Mom came in after work around 5:30 and we went for a coffee. It was nice to get out of the house, even into the shit-tastic weather. We came home and I used her phone to call Virgin. My cell has been acting up lately, in that I can hear the caller but they cannot hear me. This obviously means I can't call Customer Support for help. I looked on their website, and there is no other way of contacting Customer Service. They had sent me a loaner phone this weekend, but it's not working. I put my battery and SIM card in, and nothing happens. It's not reading. I know it's not my card because it works just fine in my own phone.
So I call at 7:15 and get put straight through to someone who knows absolutely nothing about my phone. "Oh" is his answer to most things. He tells me to take the card out and put it back in. Still not reading. "Oh," he says. He put me on hold twice and asked for the phone's model number three times before finally telling me he didn't know what the problem was. "Anything else I can help you with today?" "I'll call back, thanks."
I call right back (7:52) and wait on hold for 7 or 8 minutes before getting an answer. This guy asks me to turn the phone off and back on four times. Still, the card does not read. It says "Activate with no SIM card?" and my only options are Accept or Reject. He tells me to hit Reject and that the phone will turn off and back on again on its own. Instead, it turns off and stays that way. He got me to do this four times. "Hmm," he says. "I thought it would come back." He put me on hold for five minutes, and came back to tell me I need to buy a new SIM card. He said he'd credit me $10 to buy a new one "whenever you have some time to go out" and then we can try again. The nearest place to buy one is half an hour away and I have no way to get there before the weekend. I'm not going to waste my time buying something when I know that's not the problem. Like I said, my card works just fine in my own phone and this loaner is the exact same model. Surely there must be another option? I'm still relatively calm at this point as I explain my predicament. He puts me on hold.
And I wait.
And I wait.
And I pick Addison up, and put her down, then pick her back up again, then put her back down.
And I wait some more.
Addison wants up, Addison wants down. Addison wants to play with Mommy's phone.
I have a picnic with Mom and Addison on the Living Room floor as I continue waiting. I show Mom the oh-so-relevant Oatmeal comic regarding customer service phone calls. We discuss filing a compliant with their customer service. I decide I'm going to speak to a supervisor once he comes back on the line.
20 minutes later (21 to be exact), the terrible hold music stops and my (Mom's) phone is on its main page. He hung up on me.
At this point, I'm fed up. Mom puts Addison to bed and I call back once more. 6 minutes before a rep answers. I tell her right from the get-go that I was put on hold for 20 minutes and hung up on. My loaner phone is not working and we need to fix this now. I'm taking care of a one year old by myself and we do not have a land line. I had never had a problem with Virgin until now, but this was more than enough for one night.
She tells me she's a supervisor filling in because of the high call volume tonight. When I ask how to file a complaint she offers to take it down for me. No thanks. I'll be doing my best to go above her once I get off this damn phone (which is now dying, by the way). She didn't ask anything about my loaner phone model, serial number, or card. She decided on her own that the SIM needs to be replaced. Why it works on my phone and not in another of the same model is beyond me.
Option A: $10 credit for a new SIM, which I wouldn't be able to get until Friday at the earliest. If this works, I go home, call Virgin, and hope they can activate the loaner phone. I then send my old one in and wait 10-14 days for my original to be sent back to me in working condition, then return the loaner. If it doesn't work, "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, and discuss compensation at that point."
Option B: Send the loaner phone back and we'll send you a new loaner in 3-5 business days and try all over again.
Either way, I'm out of a phone for about a week and I just wasted an hour of my time getting screwed around with Customer Service. Thanks, assholes. What am I supposed to do in the mean time? "Well I could set your old phone back up, if you'd like."
Oooh right, my old phone. You mean the one that DOES NOT WORK? The one I'm supposed to have already sent out to you to get fixed? If I could get away with using that phone right now, I wouldn't be having this conversation right now, would I?
I tell her I want to do both options A and B, and I want to discuss compensation. She offers a $40 credit. Not a great deal, in my opinion, considering I'm out of a phone for at least a week and it's already been acting up for eight days. She put the $10 on the account and put me on hold. Again. When she came back she told me she had put in an order for a new loaner if this new card does not work, and gave me a credit for $55.
I'm already in the midst of a complaint against Xplornet with both the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS). Maybe I'll add Virgin to my list as well.
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