Vodafone complaints

mobilejunkie

They can't possibly do that without a reference number.

latinstar

I have received an automated email response from the email link of this forum with a reference i presume I just wait now?

harrisjac

Can someone helpful at Vodafone please help me. I have written a formal complaint to Ombudsman, Resolver, your CEO and sent one via post. After 2 months and over 30 hours, you still continue to lie and cheat me insisting things will be done. Promising i could cancel my contract due to the issues and advising me to take the same one out in the mean time.

I need this resolved as you have cost me money, time and stress to the point its ruining Christmas for my family and putting a strain on my pregnant partner.

YaoSong

What have the Ombudsman said? You should have a case reference and a summary outlining your experience to date and what outcome you are seeking. If you have already started a case with the Ombudsman then Vodafone are unlikely to respond to you until an outcome is reached.

antony.carr

Dear Vodafone
I've been with you since May and have experienced the following:
1. Failure over the course of 8 months to take payment by direct debit. There's nothing wrong at the banks end
2. Assurances every month that all will be operating from now on - it's still not
3. The last four months, despite a variety of operators assuring me that the 'late payment' fee would be waived, it has not. I now have over £24 of fees on my account that I should not be paying
4. Finally got through to a manager (called Luigi) in billing last Saturday. Promised to resolve late fees and sort compensation. Promised me a return call on Monday - still waiting
5. Been on the phone to a variety of departments today. Asked to leave Vodafone without buying myself out of the contract and was told I had to follow a formal process. I got transferred FIVE times, and each department said 'we don't do that' and then transferred me to another one. Total length of phone call was over an hour.
6. Submitted a complaint by email a few weeks ago and formally complained verbally - no response.

How can I get out of this? I'm sick and tired of wasting my time every month chasing a bunch of incompetents!

HGH

Dear Vodafone,

Late 2012 I took out a 24 month contract with Vodafone for an Iphone 5, I had a staff (20th Century Fox) discount added and agreed with the sales adviser that I would have an International bundle added meaning that calls to Ireland were cheaper. I cant remember the exact price but it was around £5 a month making calls minimal. I remember the conversation well, this is because my parents live in Ireland and I would be calling them a lot! I remember being told that otherwise calls would be around £1 per minute. This was a major part of my decision to take out this contract, as my parents number would be one of the numbers I'd be calling most often. All of this was done in store on Tottenham Court Road, just around the corner from my office.

1 - Several months after taking out the contract I noticed extremely high direct debits coming out of my account. I tried getting onto my account online but wasn't able to see what I was getting charged for and I'd opted out of bills in the post. I contacted Vodafone customer services, the reason my bills were so high is because I was being charged nearly £1 per minute for calls to Ireland!!! I asked why the International deal I was offered hadn't been applied, I got an apology and was told it would be added with immediate effect. Great. Sorted.

2 - Again, maybe 18months ago, I didn't keep track of exact dates. Or unfortunately, a close eye on my bank statements to see what Vodafone had been billing me! I noticed another bill of over £100, I get in touch with Vodafone AGAIN to see what was causing the high bills (remember I still couldn't access my online account), and I was astonished to find out I was still paying £1 per minute to call Ireland. I was told that they would add the international bundle that I should have had approximately a year and a half earlier. Pretty annoyed at this point, I wanted to know how much I had been over charged, I was told that this would be passed over to the billings team, someone would work this out for me and I would get a call back. I never did get the call back! I'm busy, I don't have endless hours of free time to spend trying to track down someone on the end of a phone to chase this up, so I left it. (Probably worth mentioning that at this time I notified them of my new address, today my address is still down as my old one)

3 - Late 2014, my contract had came to an end. I negotiate over the phone a reduction in monthly cost as I was no longer paying for the phone. I went forward with a similar deal, if not the same, but mention that I call Ireland a lot and would need to keep the international bundle. Done.

4 - 9th December 5015 (last week) I receive a text from Vodafone with my bill. It was £146.86!!! I regularly get bills of around £60/70 and had always put this down to going over on my data or using too many texts. Admittedly I don't keep a close eye on what I use. However this seemed totally unusual so I get in touch with Vodafone.
- First of all I use the instant messenger on the Vodafone website. I ask why the unusually high bill, I'm told it was £123 worth of international calls to Ireland!!!!! WHAAAT?! - THE INTERNATIONAL BUNDLE WAS STILL NOT ADDED OVER 3 YEARS LATER!!!!! Baring in mind I'd never seen a single bill despite my best efforts!
- I was told someone would call me, which they did some time later. I explained what had happened over the previous 3 years so they passed me over to billings.
- I explain again to the person in billings what had happened over the previous 3 years, they look into the notes and say the notes don't go far back enough and they cant access the correct system to see this. I get passed over to someone who can access this information.
- I explain the long winded situation for the 4th time, and the very helpful Amy looked into the past notes for me. It took a while but she came back and said she did in fact find the note saying that the International Bundle should have been added, she even gave me the exact date on my file - 10th November 2012! FINALLY - RELIEF!!!! Someone had found what I'd been saying all along! I SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN PAYING £1 PER MIN FOR CALLS TO IRELAND.
- I was told that the next step would be that she would pass this onto someone who would look into how to calculate the money I was owed and they would get back to me within a week.
- I voiced concern that the payment of £146 was due to come out of my account still, she said that she would cancel the direct debit from her side and I agreed to do the same with my bank to be on the safe side.
- I asked for her name and a call reference number, she gave me her name (Amy) and said that there was no reference numbers on the calls and that she would send me an e-mail with confirmation on what had happened.
- I tried again to go through the various steps to get access to my Vodafone online account to view my bills, I was particularly keen to see exactly what I'd been charged in calls to Ireland over the last 3 years. After following all of the steps with forgotten username / password / first pets name questions (and I was using the correct e-mail that is registered with Vodafone) I still couldn't gain access.
- I get back in touch via instant messenger. The adviser told me he didn't know why my account wouldn't work, and he'd pass me onto someone else who could help me.
- I chat on messenger to another person, telling them the story for the 6th time that day the situation. They looked into why my online account didn't work, couldn't find a reason so they agreed to e-mail me copies of my bills since 2012. I asked them if they would mind staying online until I had them. They agreed. They then went offline and only sent me a few of the bills, not all of them. Again I give up. I have spent 4 hours of my day chasing Vodafone and I cant face calling again, telling another person the back story!

5 - WEDNESDAY 16th DECEMBER - One week on - I didn't receive the phone call from Vodafone I was promised!
- I call Vodafone to find out the status on the investigations to the account I'm promised. I speak to a helpful adviser in the billings team. I tell him the back story again, he looks at my notes and finds NO RECORD OF THE ENQUIRY IN MY NOTES!!! I'm at my whits ends by now - I feel like crying! He tells me not to worry and that I will still be entitled to a full refund on what I'm owed if I've been over charged. I ask to be put back through to someone who can access the 'old system'
- I'm put through to another adviser who again, is helpful but unable to find any record of everything I went over the week previously.
- I ask him to look into notes on 10th November 2012, this was where someone had found the proof that this was the date I'd added the International bundle. He say's it's not there!!!
- I explain my frustration that I wasn't even given a reference for the call I'd made (even though I'd asked for one - I was told there wasn't such a thing!), nor had I received the e-mail I was told I'd be sent. The adviser tells me that he could give me a reference to the call which was over an hour long!!! He also looks back and gives me the reference for the call the previous week with 'Amy' - I am also told that phone recordings are kept for a 90 days.
- He's also able to give me my username for my online login! Great!
- I'm advised to put this letter in writing and post it to head office, which I've also done.

I'm optimistic that Vodafone can sort out this problem in a reasonable way. After all, I've kept to my side of the contract, I'm hoping that these problems are not the norm and I've just been unlucky with the communication given from the billings team! I've been a customer for years and really don't like to think they've been fobbing me off and over charging me intentionally. If we cannot rectify this swiftly I will be ordering notes / phone conversations in the new year, before they're erased forever!

Kind regards,

Hannah

HGH

Hello Lee

Please see above post - reference from my post - wrt135 [#12235214]‏

Thanks!

diamonds

dandouna77 wrote: »

Hi Diamonds

Thanks for explaining that to me. If that’s the case, why couldn’t Vodaphone explain so? I will call the branch first as advised and confirm this. Although I don’t live in the countryside, it’s not that convenient to take a trip into town to collect this. Are they really scrimping on postage costs for a mistake they made?! Even so, a simple explanation from any of the 8 Vodaphone parties I have spoken to would have helped.

Its about reducing postage times and more inconvience to you, they prob just reconnected account and got a local branch to issue new sim, your right though....too many assumptions on V part to be good resolution. Esp when you requested a call first.

Reading below, answer the email with the WRT code in the email or from experience it disappears into the hole of Voda we will politely call its deadly dark online a(by)ss



Good luck and keep us updated

mobilejunkie

HGH wrote: »

I'm optimistic that Vodafone can sort out this problem in a reasonable way. After all, I've kept to my side of the contract, I'm hoping that these problems are not the norm and I've just been unlucky with the communication given from the billings team! I've been a customer for years and really don't like to think they've been fobbing me off and over charging me intentionally. If we cannot rectify this swiftly I will be ordering notes / phone conversations in the new year, before they're erased forever!


Hannah

Very restrained. Your last paragraph is quite wrong, however.

1) Be pessimistic (should be by now if for no other reason, but a glance through this and endless other Vodafone threads will soon persuade you if not).

2) These problems (and lots more) ARE the norm.

3) Unlucky - you DO make me laugh. Must be many more unlucky than lucky Vodafone customers then.

4) As IF they'd fob you off. After SO many repeat instances of them doing exactly that over such a long period you really haven't learnt that much by now?

5) Ordering notes etc. - you really think they keep them or that they would make a difference if they did?

Your real mistake is fundamental; not checking your statements OR bank account for months at a time, apparently - despite ending up being overcharged over a long period previosuly. Maybe you're just too trusting or naive, but if you don't wise up fast tou'll still be on here with an ever-increasing mess in another 18 month.

Follow the repeated instructions on this thread to contact the Web Relations Team, or you'll join the endless army of people stranded on here by Vodafone problems.

mobilejunkie

latinstar wrote: »

I have received an automated email response from the email link of this forum with a reference i presume I just wait now?

Yes - although it may help to post the reference number on here. It usually takes 2-3 working days before they get back to you (not surprising considering how useless the rest of the organisation is and therefore how busy we keep them), so it may be after Christmas now.