Appalling Vodafone customer service

pipsi_2

Just spent two hours on the phone to Vodafone to try and resolve an issue. I called 191 and requested a balance text to my phone, when it came through it was £48.69. This seemed high as my contract is only £25. I had made some 08 number calls so i expected it to be more than the £25 but not this much more.

I called and spoke to someone who gave me various different figures after initially being rather vague and at times refused to give information and also gave incorrect info.

The figures he gave me didn't add up and in addition to this, £7 of the figures he gave me referred to an insurance charge which was cancelled on the 3rd of August. When i cancelled i was told it would be effective immediately and there would be no further charges. When my August bill came though i had been charged for insurance, i called on the 21st and was told that the charge referred to the period before i cancelled and there won't be any further charges added in September. I argued this point with the guy who was incredibly unhelpful so i asked to be put through to his manager.

His manger was equally unhelpful and again i asked for a break down of charges and eventually gave me dates, times and charges for the calls to 08 number i had made, these totalled £12.34, still leaving a discrepancy even when taking the £7 insurance charge that had been incorrectly added. Even when he was giving me the details of the £12.34 of charges for calls despite me asking him to start at the beginning he somehow seemed to think that the 12th of the month came after the 28th and didn't give the calls in any sort of order. He then went on to say that the insurance wasn't cancelled until the 21st! He still refused to tell me what the other charges were for and refused to give me any sort of refund for the insurance. At one point he said he had the authority to issue goodwill gestures of up to £1000 but wouldn't give one to me because he didn't like me.

I then asked to be put through to his manager, it took 20 mins of him refusing to before he left me on hold for about 10 mins before his manager came on the phone. She still won't give me a break down of the charges and also said that there was a 30 day cancellation period to pay after i called to cancel. However while on the phone i looked at my bill more closely and saw that the insurance charge for august actually covered the period 1-31st, not up until the 3rd as i was told previously. Even taking into consideration this 30 day period, i should then have only been charged for the 1st and 2nd of September on my September bill and not a complete month. She then went on to say that the system showed i cancelled on the 21st not the 3rd, but even then i should not have been charged for the entire month of September.

I argued that even if the 30 day thing was correct, i was given incorrect information previously so they should therefore honour the information i had previously been given and therefore refund charges from the 4th of August onwards. She then offered to refund the September charge and after some arguing she increased this to £12. By this time i had been on the phone for about an hour and 40 mins, i then asked for a goodwill gesture as i thought after all of the hassle, incorrect information, rude staff, staff accusing me of lying and also refusing to give me information that i was legally entitled to i deserved some kind of apology in the form of a goodwill payment. At this time i still hadn't gotten to the bottom of what all of the charges were for. She to pay a goodwill gesture refused and said she couldn't issue anything else.

I then stated that i knew she had the authority to issue a goodwill gesture and that under the circumstances i thought a figure in the region of £40 would be acceptable after all of the bad customer service as well as my time spent on almost 2 hours of a stressful and frustrating phone call. She kept refusing and i even pointed out that if her subordinate could boast about being able to issue a goodwill gesture of £1000 then she could easily issue one for £40. She kept refusing so i asked to speak to her manager, after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, she eventually put me on hold for a further 10 mins before saying her manger was unavailable but she would get him to call me back within half an hour (which has just passed without a call).

Throughout the time i spent speaking to the second and thrid people i told them i would be writing a strong letter of complaint as i seem to have a problem every month, whether it's charges for receiving texts i haven't signed up to, or getting charged for my statements when i shouldn't be, to not receiving the free first month on my second number and not actually receiving a bill at all to name but a few problems.

I've had enough with Vodafone, when i first joined them i was on a 30 day rolling contract and a year to this day i signed up to an 18 month contract, since then i've had a host of problems. I'm now tied in for another 6 months and another 9 months on my second number (after having been mis-sold that too - i was told it would a 30 day rolling contract as it was a SIM only deal and i used an old phone, so now i'm tied into that when i thought i could cancel at anytime giving 30 days notice.

Still waiting for the fourth person to call me back but i'm not holding my breath, i am going to write a long letter and see where that gets me. I know the advice is usually to put everything in writing but i thought i could at least get them to go some way to making amends on the phone by issuing a goodwill gesture as an apology.

I guess i just wanted a bit of a rant, sorry it's so bloody long and if anyone has any knowledge of Vodafone whether as an employee or as a customer which you think might help me i would be grateful. Some suggestions for wording of a letter would be appreciated too. Although i asked for £40 on the phone i fully intend to ask for more in a letter, i'll itemise what want a goodwill gesture for, ie, my time spent on the phone, angish and stress from the call, bad customer service etc as well as the time i've spent writing the letter etc and because of the constant problems i seem to have had.

pipsi_2

Aware that the length of my post may put people off reading it, to sum up i've spent two hours on the phone to Vodafone trying to get simple info about my bill, after being passed on to a supervisor and a manger they eventually agreed to refund charges for insurance that they had incorrectly charged me. I requested a goodwill gesture because i had by that time spent two hours on the phone, been accused of lying, been given incorrect information, had the first two people flatly refuse to tell me what some charges were on my bill, the first two people avoided answering simple questions such as the date and time of one charge they were referring to, the second guy also spent 20 mins refusing to put me through to his manager and boasted he could issue goodwill gestures of up to £1000 but didn't want to issue one to me because he didn't like me. The third person eventually agreed to refund £12 (which actually doesn't cover what i'm owed from the insurance so i'm still out of pocket). I asked to speak to her manager who was meant to call me back half an hour ago but hasn't as yet - i'm not holding my breath.

I'm going to write a long letter of complaint but wanted some advice on what sort of figure i should ask for as a goodwill gesture for the length of time i've spent on the phone and the bad customer service, including being accused of lying and down right refusals to provide me with information i was legally entitled to. It's the most recent of a long list of issues i've had with Vodafone, on occasions they agree to refunds or to cancel something and then when i call to ask why i haven't received said refund or cancellation they say there is no record of the conversation i've had. Since signing up to an 18 month contract 12 months ago i've had no end of problems and now i just think enough is enough, i'm sick of wasting hours of my time each month trying to get my bills put right.

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated, as well as any other experiences others have had and would like to share.

Oscar_The_Grouch

There's a Voda rep on this forum. I'd suggest sending them a PM and asking them for a reference, name and e-mail address so that you can get your complaint straight in to the correct person.

Compensation is a hard one to work out. If Voda accept that they are in the wrong, the best thing from their point of view would be to credit your account back with the overcharged insurance premiums and then give you a couple of months free line rental too (by crediting it to your account). From the tone of your post, nothing they offer you would get you to stay with them, so they are unlikely to offer anything big in the way of compensation. If you can get 2 or 3 months free out of this, plus the credit back of the overpaid insurance, you should only need to find about £11 to cover your bill up to the end of January. 2 months after that, you can move to another company.

pipsi_2

Thanks for the reply Oscar, i waited up til midnight last night and still didn't get a call from the manager who was supposed to call me back by 2030. I'll have a search for the Vodafone rep and send a PM. I had a little read through some of the posts of the generic Vodafone complaints thread last night and it seems that many others are having issues with them.

I'd like to have my faith restored with them and could be tempted to stay but it's just one thing after another. I'm considering my other options. I'm stuck with them until at least June next year because that's when my second number contract runs out. I left Virgin a few years ago after being with them for about 8 years because they started charging for paper bills, put their prices up for if you went over your inclusive minutes and their international calls are expensive, plus i moved house and the signal wasn't great there. I've moved again so this isn't an problem anymore. Although free paper bills is a big thing for me, i run my own business so need the paper bills to put through the accounts. I always buy my phones or sign up to contracts in shops so i don't see why i should be forced to do everything online and spend my money on printing my bill out each month. It's a real gripe of mine.

I then moved to O2 who messed me around loads, cancelled things like the international package without letting me know while i was living abroad so instead of getting a bill for somewhere in the region of £30 it would be £300. It happened month after month so i ended up changing to Vodafone.

Orange is rubbish coverage where i live plus i keep getting marketing calls from them even though they shouldn't have access to my number, this really annoys me so i wouldn't consider them. O2 p***ed me off to the point i wouldn't go back to them, I'd consider Virgin again if they could match my current deal and gave me free paper bills. It's mostly a coverage thing though, i travel alot with my business and there's nothing worse than being in a hotel somewhere rural and not having any signal on my phone.

Oscar_The_Grouch

If you like Virgin's coverage, you should consider T-mobile. Virgin piggyback the T-Mobile network so you shouldn't have any problems in that area. As for their customer service, I'm sorry but I've not been with them for years so don't know what they are currently like.

One of the T-Mobile "Flexible Boosters" appears to be cheap international calls. There's one for calls to Europe and one for calls from there too. You can switch your booster each month to suit where you are and what you're doing, so it's got to be worth a look.

pipsi_2

I didn't even realise T Mobile still existed, for some reason i thought they were what was once one to one, then became T mobile, and then became O2. I suppose my other option is 3 but my Mum and sister both use it and quite frankly i don't know why they bother, no matter where either of them are we can never have a decent conversation without the line breaking up or cutting off. They can't get a signal in the house unless they stand in the garden or perch on a window sill. As soon as they walk inside a building the signal drops. I need something with really good coverage because of my business. I was always led to believe that O2 and Vodafone had the best coverage, is this still the case? What about the supermarket networks like Tesco and Asda? Are there any networks that still do free paper bills? If not i guess i can always point out this when i'm ringing around for comparisons and say how important this is to me.

*SmallFry*

pipsi wrote: »

What about the supermarket networks like Tesco and Asda?

Tesco use O2 and Asda use Vodaphone.

Vodafone

Hi pipsi,

I’m disappointed to learn about the problems you’ve experienced recently and I completely understand why you’re feeling so frustrated at the moment.

If you’d like to email us via Web Relations Team we’ll be happy to look into this for you.

(When contacting, please quote the code WRT135 in the subject line. In the main message body, please include a link to this thread and your user name. This will ensure that your message comes directly through to my team).

I’m positive we can get this resolved for you.

Kind regards,

Jenny
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK