Problems with Vodafone

andrew2110

Hi All,

I lost my mobile phone back in August and 5 minutes after losing the phone, notified Vodafone and requested a new sim. I have been calling / going into store / e-mailing Vodafone bi-weekly since asking for my sim card and as of yet - not received anything. However I'm still being charged £31 a month for my contract.

I have now had enough and cancelled my direct debit. I have notified vodafone of this and requested that as a minimum they downgrade my tariff to as cheaper one as possible.

Their response:

I have checked your account with the subscription number 079170xxxxx and would like to inform you that your current price plan consisting of 600 minutes, 500 texts and 500 MB of mobile internet is effective from 06/01/2011 charged to you at £25.83.I understand you wish to downgrade the price plan. I am sorry to inform that you will not be able to downgrade the price plan until the contract end date. The general reason why Vodafone doesn’t allow customers to downgrade their contract within commitment period is because the handsets are usually given at the subsidized rates. Also the handset cost is spread over and supposed to be recovered from your tenure.

The phone was some cheap(ish) blackberry phone worth approx £200 when it was new, so I understand their point, but disagree as I've spent nearly £120 on a contract with no phone (my fault) and no sim card to use it with.

Can anybody give me any advice on this? I can't believe that Vodafone haven't breeched the terms of the contract with this, sadly I can't even access my account online until I receive a new simcard for some reason! I have a feeling that if I don't restart payments to Vodafone, I'll end up with debt collectors and a bad mark on my credit rating, but I really don't think this is fair anymore!

andrew2110

Thanks so much for your response, I certainly will never deal with Vodafone again / advise everyone I know who asks never to deal with Vodafone. As I have probably another 50 or so years left of buying mobile contracts - It seems crazy for a company to treat me like this.

Vodafone are kindly sending me paper invoices for the monthly bill so I'll just pay via a bank transfer monthly if I have to, but I won't pay a penny more to them than I have to.

I shall follow your advice - Thankyou for your help.

On the flipside, whilst visiting New York I had my o2 phone stolen - I contacted o2 via their webchat service and they immediately sent me a new simcard the day after and everything went as I would expect from such a company.

mobilejunkie

Look up the (VERY long and unending) Vodafone complaints thread (there are actually numerous similar ones too). Send a message via their website with the heading given in the thread (WRT135 from memory) and then the web relations team will help. They are the ONLY ones who ever will; everyone else will make things worse and take you through a nightmare journey for as long as you keep trying. Not sure about the CEO; I believe some people have found help there, but I do know the Web Relations team actually listen and do what they say they will. Calling or writing to vodafone in the proper way is a complete waste of time and effort.

andrew2110

Thanks so much for the advice, I will do exactly that and hope things start to move forward It's great to get some advice like this from you all - I really appreciate it..

Vodafone

Hi andrew2110,

As grumbler and mobilejunkie have kindly advised, if you send me an email to the address here with WRT135 FAO Heidi in the subject and include a link to your post, I can certainly help.

I am sorry to hear that this has not already been actioned for you.

Many thanks,

Heidi
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK

andrew2110

Many thanks Heidi,

I've sent a quick message to the suggested e-mail address now. I really appreciate you looking into this for me.

boyle01

I have been lied to by call centre staff, managers and customer relations supervisors at Vodafone so I have lost all faith in them altogether!

Can anyone please tell me the name of Vodafone's regulator and the best way to contact them so I can send a copy of my complaint onto them? I'll also let Watchdog have a copy. If you want to read about my experience with Vodafone it's detailed below.

They are still my provider on my new number however I ended one number/contract with them early so had to pay and ETF (early termination fee) in order to do that (so I could get a better handset as mine existing handset had seen better days). At the time of ending my contract the ETF was confirmed as £82.99 (as I already had a credit on my account because Vodafone continued to take insurance payments from me after I'd cancelled the insurance). I paid this on 8/8/11 and have the debit from Vodafone on my bank statement to prove it. Number/contract ended!

For the next two months Vodafone continued to take line rental from this number/contract even though I'd ended it and paid the ETF they then took another ETF payment from my bank account for £120.79 on 4/11/11. They now owe me two months line rental and £120.79 for the number/contract that I terminated on 8/8/11.

I made a complaint on 16/11/11 via their website as I've called them so many times and been assured it will be sorted and nothing has happened. I got a note that I'd get a call in 48 hours re my complaint. On 18/11/11 (48 hours later) I called them to see why they hadn't responded to my complaint and spoke to a supervisor in the customer relations team (I have his name). He assured me that he would take ownership of my complaint, authorise a 48hour refund for the two months line rental and the £120.79 that they have taken from me in error and that he'd call me back. Surprise, surprise no refund, no call back.

On 21/11/11 I called to speak to this man and they wouldn't put me through to him so I spoke to another manager (I have her name) who again assured me the refund would be in my account by 25/11/11 and that she would call me on 25/11/11 to check the refund was there. Again no refund in my account and no call back from her either!

I just want the money back that Vodafone have taken from me for a contract I've paid off and that they've already admitted to taking in error over the phone but have not paid me back - I class this as theft.

A very frustrated Vodafone customer :mad:

gjchester

boyle01 wrote: »

Can anyone please tell me the name of Vodafone's regulator and the best way to contact them so I can send a copy of my complaint onto them? I'll also let Watchdog have a copy. If you want to read about my experience with Vodafone it's detailed below.

OfCom - http://www.ofcom.org.uk/

However they will not generally deal with you until you have been through all the Vodafone complaint procedures.

Watchpuppy, nice idea but they won't do anything useful

andrew2110

Hey all, I just wanted to update this thread and say that I've been in contact with Lee and Heidi and they've been very helpful and helped me come to a fair resolution to this issue. Am very happy with that side of Vodafone, just still a bit of a shame the standard routes that Vodafone advise you to contact first either do not have the power or the skill to listen or help out.... Still many thanks to both Lee and Heidi for resolving this issue for me.

Vodafone

Hi andrew2110,

It's our pleasure! Thank you for the kind feedback, it's greatly appreciated.

Heidi
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK