VERY DISAPPOINTED IN VIRGIN MOBILE

I decided to try out Virgin Mobile. I currently have cell phone service with another provider and am tired of the "contract'. So I thought I would purchase a phone and get one month service - since it is "no contract" service and see how the service is in our area. I was attracted to the"Change Your Brain" commercials since we Americans are so used to cell phone contracts and most people around the world are not locked into contracts like we are - so I thought I would "Change my Brain". I went to the local franchise Virgin Mobile store and purchased a phone and one month of service. The young man at the store gave me the phone with my new phone number - and supposedly activated my service but wouldn't let me test it in the store since he was "too busy". So I took the phone home - took it out of the package - and tried to test it. Turns out that the phone number he gave me was already in use and the phone was never activated. I immediately took it back to the store (within one hour of purchasing it) at this point I had no faith in Virgin Mobile's service if I couldn't get a unused phone # and correctly activated service and decided to cancel the service. The young man said that he could refund the cost of the phone - but not the service - I would have to contact Virgin Mobile. He then told me that he didn't know how to do a credit on a credit card purchase - and proceeded to give me rolls of nickels, dimes and a handful of miscellaneous change - because he didn't have any cash and needed to go to the bank. I then went home and contacted Virgin Mobile and got a very nice man named Billy who assured me that he could take care of this issue. Billy even contacted the Virgin store where I purchased my phone and service and put me on a 3 way conversation as he listened to the young man babble on about how I thought that he didn't know what he was doing (I never said that when I returned the phone I just asked for my money back.) After the conversation Billy said that he understood the situation and that the young man clearly didn't know what he was doing and that he would take care of everything - get me my $20. and that someone from their accounting department would contact me later that afternoon. Well, I never got a call. I tried calling Virgin Mobile again and got someone who told me that they had no record of my call - even though I was able to give them the name of their customer service person, my bogus phone # and receipt information. At this point I was pissed. I went on the Virgin Mobile Facebook page and posted my story. Needless to say, within about an hour I had a reply from Virgin Mobile and they offered to "take care of my problem". So once again I gave this person all of my purchase information and I waited. No reply. I sent a message directly to the person who contacted me. What started then was a different person contacting me almost every day for about a week - each one asking for more information or something that I had already provided. Then nothing. I contacted them again and was told that my case had been closed - but no one bothered to tell me. So I went to the Facebook page again and posted how incompetent Virgin Mobile was and again was contacted fairly quickly. Around and around we went again. And again after faxing, and scanning receipts, multiple back and forth conversations via email was told that there was nothing they could do. I contacted my credit card company and filed a dispute - but I could only file the dispute with the local franchise since they are the ones who took my money. The credit card company contacted me last week to tell me that 30 days into the dispute - they cannot get the local franchise to reply to the dispute. At this point it doesn't look like I will ever get my $20. back for service that I never had. I am so disappointed with of all companies Virgin. I think Richard Branson is one of the coolest businessmen on the planet. But even he can't guarantee that his customer service people won't drop the ball. Very disappointed.