I enjoy giving my money to Virgin Mobile.

Today is tax day, the day we are reminded that whether we like it or not, living in the U.S. isn't free. We are compelled to pay our taxes even if we don't like the way our government spends our money.
I've got lots of other bills, and for the most part, I begrudgingly pay them and accept whatever level of service the folks on the other end of the envelope decide to provide. An exception is Virgin Mobile. I like Virgin Mobile so much that I have decided to regularly post about companies that I enjoy giving money to, so that I can make them first. So far, I can only think of one, so this may not be a weekly feature...

Two years ago, Madison wanted a cell phone for Christmas. We thought she was too young for a phone (we thought she would lose it), but Santa disagreed and brought her a Virgin Mobile prepaid phone. It was a Kyocera Oystr, and I suspect he paid about 20 bucks for it. It came with some airtime, and it was already charged and activated. She was so excited to have a phone. The first call she made was to her grandma Pat. After she was done telling grandma all about Christmas, she handed the phone to me. I was shocked at how loud and clear the call was. To this day, I don't know if it is the phone itself, or the service, but Madison's call quality is far superior to her parents'. (We had Qwest, now Verizon).
Prepaid plans can be kind of confusing, and I didn't know much about them other than the minutes were expensive and you had to buy cards at the mini mart. Santa must have done his research, because with VM, you can choose from three or four prepaid plans. Since Madison rarely uses her phone, we chose the plan where you pay $20 every 3 months to keep your phone number. I don't know how many minutes that gets her, but I can tell you for sure that it is WAY more than she ever would use.
Madison took pretty good care of her phone. However, after about a year, she did lose it. Virgin sent a couple emails reminding me to add minutes, but I didn't because Madison had misplaced the phone. When about 4 months had passed since my last top-up, instead of disconnecting the service, Virgin Mobile added $10 to the account to keep it active. Shortly thereafter, and completely coincidentally, we found Madison's phone. I checked her balance on-line, and saw that she had about $75 worth of airtime saved up. I can't believe that VM didn't make her forfeit the balance in her account, even though the deal was, pay every 90 days, or lose your minutes and your number. Also, I found another great thing on the website: A promotion that lets you pay $15 every 3 months, instead of $20, if you sign up for automatic payments. We signed up. That's $5 a month.
This Christmas, Madison asked for a web-enabled phone. Once again, Santa came through. Her new phone was a UT Starcom Arc. Data packs through Virgin Mobile are $20 a month, which I agreed to let her try, seeing as the money in her account sorta sits there.
She was so happy to be able to email from her phone, but unfortunately she lost it. Luckily, we still had her Oystr, and we were able to switch her number back to her old phone for free.
When she finds her new phone, we will be able to switch it again for free, but she won't have the data pack for a while... She'll need to demonstrate that she is responsible enough not to lose her phone first.
I can't say enough good things about Virgin Mobile, especially if you are looking for a phone for your kid, or someone else who doesn't talk much. Customer service is excellent, albeit quirky... The automaton that answers the customer service line has a very urban accent and uses slang- "Hey, what's up? Thanks for callin' Virgin Mobile. This is Simone. Let me look up your digits."
However, you can ask for a live agent to help, and they pick up right away and are quite knowledgeable and helpful. You can change or add features on the website, and the phones are reasonably priced.

Hooray Virgin Mobile. I gladly pay you.