For five years, Dan Lundquist and Judith Felker of Edina had nothing but satisfaction with their Virgin Mobile USA cell phone service.
Customers just can't connect with phone firm on billing error
June 14, 2008 at 11:14PM
Then, in March, their account got charged $16.60 for calls that should have cost only $3. Lundquist and Felker got on the horn with the customer service line. And the trouble began. The Virgin Mobile USA line is answered with a cheerful "Whassup!" and the voice says her name is "Simone," but, of course, she's really a robot with voice recognition powers. To talk to a human, you must ask for a "live adviser."
Over three days, they spoke with no fewer than three live advisers. One of the calls was disconnected after a half-hour, and they had to start over with a new live adviser, which took 40 minutes. By April 3, their account had been credited $10 -- $3.60 short.
"The point is, we called once, we called twice, we called three times," Lundquist told me. "They still couldn't get it right." So on April 22, they sent a certified letter to Virgin Mobile USA's general counsel, Peter Lurie, in Warren, N.J., demanding a credit of $3.60 for themselves, remedies for any other customers who were overcharged and a written apology.
No one responded.
Last week, I spoke on the phone with Jayne Wallace, who works in Virgin Mobile USA's corporate communications office. She didn't know why Felker and Lundquist never got a response. Normally, such a letter mobilizes the "executive escalation" team, a group designed to bring hasty resolution to problems that reach the desk of a CEO or some other pooh-bah. "We pride ourselves on great customer service," Wallace said. Though her company was rated as the best in prepaid wireless customer satisfaction last year by J.D. Power & Associates, Wallace acknowledged that not every one of its 5 million customers will have a perfect experience.
Within hours of my conversation with Wallace, a Virgin Mobile USA rep called Lundquist and Felker. The rep apologized and blamed the overcharge on a "system error," saying others with the same problem have been made right and noting that improvements to the Simone line were underway.
For their trouble, Lundquist and Felker will end up with an extra $30 credit. JAMES ELI SHIFFER
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