Vodafone Passport Problem

Santiago_3

I called Vodafone business yesterday and told the guy I had been charged the Passport connection fee while in France, despite calling them last week to verify I was on the Passport and eligible for the offer.
He told me I was on a different "Passport" but would switch me to the correct one and would credit the charges when after the billing date.
He also said he knew nothing about the text message I had received in France detailing to costs.
A little later having thought about it I called back to have another go and spoke to a nice lady who told me I was not eligible for the offer as it only applied to certain plans and mine was excluded.
She confirmed the charges would be credited and went on to say that now she had told me, that if I used the phone again overseas during the offer period I would be charged and they would not give any more refunds.
She also said the text message I received was relating to their charges.
Not impressed, I wonder how many people will get caught out by this

For the vodafone reps, I typed an email to you as you suggested and clicked on submit and got an error page and the email I had just typed was gone. Do you have a more reliable form of communication?

Jon_01

I think it's only a promo for domestic acc's not business...

Santiago_3

Could well be but no one from Vodafone told me that yet!
If the offer is not available to me fair enough but why tell me it is available to me if it wasn't. I could have run a huge bill up as could many other people thinking that as they are on Passport they are eligible.

Jon_01

If its not for business users they should certainly say somewhere...

NickAJ

From the Vodafone Business Roaming page:

With Vodafone Passport you can take your business price plan abroad with you and call the UK from over 35 countries across Europe, plus New Zealand and Australia.
Normally with Vodafone Passport you would pay a 64p (ex VAT) connection fee for each call you make and receive – but from 1 June to 31 August, we're abolishing this charge for Anytime or Your Plan for Small Business customers. It means you can call, text and send picture messages for the same price as your standard business rates at home. That includes any inclusive minutes, texts and picture messages as well.

So unless you are on the Total Business Package (5+ Mobiles) you should be covered.

TBH the frontline call centre staff seem to have little or no information about how Passport works. They were insistent that the phone had to be on a Vodafone network for the rates to apply, and this isn't the case.

Perhaps one of the Vodafone agents could give us the full details on here, or maybe start another thread with the information.

readalot_2

Vodafone_company_representative wrote: »

Hi readalot and Santiago,

I'm confident we can clear up the confusion here.

Could you email following the instructions Kirsty posted on 12th?

As soon as we received your emails we'll get back to you as quickly as we can,

Thanks,

Lee

Web Relations Team

Vodafone UK

Tried to do this but as posted by Santiago I typed it all in then got the error message on send. Could you please pm me an e mail address i can use successfully?

NewForest_2

I’m going on holiday to rural France this week and I plan to use Vodafone Passport on Pay-as-you-Talk with a £20 Freedom Pack (300 mins + unlimited texts). But I’m now having serious doubts because (a) I’m worried, having read the problems above and (b) I’m totally confused by contradictory information from two Vodafone reps and their website! Can someone here who’s used PAYT abroad (or a Vodafone rep who can give an authoritative answer) help me please?

All I want to know is: on which of the French networks (SFR, Orange and Bouygues) can I use Vodafone Passport on Pay-as-you-Talk (with a Freedom Pack)?

This is what I’ve been told by Vodafone Customer Services:

(A) On 13/6/09 by “Evelyn”:
Passport will work on PAYT (including Freedom Packs) but only on the SFR and Orange networks, not on the Bouygues network. Pay Monthly customers can use Passport on all three networks. She was helpful and seemed clear about her facts. But after reading this forum I had my doubts and phoned again a month later, hoping the staff would be better informed; how wrong I was…

(B) On 20/7/09 by “Martin”:
He seemed to know nothing about this beyond the sweeping generalisations stated in the adverts. He was extremely vague and didn’t give me any information; he merely confirmed my statements but without great conviction. He said he didn’t really know and suggested I should only use SFR (Vodafone’s own network) because he didn’t think Passport / Freedom Packs would work on the other networks. I pointed out that I might not be able to get SFR and so the one thing I needed for my trip was a definite, unambiguous answer, which he couldn’t give!

(C) Finally, the Vodafone website:
A Vodafone web page (it took some finding!) says that in France on PAYT, Passport is available on any network: [Sorry, new user; it won't let me paste the link].

So there you are, three different answers: Passport on PAYT with a Freedom Pack will work in France on (A) two networks, (B) only one network, or (C) all three networks. Which answer shall I take? What a farce!

At least on Pay Monthly, if there’s problem, you can continue calling and take it up with Vodafone back home. But if it goes wrong on PAYG, my credit would get eaten up and I wouldn’t be able to make calls at all and I can’t afford that risk! Is it really asking too much to get a clear answer to this question?

I will be in a rural area of France and so I may not receive all networks. So I must establish which networks I can use with Passport / Freedom packs on PAYT! “Maybe” is the most unsatisfactory answer of all!

Could someone PLEASE bring some clarity to this? Which French networks can I use on PAYT with Passport / Freedom packs? Right now I have no confidence at all in this Vodafone scheme and I feel like going back to my normal Pay Monthly phone on another network – at least I know what they’ll charge me abroad!

NickAJ

Well it gets more interesting.

The "unbilled minutes" section on the Vodafone web page is now working and having checked the texts that we are being charged for it appears the system doesn't like texts sent to certain phone numbers (receiving phones network related?) when abroad.

What has happend is that texts to certain numbers are charged, other are not and this has happened throughout her trip

For example my wife and I are on Orange - all her texts to us have been charged as "out of bundle", but texts sent to another number within the same minute haven't been charged. :huh:

Looks like Vodafone have a software problem!

Santiago_3

Update, I have been tweeting a nice person @vodafone on Twitter this morning. They said they would check into this and update the thread this afternoon.

lufcgirl

I had this exact problem with vodafone.ie sim card I used for 7 months no problem in the UK. I was being charged for recieving incoming calls constantly for 3 days. Of course I know I'm charged to send a text normally so that was ok.

Turns out they had a massive problem with their system and passport, after at first refusing to believe me. Thye kept giving me free credit as it was costing 70c per minute to recieve. In the end on Sunday afternoon the problem was resolved and I had over €90 of credit on my phone in reibursement for all the charges I received.