Vodafone Direct Debit

grumbler

mwild1958 wrote: »

... my son has just taken a contract with Vodafone and I am appalled at the treatment he has received from their customer service. He took out a contract via Carphone Warehouse in Jan this year. He asked if he could pay on the 25th of each month ..his payday .. was told that would be ok and he could arrange this directly with Vodafone. He did this but before the 25th he was called and told he had not paid his bill and if he didnt settle immediately his phone would be cut off. He explained he could pay in a couple of days and said he had already spoken to someone who had agreed to this. He was told that they would not accept this arrangement and cut off his phone. He rang and wrote to Voafone but all they would tell him is that if he doesnt pay they will not turn the phone back on and they expected him to pay on the date they had said not the date which had been agreed with one of their own operators.

I think you can move the date of the DD back (to the earlier date), not forward. For example, if on the 1st of Apr you want to change it from the 10th to the 20th then you have to make the payment on the 10th first, then it will change to the 20th of Apr, May etc.

They wanted paying and would not comprimise.

I understand them.

Now 3 months later they are demanding he pays the 3 months he owes for a phone which was only activated for a few days and now they are threatening to send his debt to credit collectors.

Well, he could have paid and had the phone activated. Why had not he? It was his fault and he has to pay for the contract regardless.

Now I am disgusted with this treatment, my son never refused to pay and in fact he hasn't even received a bill, he simply asked if he could pay a couple of days later on in the month ...his payday ... help !!! advise welcome !!!!

You can check my posts an you will see that normally I am the first to accuse Vodafone of all deadly sins.
Unfortunately, if I understood everything correctly, I don't see any case for blaming them this time.

mwild1958

grumbler wrote: »

I think you can move the date of the DD back (to the earlier date), not forward. For example, if on the 1st of Apr you want to change it from the 10th to the 20th then you have to make the payment on the 10th first, then it will change to the 20th of Apr, May etc.
I understand them. Well, he could have paid and had the phone activated. Why had not he? It was his fault and he has to pay for the contract regardless.
You can check my post an you will see that normally I am first to accuse Vodafone of all deadly sins.
Unfortunately, if I understood everything correctly, I don't see any case for blaming them this time.

I think you misunderstand this ... when he took out the contract he was told he could change the direct debit date...he was very clear that he got paid on the 25th of each month and would have otherwise not taken the contract out. Someone then from Vodafone agreed to change the date but then someone else retracted this. He rang and wrote several times asking if they would accept his offer to pay on the 25th ..they kept refusing ..he now is expected to pay for nearly 4 months of a phone he used for approx 2 weeks ... surely this cant be right as it appears to me he has been mis-sold this contract by being led to believe he could change the payment date!

grumbler

mwild1958 wrote: »

I think you misunderstand this ... when he took out the contract he was told he could change the direct debit date...he was very clear that he got paid on the 25th of each month and would have otherwise not taken the contract out.

I think it was misunderstanding in CPW. [STRIKE]If I buy a contract on, say the 1st, the DD is due on, say, the 20th and my payday is the 21st it is very unreasonable to expect from them waiting until the 21st of the next month to collect the first payment.[/STRIKE]
If I buy, say, on the first, the, the DD is due on, say the 15th, and my payday is the 30th, it is very unreasonable to expect from them waiting until the 30th to collect the first payment. Pay on the 15th first, then change the DD date to the 1st.

Someone then from Vodafone agreed to change the date but then someone else retracted this.

You don't know this. I may be the case of changing the future DDs, not the first one.

He rang and wrote several times asking if they would accept his offer to pay on the 25th ..they kept refusing ..he now is expected to pay for nearly 4 months of a phone he used for approx 2 weeks ... surely this cant be right as it appears to me

Don't tell me that they refused to accept payments. Pay what you owe first, get the phone reactivated, then discuss all the problems, including the date of the future payments. As simple as that.

he has been mis-sold this contract by being led to believe he could change the contract date!

He can change this, but there are some minor and reasonable constrains that he has to take into account.

mwild1958

grumbler wrote: »

I think it was misunderstanding in CPW. If I buy a contract on, say the 1st, the DD is due on, say, the 20th and my payday is the 21st it is very unreasonable to expect from them waiting until the 21st of the next month to collect the first payment.

You don't know this. I may be the case of changing the future DDs, not the first one.
Don't tell me that they refused to accept payments. Pay what you owe first, get the phone reactivated, then discuss all the problems, including the date of the future payments. As simple as that.
He can change this, but there are some minor and reasonable constrains that he has to take into account.

Ok I think this is getting confusing now .... the phone was activated on the 1st of the month, payment requested for the 17th of that month, Vodafone agreed to change to 25th of that same month NOT the following month .. then received a call saying not good enough wanted it straight away !!! rang several times asking if a payment date could be accepted on the 25th and willing to pay that day each month...told clearly no the date could not be changed... ... he could not agree for DD to be set for the 17th because of the fact he might not have money in the account at that time in the month .. he also strangely has not received a bill.... I have just spoken to someone at Vodafone who now says dates can be changed ... I will however add the person I spoke to was also not very pleasant or helpful, in fact he was quite rude and spoke down to me. I understand now why my son is getting so frustrated when trying to speak to these people !!!!

mwild1958

oh and forgot to add that because he would not accept DD for 17th they refused to re-activate account ! and it does not alter the fact this has gone on for so long because of unhelpful people causing the account to grow even though he has not had use of the phone .... it seems the people at the call centre are not consistent with their information/advise.

grumbler

mwild1958 wrote: »

Ok I think this is getting confusing now .... the phone was activated on the 1st of the month, payment requested for the 17th of that month, Vodafone agreed to change to 25th of that same month NOT the following month .. then received a call saying not good enough wanted it straight away !!! rang several times asking if a payment date could be accepted on the 25th and willing to pay that day each month...told clearly no the date could not be changed...

Yes, their CS is probably the worst around.

BTW, I edited my post above as the imaginable example was totally wrong.

... he could not agree for DD to be set for the 17th because of the fact he might not have money in the account at that time in the month

Even if the date is inconvenient for him and cannot be changed, this is just a matter of a simple budgeting and not spending the money that is due for collection later.

.. he also strangely has not received a bill....

This can be Vodafone's fault. They have to send the bill and the bill has to show the date the DD collection.

this has gone on for so long because of unhelpful people causing the account to grow even though he has not had use of the phone ....

This is a norm for all networks. Your son has to pay regardless of using or not, unless it is their fault that he cannot use the phone. Clearly it wasn't their fault.

mwild1958

grumbler wrote: »

Yes, their CS is probably the worst around.

BTW, I edited my post above as the imaginable example was totally wrong.

Even if the date is inconvenient for him and cannot be changed, this is just a matter of a simple budgeting and not spending the money that is due for collection later.
This can be Vodafone's fault. They have to send the bill and the bill has to show the date the DD collection.
This is a norm for all networks. Your son has to pay regardless of using or not, unless it is their fault that he cannot use the phone. Clearly it wasn't their fault.

Now surely the fact that they have been so unhelpful makes it their fault ... they have not listened and I believe this after my call to them..there the problem had dragged on without resolve !!! As for the budgeting ... he has a young family and does his best and this does not get away from the fact they did at first agree to change the DD day, and he bought the contract with that understanding !!!!

Also just found this post which is strangely familiar ... seems these people do as they want !!!!!

Has any body else had problems with Vodafone? I have no idea what to do.

When i first took out my contract, i asked them if i could pay by direct debit, and pay it on a particular date each month, they said that the first bill would need to be on a set date, but every other bill date after that could be specified by me,

So i set the direct debit up for the 20th of each month, this was fine for the first two months, but for 3 months in a row, they took it on the 15th, when i had no money in my account, and therefore i incurred bank charges. I called Vodafone each time there was a problem and was assured it had been sorted, but when it happened a month later, i decided to cancel my direct debit and just call up and pay by debit card on the 20th of each month, they offered to pay my bank charges but by that point i had already sorted them out.

Now that i was calling up to pay my own bill, i rang them to tell them that this would be happening, and why, and the lady assured me she would change the date to the 20th to avoid any warning messages telling me that my account was overdue.

Sure enough for three months in a row, i received messages telling me that my phone would be cut off if i didnt pay my bill, and that it had been due on the 15th,

I called each and every time and asked to log a complaint, a customer adviser told me that he had logged it so i waited for a response. NONE.

So i called again to try and speak to a manager, what a nightmare just trying to get through, rude staff, and being on hold for so long.

Eventually when i spoke to a manager he told me that he would reduce my bill to £12 for that month and make sure that it all got sorted, i also asked that he logged an official complaint for me, which he said he would, so i paid the £12 by debit card with him, and felt much better.

By the time my next bill came around i hadnt heard a response to my complaint, and i had received another text message telling me my account was overdue AGAIN. I was so tired of this that i called again,

This time i was told that i had a huge balance on my account, and that a complaint was never logged. It turned out the manager hadnt reduced my bill at all, the balance had rolled over for this months bill,

I was told by a friend to e-mail them and go into the store. I did both.
The Assistant in the shop told me he wouldnt help because he was there to sell mobile phones, not sort out problems.

The email response to the complaint, which was similar to this post was
" Thank you for your request to set up a direct debit on your account, i have posted out a mandate form to you"

A slap in the face or what? I have told them to cancel my contract and remove fees, but nobody will help, i havent paid my bill and i am not going to. I do not know where to go from here!

mobilejunkie

They do (supposedly) have a so-called "Customer Complaints Code". They don't follow it at all though. I've spent hours JUST trying to speak with a manager, had the promise of a call-back which NEVER comes, sent on-line messages/complaints, had similar on-line "chats". They totally ignore everything. The last manager I finally managed to speak with tried to be helpful, got it all wrong (all this took over an hour) and then left me dangling, promising to call me back; he didn't. My formal letter of complaint has also (thus far) been totally ignored.

When an organisation REFUSES to let you speak with a manager, ignores all (repeated) attempts to solve a basic problem - caused by them in the first place - threatens to cut off your phone through no fault of your own, attempts to take a payment for MORE than the bill without knowing WHY - it's hardly surprising they have such an abysmal reputation. You are at a massive disavantage when they make promises they don't keep and then you cannot get through to anyone to sort it out - and each time you call you have to go through the SAME, increasingly complex explanation of where you are and how you ended up there. In my experience, only T-Mobile is as bad as this "organisation".

mwild1958

mobilejunkie wrote: »

They do (supposedly) have a so-called "Customer Complaints Code". They don't follow it at all though. I've spent hours JUST trying to speak with a manager, had the promise of a call-back which NEVER comes, sent on-line messages/complaints, had similar on-line "chats". They totally ignore everything. The last manager I finally managed to speak with tried to be helpful, got it all wrong (all this took over an hour) and then left me dangling, promising to call me back; he didn't. My formal letter of complaint has also (thus far) been totally ignored.

When an organisation REFUSES to let you speak with a manager, ignores all (repeated) attempts to solve a basic problem - caused by them in the first place - threatens to cut off your phone through no fault of your own, attempts to take a payment for MORE than the bill without knowing WHY - it's hardly surprising they have such an abysmal reputation. You are at a massive disavantage when they make promises they don't keep and then you cannot get through to anyone to sort it out - and each time you call you have to go through the SAME, increasingly complex explanation of where you are and how you ended up there. In my experience, only T-Mobile is as bad as this "organisation".

Well as I said in an earlier post I have had no problems with either 3G or 02 but Vodafone ...so rude and so patronising ... my son has made several calls to them and told me of his frustration so I thought I would ring them to see if they could be a little more helpful ... I had to terminate the call in the end as I felt like a little child being told off !!! I am going to write to the ombudsman and hope they can offer some advise...this has gotten ridiculous now !!!!

crazyguy

The director of Vodafones email address :-[EMAIL="guy.laurence@vodafone.com"]guy.laurence@vodafone.com[/EMAIL]