virgin-mobile

Sprint Also Making Upgrade Program Suck More
Not wanting to be left out of the party, Sprint became the latest carrier to announce it's going to make it more expensive for customers to upgrade. More »

Virgin Killing Off Unlimited Mobile Broadband Plan
Say "sayonara" to another unlimited mobile plan, Virgin is adding a 5GB cap and throttle to its $40 "Unlimited Broadband2Go" MiFi plan. After you surpass the threshold in a month, your transfer speeds will get reduced to 256 kbps or lower for the rest of the month. The changes go into effect Feb 15. Happy Valentines Day. More »

Virgin Mobile And Walmart Team Up To Make Great Mobile Broadband Plan Disappear
Scott tried to do a nice thing and buy a low-cost, low-bandwidth mobile Internet plan for his mother. Unfortunately, there's some confusion between Virgin and Walmart, and the plan that Scott thought he was buying has disappeared into a reality vortex. One where customer service reps insist that he purchased the item from Walmart.com when he didn't. More »

Tag-Team Unhelpfulness From Best Buy And Virgin Keeps My Cell Phone Dead
Andrew bought a Samsung Intercept phone from Best Buy and hoped to activate it on his active Virgin Mobile account. But after he bought the phone, he discovered it wouldn't be possible to activate it until later this month. Now he's stuck without phone service and doesn't know whom to blame. More »

Sprint Announces Plans For Fourth Prepaid Mobile Brand
As they continue to lose traditional contract subscribers, Sprint has begun focusing more and more attention on the prepaid mobile market. Today, the company announced it's about to launch a fourth prepaid mobile brand. More »

Virgin Mobile Isn't Quite Clear On The Meaning Of "Playlist"
Jennifer writes that she bought a new phone, a Samsung Mantra, based on the features listed for the phone on Virgin Mobile's web site. The problem is that the phone doesn't actually seem to have the advertised features that led her to buy the phone in the first place. More »

Save Serious Money On Your Cell Phone Bill By Making One Phone Call
Theresa had a contract with Helio/Virgin Mobile that ended this month, putting her in a position to negotiate. She writes that by comparison shopping and politely asking for the customer retention department, she and her girlfriend were able to knock $35 per month off the bill for their family plan. Here's how she did it. More »

Sprint Nextel Purchases $483 Million In Virgin Mobile Prepaid Minutes

—>Sprint Nextel announced this morning that they will purchase Virgin Mobile USA. The company, which specializes in prepaid mobile phone service, started as a joint venture between Sprint and Virgin, and Sprint owns 13% of their stock. Virgin Mobile USA phones already use the Sprint network.  More »

Virgin Mobile Offers To Pay Your Phone Bill For 3 Months If You Get Laid Off

—>Starting tomorrow, Virgin Mobile will offer all customers who sign up for $30 or more post-paid plans coverage under their free Pink Slip program, which means if you get laid off and can provide proof, they'll pay your cellphone bill for three months, and you won't have to put a Skype number on your resume.  More »

This Virgin Mobile FAQ Is Honest, But Not Very Helpful

—>Reader Aiden was considering buying a Virgin Mobile phone, but he had some questions about their Studio V program. (It allows you to make wallpapers and ringtones and sell them for $0.10 in airtime credit to other Virgin Mobile users.) The FAQ he found was honest, but not very helpful.  More »

Sprint Hires 150 More Customer Service Reps
Verizon: 1.1%  More »

Be Your Own Wireless Company

If just half of one percent of the group's 5 million members sign up for NWF [National Wildlife Federation] Mobile, the program stands to generate more than $100,000 a year, says Greg Griffith, director of cause-related marketing at NWF. The organization's other affinity programs and corporate outreach generate some $3.5 million a year today. Based on the response to NWF Mobile's first ad, Griffith expects as many as 5% of NWF's members to sign up&—more, in fact, than the number currently using the group's affinity credit cards. "People will say, 'I spend this much on a phone anyway, I might as well spend on the cause I care about,' " Griffith says.

Bad news for Virgin Mobile, good news for panda bears. —MEGHANN MARCO  More »

Canceling A Virgin Mobile Account is Extremely Difficult

Did I want to Top Up? Did I want to Upgrade My Account? Did I want to Buy An Amazing New Phone? No, no, no. I wanted to get rid of my old and mediocre phone and wash my hands of my old account. JUST LET ME OUT! my mind (and occasionally my mouth) screamed. I WANT THE NO HASSLE NO CONTRACT PART. By that point I would've rather paid a cancellation fee. Any supposed benefits to "no commitment" phones were mercilessly mocking me.  More »

The News: Hungover, Hating Self, World
• CMP Media trying to >prevent anyone from using the term Web 2.0. God, at least somebody is. [NYT]  More »