Vodafone Catalogue of Mess Ups

grumbler

wooly2708 wrote: »

I do think them lying to me is grounds for the contract to be terminated.

Good luck.

I know my rights re admin fees and they have to be fair and justified. If I pay by debit card over the net when I want to pay my bill it is just as automated a system as direct debit except I am in control over the timing.

Are Visa/Mastercard involved in DD transactions and charge their fees too?
Also, it's not just admin fees. You pay for being a more risky customer. You are more likely to miss the payment that will require special actions like suspending/unsuspending your account, dealing with your telephone calls, sending letters (probably) etc. The fact that you cannot control your current account so that the required amount is available at the known date speaks for itself.

And I have already tried to get them to change the DD collection date in the past with nil success. In fact, the issue has been they seem to vary when it comes out.

Why do you think that they are supposed to do this? You cannot change the DD date without changing the billing cycle. Changing the cycle is the last thing that you want to do at Vodafone with their shambolic CS and computer system.

gjchester

wooly2708 wrote: »

I do think them lying to me is grounds for the contract to be terminated.

Lying, or simply making mistakes.

wooly2708 wrote: »

I know my rights re admin fees and they have to be fair and justified. If I pay by debit card over the net when I want to pay my bill it is just as automated a system as direct debit except I am in control over the timing.

Sorry but I think you are mistaken. Regardless of how you feel about the fee being fair and justified it is irrelevent. The contract you signed would have clearly said that there was an admin charge, and you agreed to it.

And to be fair paying extra to collect a non DD payment is not unusual, and £2 is pretty small although it builds up. Orange charge £3.50 O2 is £2.50. Look at Ryanair who charge a lot more to pay them money or The National Trust charge you £12 more if you join and pay by any method other than DD.

yeslek

wooly2708 wrote: »

I am absolutely frustrated with Vodafone's Customer Services. I am a pay monthly customer and have been for well over a year. I've never missed a payment or had any issues until fairly recently when I completed a 12 month contract and foolishly agreed to a 24 month contract in exchange for a Blackberry Bold handset.

Firstly, even though I'd already opted out of receiving unsolicited sales calls and texts from Vodafone or them passing my details on to third parties they did so with the new contract being signed and I was suddenly inundated. They refused to acknowledge they'd done anything wrong until I threatened to report them to the Office of the Information Commissioner after which they gave me a new mobile number free of charge and made sure I was off all sales lists.

I had this same issue when I first too out a contract with Vodafone
It's like they'd given me an recycled number or something. My phone was non-stop calls/texts for a month until I demanded they block the calls...instead they gave me a new number.

wooly2708 wrote: »

A couple of weeks ago I informed Vodafone that I was coming off direct debit and going onto paying on the bill by email. I received an email acknowledgement of that and so I cancelled the direct debit with my bank. They have since raised the issue of unjustified "admin charges" being payable if you use any method other that direct debit and I have questions the legality of this. They claim it is just to cover costs but refuse to provide any detailed breakdown of what costs they are talking about and I am not happy having over £2 added to my phone bill just for paying by debit card online or over the phone.

I had an issue with Orange a few year back doing the same thing.
It appears to be common practice as its a more reliable method of payment as far as providers are concerned. If you choose to pay as/when you feel like it how can they guarantee you WILL. Where as if there is a DD set up there is little to no chance of them having to chase you for funds

wooly2708 wrote: »

And on top of that they are now about to increase my monthly line rental without my consent. They claim the contract allows them to do this but again I've made it clear I am not happy about this and questioned how fair this contract term is.

pretty sure they can only increase in line with inflation only.
might be wrong though but its still not fair on you to just increase charges, however legal it may be

gjchester wrote: »

There are only so many mobile numbers, and it's possible someone else put your number in a form by mistake say they meant to type 07123 456789 as there number and instead put 07123 345678 simple mistype but they have entered your number by mistake. It's also possible it's an auto dialer dialing 07123 000000 and then 07123 000001 and working through numbers till they get one that works

Not sure why you think it's Vodafones fault, it could be but by no means a certainty

I'd put money on it being Voda's fault.
My 'new' contract/number was non-stop calls/texts my first month until they sorted it.
My battery was being drained by all the nuisance calls so its unlikely to have that many accidental mis-dials.
There were a fair few auto-dialler things but i had people calling and asking for various names, asking about car's I was supposed to be selling, unit's I'm building etc it was nuts and had I not been tied into a contract I'd have walked away back then.
Lucky my contracts over now...am currently looking elsewhere

Vodafone

Hi wooly2708,

I am sorry to hear that you have been unhappy with the service you have received recently.

If you would like to discuss this in more detail, drop me an email to the address here and include WRT135 FAO Heidi in the subject and a link to this thread in the email body.

I will be more than happy to look into these issues personally.

Regards,

Heidi
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK

gjchester

yeslek wrote: »

I had this same issue when I first too out a contract with Vodafone
It's like they'd given me an recycled number or something. My phone was non-stop calls/texts for a month until I demanded they block the calls...instead they gave me a new number.

That is entirely the issue.

No's when given up go into quarantine for 6 months then can be re-allocated, it may be longer than that, but it will be at least 6 months. A long time ago my current number was used by a washing repair person. He's obviously put his details around on adverts, business cards, prior customers and for whatever reason he ceased trading, no idea why and I never will.

So lets say you had used this man before and had a washing machine problem you'd go probably go back to the business card/ sticker on the machine/ your phone book and call that number, you don't know if he's still in business or not till you make the call. The nature of that means I had sporadica calls for a few months afterwards where people tried a saved number without knowing he had changed it.

Another example is I moderate a Freecycle group, Phone numbers are banned specifically as it's too easy for soneone to mis key a number and someone else gets a lot of hassle, it's not deliberate, it's not malicious (although I suppose it could be) but it's annoying for the reciever of the calls as they have no idea where the calls are coming from, and the nature of mobile numbers means it could be anywhere in the UK (or the world) that they get these unwanted calls.

There is nothing can be done about it, Vodafone could not change it as they would not know where all the details were. Vodafone did the only thing they could, gave you another number and probably put that back in quarantee another 6 months.

It's not a problem of Vodafones making, they didn't advertise the number in the first place as a business and whilst I know how it's annoying I can't see how there is a lot they can do other than change the number which they did.