Ive always disliked VM from the beginning becuz of their extremly cheap phones and lack of services (bluetooth to different phones, can only use VM ringtones that THEY provide...) but usually overall pretty decent. But then for the past couple weeks ive been trying to get a new phone because all the 'replacement' phones they send me dont work correctly and i sent it back. I am on my 2nd replacement phone and i have just recieved one Last monday and that one is also messed up. So I called them up to get a new phone and the guy i was talkin to hung up on me while I was on hold. I called back there the next day (because on was on the phone with them for so long that they closed) and talked to a different person and they said they were gonna put me on hold they just hung up again. Then my phone service got stopped for no reason, I was pissed and has een like that for a week now. SO i am stuck here waiting for my 3rd replacement phone and then i might get my service back working. If i had money to buy a new phone I would switch.

I like VM because it is very flexible - you can change plans easily or buy extra minutes or texts one month, and cut back the next. It works well for my daughter, who uses about 300 texts and minutes per month. She gets a $20 minute pack and 200 text pack every month automatically ($26.25 with 5% sales tax). When her minutes run low, she switches to 1000 minutes for $50 (only ~5 cents each), then switches back to $20 after 30 days. Each $50 adds $30 that month, or an average of $2.50/month. When the texts run low, she buys 200 more. If there is a lot of texting expected, she switches to 1000 for $10. Home from college, she switches to 200 texts or even 30 for $2 (you get this option within your account). It works for her. Customer service reps are well trained and polite, and their English is pretty good. TIP: Do not buy the $30/400 minute pack. You will always save money to use the $50/1000 pack when needed, then switch back to $20/200. Do the math.
I would try Page Plus 1200-1200 TnT for $30/mo. if her usage goes way up, but their roaming system is tricky, and their phones are all older models, mostly refurbs. I can use any Verizon phone (including a $20 prepaid model), but they only guarantee talk and text - OK for us.

Virgin Mobile has four things going for it. 1)Cheap phones
2)Sprint prepaid/mvno native network coverage.
3)Texters Delight Unlimited.
4)Kickbacks promos.

Thats it. Everything else, their rates, their customer service is a joke. If you want a better deal with WAYYY more phone choices, try the new Tmobile Even More Plus Flexpay monthly prepaid plans.

29.99 for 500 minutes/unlimited 9Pm nights/weekends/mobile to mobile.
39.99 for that plus unlimited regular phone internet.

For 39.99 with VM you get 300 anytime, 1000 minutes 7 pm nights/weekends, no mobile to mobile and 50 megs internet. Not even close.

Plus Tmobile has roaming. Sprint does not.

@Matt: Thanks for the comment. I have tried Straight Talk and wasn't able to port my phone number from VM. Thank goodness Walmart allowed me to return the phone and the minutes. I would give them another shot if they had a tank (and by that I mean an account balance as opposed to having to reload it once a month, or subscribe to autopay-which I don't like).

PlatinumTel seems like a good option for me. I used to have a Katana on Sprint, and I think I would like to use it again.

@Nikki: I have PlatinumTel and StraightTalk. I like them both and between the two, I have coverage pretty much anywhere. Can't beat two lines for well under 100.00

Forgot to add this:

When I meant that VM is not a bad company, I'm talking about pricing, phone selection, reception, and download options.

I agree with JJ Ramone. Smashing VM phones is extremely therapeutic LOL. I've been using VM for almost a year. I've switched to and from other services, and the only reason why I am currently using them now is because a few months ago they sent me a "random act of kindness" in the form of $40, no joke. $40 for free. The phone I was using was just sitting inactively in my drawer. I got an e-mail, (and later on a flyer in the mail notifying me) and checked the account. Sure enough, it was true.

However, my history with VM is too rocky (wiping my account out, months to get refund and had to involve the BBB at that, horrible customer service, denying me the right to speak with a supervisor, putting me on hold unnecessarily, number portability problems) to stay with them. I like the phone I have now which is the Arc in red. I got it from Wallyworld for $20 on clearance. Swweeeeetttt. But, since they've changed their website its really turned me off. It's too....young if you know what I mean. I also think there are much better deals out there. I don't think VM is a bad company. I've had enough bad customer service experiences to know that absolutely no company is perfect. It's just that there are much better deals out there. I'm thinking Page Plus or even PlatinumTel. I've got a lot of money to burn through first though.

To prepaidreviews.com: This website has been extremely helpful at selecting a company that is best for me. It's an invaluable resource. Thank you.

@ffmom - You would save money by going to PlatinumTel. PlatinumTel uses Sprint's network as well. They have more options and the rates go down to around 0.067 per minute.

"Award-winning" customer service? HA. Have had phone 10 days. Six emails (no response) and 6 phone calls, 6 trouble tickets and 2 hours on hold, I'm done. Ask for a supervisor and they send you to Hold Hell. Terrible service.

Grrrr! I was only supposed to be topped up when my account reached a very low level, but money was taken out anyway. Like Lisa, I tried to get a refund on the $200+ already in my account. Oh, they were willing to transfer it to a low, low 35 buck-a-month plan, on top of my already sizeable surplus, so that I could have the pleasure of paying extra just to access my own account! Thieves! Is this what funds RedBeard's across-th-world balloon trips? And don't get me started on the insolent bastardettes in customer service! Zero Stars, and damn them to call waiting Hell!

its strait && whatever the phons are cool stupid that you have to buy ringtones no competeive rates anymore i would reccomend it

I just use virgin mobile for a month, i hate it the service, i swicth to straight talk and i love it!! now i just recive a mail form virgin mobile saying they re giving me a full month free, so i charge my phone back and i will use the minutes but i'm not going back with this company, giving free mont minutes?? it looks like they do need customers lol

I've had VM for almost one year, 2 lines. Paying my bill thru website is horrid. I've been charged as many as 5x on one visit. takes forever to get refund. This month instead of my month to month plan they switched me to roll over minutes @ .20per. I noticed this right off could not switch my service to my REGULAR plan with out losing what I had just paid for 10 minuteas ago. they appologized gave me 1000 bonus minutes and said they hope to correct the internal error soon. I can't wait to be able to afford new phone and get out from this company!!

A cautionary word to people who have a $20.00 every 90 day top off plan, Virgin has put in a deceptive NEW MENU ITEM that will lock you into a 200 minute ($20.00) every 30 days when you go to top off! When I called from my phone right after I hit that wrong key, I used up 3 minutes, thus according to Virgin does not allow them to transfer that $20.00 to my former plan because it no longer is 200 minutes! But according to the rep I spoke with if I waited until just before the 30 days ended they would credit me the remaining minutes back into my 90 day plan. I called after 30 days and was told that they don't offer any such credit. But after much haggling, they would give me $7.50 of my remaining $16.00! Then they hung up on me. I called back and was told nothing in my account info showed any credit offer and they were not going to give me any of my remaining $16.00 back! Told the very rude service "manager" that I would like to transfer my balance from what is a 10 CENT-PER-MINUTE PLAN to a higher 20 CENT-PER-MINUTE PLAN and if I couldn't get her to do that Virgin would lose a customer. SHE DID NOT CARE! We're sorry sir, but we don't want you to have a service plan that meets your limited calling needs even though we'll be making twice as much per minute! As Spock would say... Very Illogical.
I took my two active Virgin phones out to the garage and smashed them to bits! (surprisingly very refreshing!) Then I went down to a T-Mobile store, bought a phone and a $100.00 (1000 minute) top off card that does not need to be refreshed for 1 YEAR! The very helpful rep set up the phone on the spot, filled me in on the plan and gave me a half price discount on a protective case. So I went from Virgin's 20 cents to T-Mobile's 10 cents per minute, don't have to top off every three months and most importantly I don't have to deal with less than honest Virgin reps who don't care about long time customers.

A cautionary word to people who have a $20.00 every 90 day top off plan, Virgin has put in a deceptive NEW MENU ITEM that will lock you into a 200 minute ($20.00) every 30 days when you go to top off! When I called from my phone right after I hit that wrong key, I used up 3 minutes, thus according to Virgin does not allow them to transfer that $20.00 to my former plan because it no longer is 200 minutes! But according to the rep I spoke with if I waited until just before the 30 days ended they would credit me the remaining minutes back into my 90 day plan. I called after 30 days and was told that they don't offer any such credit. But after much haggling, they would give me $7.50 of my remaining $16.00! Then they hung up on me. I called back and was told nothing in my account info showed any credit offer and they were not going to give me any of my remaining $16.00 back! Told the very rude service "manager" that I would like to transfer my balance from what is a 10 CENT-PER-MINUTE PLAN to a higher 20 CENT-PER-MINUTE PLAN and if I couldn't get her to do that Virgin would lose a customer. SHE DID NOT CARE! We're sorry sir, but we don't want you to have a service plan that meets your limited calling needs even though we'll be making twice as much per minute! As Spock would say... Very Illogical.
I took my two active Virgin phones out to the garage and smashed them to bits! (surprisingly very refreshing!) Then I went down to a T-Mobile store, bought a phone and a $100.00 (1000 minute) top off card that does not need to be refreshed for 1 YEAR! The very helpful rep set up the phone on the spot, filled me in on the plan and gave me a half price discount on a protective case. So I went from Virgin's 20 cents to T-Mobile's 10 cents per minute, don't have to top off every three months and most importantly I don't have to deal with less than honest Virgin reps who don't care about long time customers.

Customer service has gone downhill. Rates are not competitive anymore . They also to offer features like parental controls and GPS locator (similar to Kajeet) .

Beware! It's cheap, but you get what you pay for. The website is absolutely horrendous and buggy. Totally unreliable. It continued to draw money from my PayPal account for several months even though each month I would go online and cancel the AutoTopUp ( the website always indicated I terminated the autotopup successfully). Finally today I called to speak to a live human (on distant shores) who stopped AutoTopUp, but also broke the link to my paypal account. And now I can't restore a paypal link on the website! Oh and it's randomly locked me out several times. And it's clearly designed for 13 years old, not grown adults. I'm so frustrated and angry that I'm very close to switching to someone else.

I am so sick trying to get through the robot to a "live advisor". It is so frustrating. I hate this company.

No problems with reception. No problems with customer service. Good value. Like most the rollover minutes on the minute pack arrangement. Have tons of minutes at a much cheaper monthly rate than my prior 2 year contract services. Would recommend the service.

Customer service is poor. Returning a phone is difficult and took forever to get a return mailing address. Their phone selection is better than some and plans are good, all be it complicated. The poor customer service is what really makes vm annoying.

Average service. No better Customer care

I have been with Virgin Mobile for 4 years now. I only use the phone to make and receive calls. I don't use it for texting or searching the web. I've had three phones with VM and currently have the UT Starcom Arc... phone works well, no dropped calls.

For what I use my phone for, VM is the best deal for me.

As for customer service, I've never had a problem with the phone that needed the assistance of a live agent.

They <bad word> suck!!!!! They have consistantly stole money every time I Top Up my account. Just recently they took $7 dollars for no good reason. I pay the $6.99 a month, they took that $6.99 from my Top Up money two months ago instead of my credit card, because they did that, my Top Up account was low and they would shut down my pre-pain cell phone if I didn't Top Up again. These people a re just sweet hearts! Anyone want to contact me on this crap, email thecontinuumaatjunodottkom.

Used to be decent but after 6 years with them, I am switching. I advise you do not give them your credit card number and especially do not choose automatic top up (they claim they will withdraw from your account when your balance is low, but they make too many "mistakes", taking the $ but stopping service, anyway.) Use only a Top Up Card to pay. Also, make sure too check your daily activity records frequently and save them using "Screen Grab" or print a hard copy (each page) because they have become dishonest in charging for services never used. You will need records going back 90 days, and they only make them available for the last 60 days. Customer service is now horrible.

Thieves!
I enrolled both my mother and my husband in Virgin Mobile "pay as you go" because both required very limited use of a cell phone. My elderly mother has since moved in with us, and my police officer husband had to quit the force because of brain cancer. I THEN discovered that Virgin Mobile had continuously automatically withdrawn funds from their checking accounts - Mom has a balance of $163, and my husband a balance of $215. I was told that Virgin Mobile doesn't give "refunds" - I don't consider it a REFUND to expect to have my UNSPENT money back. I call that stealing. Instead, I was told that our only recourse is to use up minutes, and we would now be charged A HIGHER RATE PER MINUTE. What a crummy way of treating people. I will never use Virgin Mobile again and will warn others not to, either.

Been with Virgin Mobile for 4 years, gone through 3 phones. Last month I lost my phone and they sent me a new one for free all I had to pay was for shipping. Customer service can be frustrating and coverage can be better. How ever it is the cheapest pre paid phone service out there. I was thinking of quitting Virgin Mobile but after checking out Tracphone, Verison and others Virgin is the best deal for my money.

I had two phones with Virgin for about 6 years. For light users, they USED TO BE great! Coverage is not so hot, but I can live with that. Their customer service USED TO BE great. Now it doesn't exist. I ordered a new phone, couldn't activate it on line; couldn't activate it through the phone, made 3 attempts to reach by land line and was on hold for over 20 minutes each time before giving up. Sent 3 e-mails. The first time I got a response saying the e-mail wasn't working. The other two generated autoresponses but not any answers. Amazing! There is no way to contact these people! I wonder if they've gone out of business?

I have been a customer for 5+ years and have been on the same plan all this time. I use the prepay since I'm only going to use it occasionally for convenience or emergencies. I top up automatically from my checking and average about $15 every other month. I had a problem recently and had to contact customer service were they told me my plan was no longer available. Thankfully I lost the call and spoke with someone later to find that I was grandfathered in and as long as I kept my plan going it would not change. For this reason I will always question anything that may cost me extra it's probably best to speak with a supervisor or ask for someone with allot of experience. That wasn't the first time I got wrong info. My older phone was Kyocera had better battery life than my new replacement also a Kyocera but the phone and battery are smaller too. Dead Zone is my real complaint since I live in a valley in a very rural area however I get to the top of my hill and I have reception thru most of my area even though the site shows those areas as also being a dead zone. I get excellent reception in all the more populated areas around me.Basically I like my plan, service and phone for the very cheap price of the convenience.
better service area reception would be nice.

I have tried for 3 days to talk to a customer service rep and all I get is a recording asking me what do I want
Then it states it didnt hear my response and starts all over again
then it kept me on hold for ove 30 mins
playing the same thing all over again
if this is what the company has to
offer I will never have them as my phone carrier

This is a good company and it works better than any company.

I have a teenage daughter and we LOVE Virgin Mobile's 20.00 a month unlimited texting. After looking at other programs, I found that having no daily/monthly access charges is a big plus. However, their phones are cheaply made and we have had three in one year. The last one broke after only 10 days. We have not been satisfied with their "customer service" department. Many agents speak with heavy accents and are hard to understand and, while we have found they will fix problems, it is a very long process. However, as cheap as it is, we'll probably keep coming back until we find something similar or better.

basic calls work ok but texts arrive days late. bought a smart phone and have had endless problems customer service say contradictory things. have never been able to use vidcalls and internet is intermittent. coverage poor. reception poor. customer service condascending . best avoid this carrier.

I have been dealing with this company for the last 6 months. Their plans are not fully explained on their web site and the customer service rep I talked with gave me misleading information, costing me more money. I've read a number of comments on this site and would some up Virgin Mobile with this, cheap prices cheap company. If going with this company keep in mind you get what you pay for. I'll still use their cheap plans until they price me out, keeping in mind what a cheap company I'm working with. I doubt I'll be with them a year from now.

I have used virgin mobile for many years. It was good for light users averging less than $ 10 per month. Some shortcomings like losing service after crossing border was minor. But plan detail changes that effectively raising prices has went over my tolerance. I was on 18 cents/min plan(which has been replaced by 20 cent/minute). There was a time daily usage over 10 minutes gets a discount to be 10 cents/minute after 10 minutes on a given day. That discount is gone. I recently bought a 400 minute pack for travel use. Only to found out 400 minute pack only work as 167 minutes because this long-time customer was on 18 cents/minute plan (not 20 cent/min plan).
Now that I don't need to use 400 minute pack any time soon in the future, the customer service kindly put me on the 20 cent/minute plan!
I will give T mobile a try

Wow, I was just about to transfer to Virgin Mobile (VM) when I read the statements below. Exact same "night-mare" w/ Customer Service @ Straight Talk. Nobody speaks English, everyone says whatever they want, one contradicts the other. "Supervisor" will get back w/in 24 hours--still waiting 2 weeks later for that to happen. Got my phone, can't connect Bluetooth. Took it to two phone centers, they couldn't do it either. If I send the phone back, I'll be without service.
Stay away from "Straight Talk," you've heard of jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

I totally regret choosing this plan. Their "customer care" associates don't really care. If they did, they would speak up to the head honchos at Virgin & tell them that their website stinks. & their excuse is always "we're upgrading it to better our customer care". Bull! The more they upgrade, the more they mess things up. Customers can't access their accounts to even find out how many minutes they have left. Or even to top up on your minutes. In my opinion, they should just give up.

Wow, I really wish it was an option to give Virgin Mobile negative stars. They put me under so much stress, it's ridiculous. I've had six Virgin Mobile phones, and after a while they all have the same problem. At first, I reasoned it was because I got the really cheap phones, so I just waited until I got the money and got the X-Tc. I had the same problems. I got the majority of my messages late, my messages would send late, my phone would turn off randomly, and the sound would just turn on. The other day, my friend sent me a picture message. She just sent it once and I got it ninety three times. It would NOT stop sending to my phone. I restarted it, activated it again and everything, and the messages still wouldn't go through. The majority of their phones are Kyocera, and their chargers break extremely easily. No one in their customer service department speaks English, and they'll only help you if you say that you want to go somewhere else. Virgin Mobile SUCKS. I can't wait until I get on a real plan, where service providers speak English, and I don't have to get three replacement phones. I hate Virgin Mobile.

The voicemail feature is atrocious. You must use 2 message units just to access the feature. After listening to the voicemail you must quickly press a key to erase it; otherwise your phone will be ringing hourly displaying a message indicating that you have a new message-actually it's the one you've already listened to. The coverage maps are also a fantasy since they bear no relationship to reality.

I have been on the phone for two days with many different people. Most I could not understand. I want to activate my phone online so I can use a referral code. Won't ork. They can't get it to work either. One said they can activate it online, but won't get our bonus referal minutes. One told me to shut down whole computer, try again - nope didn't work. After 2 days the last lady said they are having problems. They are working on it. Maybe it will work again in two days...

September 10TH 2009

Trying to add mintues to my cellular phone with a prepaid calling card of $50.00 dollars that I purchased from Best Buy Store at Crossgate Mall.

i give them four stars cause ive had good service through them and the minute pack deals are pretty good,also if your going to activate a phone u can use code zTucwpD6 under referal and we both get 60 free minutes

Always coming out with new stuff...surprisingly quick web browser with full html access. reasonably priced plan. Opera mini browser pre installed on my phone. Nice looking interface and phone.

However, my rumor 2 has really crappy battery life, not enough applications available. Would like to see Virgin release a smartphone and unlimited data plan, though the browser uses surprisingly little of your allowance for data. As with most prepaid providers, would like to see virgin mobile catch up to their contract phone line technologically.

Virgin was good, but their prices have gone up too much and their phones are just ok, sometimes they have good phones and sometimes they don't.

I've had virgin mobile for 2 years now and the company has been improving it's service and phones. I think overall the service its good considering it's pre-paid. It uses the sprint network so coverage is not bad, at least where i live. I rarely have less than 3 bars. I found out that virgin mobile was bought by sprint so we should see some better phones and better features. I would recommend the service to those who are just looking for basic calling and texting.

The phone is fair, the service is fair. If you need help with your Virgin Cell Phone, forget it no one talks or understands english and if you forget or loose your Vkey number no one will help you. They will tell you to close out your account and re-open. This means you loose all the money you have invested. do not buy virgin

gee, i've been using this company for about 5 years now. have the cheapest, oldest phone you can buy, never have a problem with it or accessing the network AND recently had some mysterious text charges appear on my account and without a moment's hesitation they refunded the charges when i questioned them. i think they're terrific. i think they use the AT&T network, or maybe it's Sprint, I can't remember, but it's one of the bigger networks so if you have a problem, you'd probably have it anyway using someone else with the exception of Verizon.

I wouldn't give them any stars if it were an option. Their plans may be competitive but everything else is horrible. Their phones are cheap and have to be replaced on a yearly basis. As my year was coming up I decided to buy a phone online (big mistake). After I received my phone, I tried it out and really didn't like it. I called customer service as instructed. After struggling to get through a 'live agent' I got a return number. I mailed my phone back and 2 months later I still haven't gotten my money back. I have emailed and called several times (and am still doing it) and still nothing! I paid $90 for that phone and do not have it. I was a customer of theirs for almost 3 years. I think it's time to move on!

Hi, just a tip I figured out. I bought a $20 data plan for 50bytes of data. I wanted to be able to check my email, facebook, etc, and do use it about an hour, every day. I have used it about 2 weeks, an hour a day and still have 49.2 b out of 50b left. Buy the $5 one dont waste your money, it lasts forever!!! Or maybe the $10 one for the 30 days, you will no way use up the 50 in a month, I havent even used 1b in 2 weeks and I check my hotmail and go on facebook about an hour a day.. Lesson learned...

Just email them, don't call! We live in a digital age now. I accidentally bought the minutepack one time and they *fully* refunded me within an hour after I sent them an email.

I dont think VM treats their customers very well. I read that they are offering a plan 120 minutes for only 10 dollars but they are only offering it in certain areas and for low-income people. This is something that should be offered to everyone. I think people need to let virgin know that they need to be fair and offer to everyone and cut everyone a break.