After taking advantage of Visible's recent $200 gift card promo offer, some users on Reddit are reporting that their accounts are being abruptly terminated. The account cancellations may be costing some subscribers their phone numbers which they have had for many years. One such example, shown below, is of a couple that had their numbers for 12 years. They claim Visible customer support told them to contact the FCC if they want to regain their numbers.
Another Redditor claims their newly opened account was shut off abruptly without providing any other details.
And another Redditor was told via a Facebook rep that their account will not be reactivated. The decision is final and cannot be bypassed.
And this Redditor claims their primary account number got terminated yesterday, and they cannot port out as a result.
Meanwhile, a Redditor who canceled their account on their own accord has posted that Visible told them they have 50 days to port out before losing their number.
The exact reason or reasons why the accounts are being canceled are unclear as is the number of accounts impacted. And whether or not you lose your number upon account cancellation could be due to whether or not you canceled it on your own accord or whether Visible canceled it. But as to why accounts are being canceled by Visible, there could be a variety of reasons at play. When Visible launched its $200 gift card promo and 2 months for $22 offers they were stated to be for new customers only. Some customers however may be attempting to game the system resulting in their accounts being closed.
This Redditor claims that 8 of the 16 lines they ported for the promo got canceled. The individual then goes on to say that it's ok, the next time they bring another promo back they'll come back again.
Visible's 2 for $22 promo offer does have the following fine print:
"promo code is for one-time use only, and only one code may be applied per customer and/or per account."
And the $200 gift card offer has the following fine print:
"Limit 1 virtual gift card per member per device.........
Visible reserves the right to change or terminate this offer at any time. If Visible, in its sole discretion, determines that a member has engaged in abuse, misuse, or gaming in connection with this offer, or that the member intends to do so, Visible reserves the right to disqualify the member from this promotion."
It's not quite clear what qualifies as a new customer. Some wireless providers consider returning customers to be new after they've been gone more than 180 days, while others consider new customers to be those that have never had an account before. I'm not sure what policy Visible has adopted, but the above Redditor seems willing to try and take advantage of the policy. In fact, the Redditor had a Reddit thread removed by moderators with the title "Let's port more number for the next promo...."
Visible's general legal terms also state:
"We hope it never comes to this, but we can, without notice, limit, suspend, or end your Service or this Agreement with you for any good cause. We want to be able to help all our members get the Service they deserve, so if you behave in a way that prevents us from fairly serving all our members, we may have to take action. In other words, we won’t tolerate any lying, cheating, or shenanigans."
When Visible initially launched both promos earlier this month, they had to temporarily suspend the offerings. There appeared to be some sort of system glitch affecting signups. I can only guess that perhaps this earlier glitch has also led to some accounts being wrongfully terminated. Of course, there could be another glitch in the system altogether that is causing these cancellations.
Visible also has a list of carriers that you must be porting from in order to qualify for a promo. It's possible some customers are mistakenly having their accounts closed instead of just losing their promos due to porting from a carrier that doesn't qualify for the Visible deals. Visible's list of eligible carriers that qualify for promos is a bit dated. So who exactly can qualify Visible promos and who cannot is a bit unclear.
When will @Visible legitimately update their list of carriers that you can port from to claim a promo? Their list claims to have been last updated on jan 13, 2022. Yet providers that haven't been around in a long time, like Virgin Mobile, are still listedhttps://t.co/3KiVzTzWrB
— BestMVNO (@bestmvno) February 19, 2022
Finally, as shown by the first Reddit post in this article, some subscribers may be losing or in jeopardy of losing their numbers at the time of their account closings for not having a security PIN number attached to their accounts to prevent port-out fraud. Visible and many other providers as of late have been hit with account breaches resulting in hackers either gaining access to their accounts and spending the account holder's money or porting out and taking control of a subscriber's phone number. Additional layers of security from a wireless provider are certainly welcomed, but they can come with drawbacks.
I have reached out to Visible representatives to try and find out more about what is going on here. I will update this post if a response is received.
Update: In an email statement given to The Verge, Visible spokesperson Lindsey Cohen said: “Visible identified a set of accounts that were established illegitimately and in violation of our promotional terms and conditions." Cohen continued, "We terminated those accounts, but have heard from some customers who have asked us to review the decision.”
Visible is owned by Verizon.