@smit22 wrote:
holly**bleep** no way
There isn't a carrier that I know of in the country that I know of that will refund a customer for prepaid plan services. Once you port out, you lose the plan and monies that you've already paid. On postpaid plans, carriers will (and are required to) refund/credit you for any unused portion of a month when port out or otherwise cancel. This is because carriers are no longer allowed to impose a 30 days notice requirement clause for postpaid services. The fact that there is no such rule on prepaid, I believe to be an injustice to the consumer, because in reality, there is no real difference to the carrier itself (ie. postpaid plans are also really prepaid because you pay a month in advance).
As for potential issues with a refund, how much would a customer expected to get refunded? From the carrier's point of view, they would argue that it is unfair to the company to issue an evenly prorated refund because they have offered a discount for that 90 day contract. Surely, they should be able to charge a higher price for the days of service that were actually used since the full 90 days wouldn't be fullfilled. Regardless, it is company policy that there are no refunds.
It comes down to this: Public Mobile, as well as the other carriers will not give any refunds to prepaid customers simply because they don't have to, a least based on telecommunications industry rules.
I am not a lawyer, so please don't take this as any form of official legal advice, but the legal argument that a customer could try to use would be that a company can't charge for the service and then not provide it. In that end, a carrier still would not have to issue a refund, but would/should still need to provide the service. That is something that the carrier could do, although it could involve further complications involved with needing to open up a brand new account and assign a new phone number. This happens because the old carrier's service is instantly terminated when porting out.
As for why prepaid customers don't get the same level of protection when it comes to refunds for unused service, that is matter to take up with the industry regulators. It's doubtful that the carriers themselves would give in unviersally for all customers on this unless they are ordered to do so.
