I've had money stolen from me by both of these companies in the last 4 months. Virgin Mobile took just over $34.00 when the cell phone charger was stolen from my car and I couldn't find a new one anywhere. Everyone I spoke with, when I finally did get through, falsely claimed that they were unable to refund this money under any circumstances.

Boost took just over $10.00 from me as of July 26 and refused to let me put new money on the phone, they even hung up on me when I specifically informed them that one of the things I needed to do was put money down on that phone number. I spoke with three people here, they all claimed, falsely, that no one can refund the money. Every one of them said I could put money in the account by going to the web site. The lied, I couldn't.

I have sent an email to the Minnesota attorney general's office. I get so tired of being victimized like this.

Cell phone operators who do this sort of thing, think they can get away with it for a few reasons. Formost is people don't read their bill closely enough or just dont pay enough attention to the small details. Secondly cell phone providers "lock" phones to their service realizing the cost of a new phone will discourage most customers from switching even if they are swindled. Fortunately on the second point there is a few ways around this. That is you can look up the model & manufacturer of the phone and find either software or a service to unlock your phone to work with any service of the same type (gsm, cdma, or tdma) enabling you to switch services providing theres another service of the same type in your area and your not on one of those 2 or 3 year contracts. In that case you're stuck with a large fee for cancelling early.