Vodafone complaints

Loosetooth

This is quite a haphazard and slow process... whilst I realise that, Lee, you have emailed me to tell me that you cannot help me, it was because of a reason that is neither current nor relevant.

I am quite happy to accept that you cannot help, or do not have the will/power, but can we have that usefull dialogue to establish this as I still have pertinent questions to ask you (address to send a Letter Before Action that will not result in it being sent to India where it is lost and will not be read by the relevant people).

As I have stated I am still a Vodafone customer, I am still here trying to usefully engage with someone, anyone, at Vodafone and to find a solution.

Silk

Loosetooth wrote: »

I am quite happy to accept that you cannot help, or do not have the will/power, but can we have that usefull dialogue to establish this as I still have pertinent questions to ask you (address to send a Letter Before Action that will not result in it being sent to India where it is lost and will not be read by the relevant people).

Send it to their Head Office ...........


Vodafone's registered office address:
Vodafone Group Plc
Vodafone House
The Connection
Newbury
Berkshire
RG14 2FN
England

Loosetooth

Silk wrote: »

Send it to their Head Office ...........


Vodafone's registered office address:
Vodafone Group Plc
Vodafone House
The Connection
Newbury
Berkshire
RG14 2FN
England

Any letters sent to Vodafone's UK Head Office gets sent to India. Here it is either disregarded or results in an Indian Call Centre worker phoning and, without really understanding the letter offering (they will not even offer this to me atm) an apology and anywhere between £5 and £15 credit.

Vodafone have created a culture where they have shipped all their CS to three central foreign locations (Egypt, SA and India). I am not some UKIP weirdo... I would be happy with this, if it delivered good customer services. It does not. It is chaos, long wait times, miscommunication and a lip service to customer service. It is possible to spend 40-75 mins on the phone, achieve nothing, not be understood, be advised incorrectly, be put through to 3 different departments and then be promised a call back from a manager within 48 hours which then does not happen (one of the reasons that I persevere here is because at least Lee is in the UK and may be able to, if he listens, see that I have been a little hard done by and might be able to come to a compromise solution with me.... that is not something that is even considered anywhere else, it is a dialogue that is shut down).

I am happy to sent a Letter Before Action to the Legal Team at Vodafone's Head Office... if I know that it will not be sent, along with all their other white mail, to India. It is ironic that Vodafone, a communications company, have taken decisions that make it virtually impossible for their customers to communicate with them, especially when extraordinary things go wrong (as in my case).

Independent of whether I find a resolution here or not the decisions that have been taken within Vodafone in the 18 months have been disastrous for the company. I only hope that Vodafone take the necessary decisions to fix these problems because their attempts to cost save and streamline has seen them plummet from the very best company with great customer service, to the very worst.

mobilejunkie

The LBA will be in their court - to respond, ignore or send it around the world. It is plainly unlikely they will settle, so for your purpose it is merely to show the court that you have given them the warning and opportunity to act to avoid the need for you to take the next step and sue.

Since you are so sure of your ground and determined to pursue to the end, why don't you issue the LBA, wait the 7 (or whatever) days you allow them to take the steps you specify in it to avert a law suit and then commence legal proceedings if/when they don't?

Loosetooth

mobilejunkie wrote: »

The LBA will be in their court - to respond, ignore or send it around the world. It is plainly unlikely they will settle, so for your purpose it is merely to show the court that you have given them the warning and opportunity to act to avoid the need for you to take the next step and sue.

Since you are so sure of your ground and determined to pursue to the end, why don't you issue the LBA, wait the 7 (or whatever) days you allow them to take the steps you specify in it to avert a law suit and then commence legal proceedings if/when they don't?

Am I sure of my ground? Of course not, I am not a lawyer, nor am I so bloody minded. But I know that I have a right, when I take out a contract for services, to good service and I just did not get it. The question then is did I act reasonably and try to engage Vodafone customer services? And I did... There are months when I spend hours on the phone trying to engage Customer Services to resolve the problems. Vodafone are good at putting small credits onto my account, but not good at fixing the problems. This meant that I had to go through the same rigmorale month after tiresome month and it was very wearing.

I said earlier that had I encountered Lee then I am fairly sure that it would not have progressed this far, but I did not... I was funnelled through 191 where I began to lose patience and received less and less service and then none.

Right now I want to meet a manager in Vodafone who can review the contract (and it was a traumatic and unfair thing to live through) and come to a compromise, one where I do not get the result that I want necessarily, but where Vodafone acknowledge their role so that I can end the contract and keep my phone number.

Failing that I have two options... pay them what they are asking, which is large and unfair, or - backed into a corner - go the Small Claims route. I just do not want to do that, not because I am unconfident, but because of the time it will take.

I am here and willing to pay a significant amount of money that I do not feel I should, after the treatment I received and the time I have chased Vodafone looking for a resolution, in order to get quick closure and to allow me to retain my number that I PAC coded to Vodafone and have had since 1999.

Loosetooth

Loosetooth wrote: »

This is quite a haphazard and slow process... whilst I realise that, Lee, you have emailed me to tell me that you cannot help me, it was because of a reason that is neither current nor relevant.

I am quite happy to accept that you cannot help, or do not have the will/power, but can we have that usefull dialogue to establish this as I still have pertinent questions to ask you (address to send a Letter Before Action that will not result in it being sent to India where it is lost and will not be read by the relevant people).

As I have stated I am still a Vodafone customer, I am still here trying to usefully engage with someone, anyone, at Vodafone and to find a solution.

Another question I would have is why my itemised bills are not displayed on the website and can I request those bills from Vodafone (from now on I will not be doing paperless billing, I just assumed - the devil of all things - that the bills would be available to download, as pdf, for time, I was wrong).

Silk

Loosetooth wrote: »

Any letters sent to Vodafone's UK Head Office gets sent to India.

Where did you hear such rubbish ?


If you issue a LBA you are required to send it to the company's registered address.
The above address is the company's registered address, as MJ says what they choose to do with it is of no concern to you.
It is a straight forward process that if they fail to respond within the limits you set then you issue proceedings and take them to court

Loosetooth

Silk wrote: »

Where did you hear such rubbish ?


If you issue a LBA you are required to send it to the company's registered address.
The above address is the company's registered address, as MJ says what they choose to do with it is of no concern to you.
It is a straight forward process that if they fail to respond within the limits you set then you issue proceedings and take them to court

It is not "such rubbish", it is true.

I know this because numerous Vodafone CS agents have told me and I have written them multiple letters.

When you write Vodafone in the UK the mail is shipped (or scanned) out to India and it is there read, processed and responded to (usually with a return phone call from an Indian call centre). No "white mail" as it is called in Vodafonise is dealt with in the UK now. It has made writing to Vodafone an almost pointless exercise now, because the way the written mail is handled is worse than if you simply rang 191.

More often than not it (the mail) is simply ignored, the best that you can hope for is a phone call from a CS agent who is, more or less, the same as the agents answering 191 calls.... they usually apologise for the terrible service and offer a £5 credit to your account. This is not done for any other reason than showing that they made a "reasonable" response should the matter go further.

However I do take yours and others points that I should issue the LBA, to the legal address and not worry about how they choose to handle it.

Silk

Loosetooth wrote: »

It is not "such rubbish", it is true..

It is rubbish I'm afraid.
The head office is massive and employs thousands of people and covers about 30 acres.
Whilst your mail will no doubt be passed to a call centre if appropriate it will be processed through the correct department.
If you send a LBA it will get passed to the legal department, should they choose to take action on it.

Loosetooth

Silk wrote: »

It is rubbish I'm afraid.
The head office is massive and employs thousands of people and covers about 30 acres.
Whilst your mail will no doubt be passed to a call centre if appropriate it will be processed through the correct department.
If you send a LBA it will get passed to the legal department, should they choose to take action on it.

Well we are just going to agree to disagree. Whilst I cannot say 100% for sure, I have been told things by Vodafone employees and have my own direct experience of writing numerous letters. It does not matter how big the Vodafone campus is, nor how many employees they employ... what matters is their current practices and the departments those employees work in and trust me when I say that hardly any UK employees are employed in customer services now, including opening or responding to letters.

But I again stress something to you.... I am not here to argue with (or be judged by) you. I am here to try and have a dialogue with Lee. It is nice that you are taking the time to reply to me, but really you do not have to, especially as we do not appear to be gaining anything from the conversation.