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Open letter to Vodafone CEO Guy Lawrence Reference Astonishingly bad customer service
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The following is the essence of an e mail sent to Guy Lawrence at Vodafone with respect to their customer service I have experienced. If it appears that this has not been received by him then I will put it in a recorded delivery letter.
Dear Mr Lawrence
I am writing directly to you because I have yet to experience such poor customer services as I recently experienced and the hands of your employees. The mishandling of my affairs in this respect is quite astonishing.
About 8 days ago I placed 2 orders with Dialaphone for the Nokia 5800 on a 12 month contract with 600 mins, unlimited texts and unlimited mobile internet. Dialphone's packages work out very reasonable once you take into account all the cashbacks and redemptions they offer, and the net cost of a 12 month package with the phone with them works out at some £270.
Due to Dialahone's policies I was only allowed one handset. So I contacted your New Connections Dept and was pursuaded to take out the same contract with Vodafone benefitting from a 50% off for the first 9 months deal. This was duly set up with a phone number ending 930. The cost of this deal is £300, only £30 more expensive than Dialaphone.
I then received both phones I had ordered, one from Dialaphone and one directly from yourselves.
On the 23rd of July I then contacted Vodafone to port my existing phone numbers accross. After much confusion and being put through to different departments, I eventualy spoke to someone who seemed to know which day of the week it was. I was initially told that I needed to go back to Dialaphone to action the porting over in respect for the phone I purchased from them.
However the individual got through to the porting department, actioned the porting of the account on the Vodafone direct supplied phone (the 930 number) and then set about seeing what he could do with the other account. I was told that both numbers would be ported over on the 27th of July.
To this end I received 2 replacement sim cards in the post, ready to replace the two I already had.
On this date, the 930 number was duly replaced with my preferred number ending 41. However the other line still retained the old number, and my old O2 sim with the other preferred number ending 71 was still active.
On the 28th I contacted Vodafone and was on the phone a full 30 minuites plus before I was actually put through to the right department. I then had the pleasure of speaking to 'Vodafone's very own missing link' in your porting department, who is untraceable because he didn't make any notes on my account. A worse candidate for speaking to customers I could hardly imagine. He was rude, lazy, arrogant, and above all, ill informed. He told me that the porting would take place that day (28th).
Now this primate didn't shower me with confidence that he was telling the truth as opposed to making me someone else's problem the following day. So I managed to pursuade him to put me through to Modern Man, grunting and mumbling while he did so. After another transfer, I managed to speak to a very willing and helpful customer services manager.
I explained that I had been given an undertaking by her colleage on the 23rd that this month that the porting would take place, and that time was of the essence, since O2 would invoice me for another month's line rental if I didn't port over quickly. I was delighted when she managed to effect the porting over with immediate effect, until I realised how she had done it.
In trying to help me she had closed down the Dialaphone supplied contract and replaced it with a home grown supplied Vodafone Contract. The result of this was that all my redemptions with Dialaphone were now null and void, and they understandably wanted their supplied phone to be returned to them.
Vodafone had connected me to another account which was without phone, and had put me at a huge financial disadvantage!
After much discssion with Dialaphone (who I have to say were very helpful in this respect), their employees Emma and Kevin managed to organise a 3 way conversation between Lewis from Vodafone, Emma from Dialaphone, and me, the customer. We spent over 2 hours on this phone call.
The purpose of this call was to try to find a way out of this mess. Vodafone's actions in closing the dialaphone line had put me at a considerable financial disadvantage, and I wanted that corrected in some way.
After some dicussion, I proposed that Vodaphone set up the 2nd account they had hijacked from Dialaphone on the same terms as the one I had bought directly from Vodafone a few days earlier, as the discount I was offered on this deal worked out at only £30 more expensive than the Dialaphone deal with all the cashbacks and redemptions. Whilst this cost me more I was happy to make the sacrefice to ease the situation for everyone.
Lewis at Vodafone couldn't find the discount on my account. It was only after some futher protracted discussion about possible Vodafone misselling that Adam came to the phone and made sense of his data that we found out that the original 930 package bought straight from Vodafone had the discount, but this discount had been lost when the account had the new numer ported over to it on the 27th. Had it not been for that conversation I would have been charged the full undiscounted line rental by Vodafone on this package, not the price I had agreed to.
A short while later, Adam put us in touch with John, who spent a few minutes understanding the situation himself, then, with the help of his manager, corrected the issues with the vodafone supplied package to give me the discount, and then agreed to reflect the same deal with the hijacked package. Hence I am now expecting a phone to arrive from Vodafone. At least two people have confirmed this.
I am offering this information to you in the hope that you see it as a symptom of your organisation. Vodafone is in a big mess. The staff don't seem to know who to turn to to help resolve a problem. Some of them are finding it necessary to use their own resoursfulness to buck the system, but this approach often has consequences.
The problems I have experienced seem to have arisen from my wanting to port over my numbers from my old O2 contracts. I adopted exactly the same approach as I have done for several years with other networks and this is the first time I have encountered any problems.
For myself, I simply want to make sure that all charges before the 28th of this month are refunded to my account, as such charges are likely to be incorrect.
I would be very grateful if you could respond to this e mail, even to acknowledge its receipt. Please feel free to call me to discuss this further
Yours sincerely
*******
Dialaphone in this instance could not have been more helpful. I will post another thread on how they went to extraordinary lengths to help me resolve the issues that Vodafone caused.
Dear Mr Lawrence
I am writing directly to you because I have yet to experience such poor customer services as I recently experienced and the hands of your employees. The mishandling of my affairs in this respect is quite astonishing.
About 8 days ago I placed 2 orders with Dialaphone for the Nokia 5800 on a 12 month contract with 600 mins, unlimited texts and unlimited mobile internet. Dialphone's packages work out very reasonable once you take into account all the cashbacks and redemptions they offer, and the net cost of a 12 month package with the phone with them works out at some £270.
Due to Dialahone's policies I was only allowed one handset. So I contacted your New Connections Dept and was pursuaded to take out the same contract with Vodafone benefitting from a 50% off for the first 9 months deal. This was duly set up with a phone number ending 930. The cost of this deal is £300, only £30 more expensive than Dialaphone.
I then received both phones I had ordered, one from Dialaphone and one directly from yourselves.
On the 23rd of July I then contacted Vodafone to port my existing phone numbers accross. After much confusion and being put through to different departments, I eventualy spoke to someone who seemed to know which day of the week it was. I was initially told that I needed to go back to Dialaphone to action the porting over in respect for the phone I purchased from them.
However the individual got through to the porting department, actioned the porting of the account on the Vodafone direct supplied phone (the 930 number) and then set about seeing what he could do with the other account. I was told that both numbers would be ported over on the 27th of July.
To this end I received 2 replacement sim cards in the post, ready to replace the two I already had.
On this date, the 930 number was duly replaced with my preferred number ending 41. However the other line still retained the old number, and my old O2 sim with the other preferred number ending 71 was still active.
On the 28th I contacted Vodafone and was on the phone a full 30 minuites plus before I was actually put through to the right department. I then had the pleasure of speaking to 'Vodafone's very own missing link' in your porting department, who is untraceable because he didn't make any notes on my account. A worse candidate for speaking to customers I could hardly imagine. He was rude, lazy, arrogant, and above all, ill informed. He told me that the porting would take place that day (28th).
Now this primate didn't shower me with confidence that he was telling the truth as opposed to making me someone else's problem the following day. So I managed to pursuade him to put me through to Modern Man, grunting and mumbling while he did so. After another transfer, I managed to speak to a very willing and helpful customer services manager.
I explained that I had been given an undertaking by her colleage on the 23rd that this month that the porting would take place, and that time was of the essence, since O2 would invoice me for another month's line rental if I didn't port over quickly. I was delighted when she managed to effect the porting over with immediate effect, until I realised how she had done it.
In trying to help me she had closed down the Dialaphone supplied contract and replaced it with a home grown supplied Vodafone Contract. The result of this was that all my redemptions with Dialaphone were now null and void, and they understandably wanted their supplied phone to be returned to them.
Vodafone had connected me to another account which was without phone, and had put me at a huge financial disadvantage!
After much discssion with Dialaphone (who I have to say were very helpful in this respect), their employees Emma and Kevin managed to organise a 3 way conversation between Lewis from Vodafone, Emma from Dialaphone, and me, the customer. We spent over 2 hours on this phone call.
The purpose of this call was to try to find a way out of this mess. Vodafone's actions in closing the dialaphone line had put me at a considerable financial disadvantage, and I wanted that corrected in some way.
After some dicussion, I proposed that Vodaphone set up the 2nd account they had hijacked from Dialaphone on the same terms as the one I had bought directly from Vodafone a few days earlier, as the discount I was offered on this deal worked out at only £30 more expensive than the Dialaphone deal with all the cashbacks and redemptions. Whilst this cost me more I was happy to make the sacrefice to ease the situation for everyone.
Lewis at Vodafone couldn't find the discount on my account. It was only after some futher protracted discussion about possible Vodafone misselling that Adam came to the phone and made sense of his data that we found out that the original 930 package bought straight from Vodafone had the discount, but this discount had been lost when the account had the new numer ported over to it on the 27th. Had it not been for that conversation I would have been charged the full undiscounted line rental by Vodafone on this package, not the price I had agreed to.
A short while later, Adam put us in touch with John, who spent a few minutes understanding the situation himself, then, with the help of his manager, corrected the issues with the vodafone supplied package to give me the discount, and then agreed to reflect the same deal with the hijacked package. Hence I am now expecting a phone to arrive from Vodafone. At least two people have confirmed this.
I am offering this information to you in the hope that you see it as a symptom of your organisation. Vodafone is in a big mess. The staff don't seem to know who to turn to to help resolve a problem. Some of them are finding it necessary to use their own resoursfulness to buck the system, but this approach often has consequences.
The problems I have experienced seem to have arisen from my wanting to port over my numbers from my old O2 contracts. I adopted exactly the same approach as I have done for several years with other networks and this is the first time I have encountered any problems.
For myself, I simply want to make sure that all charges before the 28th of this month are refunded to my account, as such charges are likely to be incorrect.
I would be very grateful if you could respond to this e mail, even to acknowledge its receipt. Please feel free to call me to discuss this further
Yours sincerely
*******
Dialaphone in this instance could not have been more helpful. I will post another thread on how they went to extraordinary lengths to help me resolve the issues that Vodafone caused.
Behind every great man is a good woman
Beside this ordinary man is a great woman
£2 savings jar - now at £3.42:rotfl:
0
Comments
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Basically, Vodafone are offshoring jobs from the UK, which inevitably de-motivates their staff.
It's only when significant numbers of customers vote with their feet that these companies will even begin to take notice.0 -
The thing is that I didn't once speak to their overseas centres. All this incompetence was home grown!Behind every great man is a good womanBeside this ordinary man is a great woman£2 savings jar - now at £3.42:rotfl:0
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And how many loyal customers are leaving and won't be coming back!0
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According to dialaphone web site
"We currently only support number porting when transferring to T-mobile, Orange, Three, O2 and BT Mobile, but not Vodafone."
So dialaphone do not support number porting to vodafone which is what I thought was the case.
And as dialaphone are part of phones4u - the only way to port to vodafone if you purchase via phones4u is to go to their store and place an order there. But dialaphone are online only so you cant do that.0 -
Afaik when porting in a number to a vodafone contract at an independent retail store (phones4u, carphone warehouse etc) it must be done at point of sale, so it may be the same with all vodafone connections that are not processed by vodafone themselves.0
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I agree with u Hugo, their customer service is completely rubbish, they dont even know their own product properly and are very rude wen u call them up for any clarifications. I got so fed up with their service that i changed my connection itself..........:mad:0
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When I tried to get an e mail address for the intended recipient I was stonewalled by their receptionist. However I had an e mail for another employee so I used the format from that.
It hasn't bounced, so it's got somewhere.
I'm going to give it a week, then it's a letter.Behind every great man is a good womanBeside this ordinary man is a great woman£2 savings jar - now at £3.42:rotfl:0 -
Hi Hugo,
It's a shame to read about your recent experience with us but I'm pleased to see that you appear to be on the way to getting things resolved.
After reading your post I genuinely believe that the majority of the people who you spoke to wanted to get this resolved for you. However, things can tend to go awry when people try to do things which are 'outside the box' without considering the potential consequences first.
That said I've also replied to your PM asking you to contact me with your details so that we can take a closer at look at what has happened from our side.
Many thanks,
Lee
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK“Official Company Representative
I am the official company representative of Vodafone. MSE has given permission for me to post in response to queries about the company, so that I can help solve issues. You can see my name on the companies with permission to post list. I am not allowed to tout for business at all. If you believe I am please report it to forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com This does NOT imply any form of approval of my company or its products by MSE"0 -
Sounds like Vodafone all right; blame the customer for not following their procedures even though they don't work, then say how everyone is trying to help you when they aren't! Sounds JUST like E2Save, who they've just got back in bed with....0
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