Virgin Mobile Phone Swap problems.

[jesskell51]

What an ordeal this has been.

On Wed., I went into the pool with my HTC One V. Quickly put it in rice for the next 4 days, until then I needed a phone so I bought a cheap Kyocera Event. Decent enough to last me until I could salvage my HTC. The Event is basically worthless because there's an issue with the battery. I can't even move it without it shutting off. I was going to take it back Sunday but before that I figured I'd try to see if my HTC One V worked. It did, so I tried to swap online. It told me to call the offices.

7 hours later, and still no swap. I was on the phone with "tech" after "tech" and they didn't understand what I wanted to do which was a basic swap and then the last tech told me the HTC's ESN/MEID was "expired" and couldn't swap until the 23rd. I've never heard of that. On my account it has the HTC One V as my phone even though it isn't on and my Kyocera Event still works and makes calls.

 

[batvette]

I was on the phone with "tech" after "tech" and they didn't understand what I wanted to do

Therein lies your fundamental problem.

NEVER CALL VM HELP LINE WITH A TECH ISSUE. Or any other issue for that matter.

I've been with VM for close to six years now? Always use email messaging with these people, it might seem like it takes longer but it doesn't. Make THEM solve the problem and don't accept "well try this and if it doesn't work call our help line".

Rationale: You're dealing with people who are Filipino and their language is as far from ours as you can get, saw that in the Navy a lot. (lots of Filipinos in the Navy). They have a hard enough time conversing with you let alone understanding your description of a tech issue to translate.

If you do all this via emails they can use the auto translate function on their computer and if something needs clarity they ask a coworker or manager.

So you see this is the root of all the complaints about VM customer service.

 

[mrnyjet]

true enough. I had nice cs people who could not solve issues, so i just politely request to be forwarded to tech support. That is where you need to go to.

 

[batvette]

true enough. I had nice cs people who could not solve issues, so i just politely request to be forwarded to tech support. That is where you need to go to.

Yeah but if you're speaking to them via the telephone rather than e-mail you're still going to have the same language barrier issue. Customer service reps don't usually work on tech support issues and I believe the frequency of times a CSR wouldn't have the sense to transfer you to another dept when required so you have to demand it yourself are pretty rare. (though maybe it's happened to you)

A good analogy might be made with a friend of mine's kid who is in elementary school in Southern California and half the kids in class speak very little English because their parents are undocumented. They spend two hours of every school day teaching those kids English, worse, the rest of the day's curriculum- science, math, etc-when presented by the teacher, is taught at a very slow pace (to the whole class) because those kids don't understand the language those courses are being taught in. If they didn't have to translate all these words in their head quickly (and often mistakenly) they could learn the subject matter faster.

So if you are trying to convey a problem by phone, be it technical or something related to your account, there's a hurdle being added because every word you say has to be translated to Filipino in their head before they can even think about it- and many words, especially technical jargon, have no direct translation. (and you're expecting an immediate answer)

If they are reading your words on the screen however I'm sure they have a translator program to eliminate this and are not under the pressure of you waiting on the phone for an immediate answer if something is unclear.