible:

o       Must be HSPA (or UMTS)

o       850 MHz and 1900 MHz compatible

o       You can check compatibility here; http://www.virginmobile.ca/en/support/faq.html?q=006

If your phone is compatible then all you have to do is to purchase a Virgin Mobile SIM!  Just follow the regular activation online or through Care.

·  When it comes to grey market phones, we only support voice & text.

·  Data may work, but we cannot guarantee it.

·  Unlocked Smartphones must have the browser & messaging settings manually configured if you are to be used for browsing or picture messaging, call Customer Service for assitance.

·  A compatible BlackBerry or Talk & Text Phone will configure itself.

As nice as it would be, any balance that you have on your old service provider will not be transfered to our network.  Sorry about that.

If you need further assistance, feel free to give us a call at 1.888.999.2321 and a friendly Customer Service representative will be more than happy to assist you live.

We¿re only a phone call away.

Monday - Saturday: 8am to Midnight (EST)

Sunday: 9am to 10pm (EST)

I believe that you can definitely activate that phone by yourself.  Take care and have a good day!

Sincerely,

Jericho

VMC Team

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Why is it irrelevant:

  • I have provided both SIM card and IMEI numbers. It is easy to verify that they both came from Virgin Mobile. Therefore the whole section about gray market phone, etc is not relevant
  • I gave the phone model which was bought from them, they know it is compatible
  • I mentioned that there is already an internal investigation related to the case and they obviously did not bother to look it up
  • They did not give a single step that is not already on the website (I just love I believe that you can definitely activate that phone by yourself.  Take care and have a good day!)

In the end, I called the semi-secret activation-troubles number (1 888 847 4465) and had them do the activation manually and put in the internal request to give me online self-activation bonus, since their website was the one at fault. We will see how it goes.

I had reasonable experience with Virgin Mobile USA, but the Canadian subsidiary is starting to look like the Village Idiot. I wonder what the experience is in the other countries.