Virgin Mobile US Gives Unemployed Customers Three Months Free

Times are tough and unemployment is on the rise ... so Virgin Mobile USA is doing its best to improve its image: the mobile operator is offering three months of free service to any of its customers who lose their job.

"If you’re on a Virgin Mobile Monthly Plan and you lose your job, we’ll make your payments (up to $90 per month) for 3 months" is what they claim.  It's an offer that sounds attractive in these uncertain times, and anybody who's just been made redundant is likely to want to try and cut back on their bills as much as possible.

There are, of course, certain conditions.  The offer doesn't extend to three month of free minutes to every unemployed American.  You'll need to have already been with Virgin for two months already, and signed up to their 'Pink Slip Protection' programme, named for the US equivalent of a P45, printed on pink paper and handed out to departing employees.  And if you find yourself making more calls than usual--to enquire about a new job, say--or you're already paying more than $90 a month, then you'll have to pay the difference.

Virgin Mobile isn't a charity, of course, so they're likely to have costed this publicity measure carefully and will doubtless make more from the extra subscriptions than they eventually end up paying out, but it's likely to appeal to plenty of people, and we would certainly welcome something similar in Europe.