How is it possible to talk for 47 seconds and get charged for 2 minutes on your pre-paid phone? Apparently, that’s Virgin Mobile’s secret policy according to one Virgin CSR. Their stated policy is to round up to the nearest whole minute, but one reader has been examining his bill and asking questions. Reader Kyle noticed that whenever he talks for more than 45 seconds into any particular minute, Virgin Mobile doesn’t just round up to the next minute, but to the minute after that. For example from Kyle’s January bill:

01/26/2007 – 11:59am
Talked: 3min 50sec
Charged: 5min

01/27/2007 – 1:22pm
Talked: 45sec
Charged 2min

Kyle had to compare the call duration on his phone to the one on his bill in order to confirm his suspicions. He’s sent us photos and screen shots from February as evidence. From his email:

After talking to three customer service reps I found one who knew of a little undocumented policy. Once you reach 45 seconds into your minute it rounds up by two. For example a 1:45 call will be rounded up to 3.

This policy is not mentioned anywhere on the Virgin Mobile site and the rep even admitted he didn’t think it was.

If true, this is clearly unacceptable. We are, of course, not ruling out the possibility that Virgin has a method for calculating call-time that is different from Kyle’s phone’s. However, Kyle says that a CSR from Virgin told him about this policy.

Have any of you experienced a disparity between what your phone says and what Virgin charges? Has a Virgin customer service rep been able to explain the charges to your satisfaction? We’d like to hear about it: tips [at] consumerist [dot] com.—MEGHANN MARCO

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