Ovivo New Network. 200 minutes 200 Texts Free indefinitely.

[Deleted User]

Ovivo's T&C say about termination -

"6 Termination
6.1 Either party may terminate this Agreement at any time without notice or explanation
6.2 On termination of this Agreement We may require You to return the SIM Card at your cost
6.3 In the event that We terminate the Service and You have paid for credit remaining on your Account We shall refund the amount to You, provided We have received the SIM Card back. Refunds will be credited to the credit or debit card used when topping-up
6.4 You will not be entitled to any refund where You terminate the Agreement (other than in accordance with clause 5.1) or where we have terminated the Agreement as a result of a breach of these terms and conditions by You
6.5 Refunds on free credit provided in relation to any promotions, shall not be refunded in the event of Service being terminated by either Party
6.6 Should You transfer your number away from OVIVO, this constitutes a termination of this Agreement and any outstanding credit on your account, whether paid for or promotional, is forfeit and non-refundable."

Clause 5.1 says -
"5.1 The Charges are calculated in accordance with our current tariffs as displayed on our website at https://www.ovivomobile.com. We may revise the Charges from time to time to reflect market conditions. Please check our website regularly for the current tariffs. If any change is not acceptable You may terminate the Agreement by notifying us in writing and any outstanding balance on your Account shall be refunded. By continuing to use the SIM Card you are deemed to have accepted the change."

Refunds depend on the nature of the termination so it's necessary to refer to the T&Cs.

Wammer

Does the data connection work better in some devices than others or doesn't it make any difference?

I have very rarely been able to connect at work recently. I can sometimes get emails to download in Gmail, but can't open any pages in news apps. \i don't often use the phone at home and when I do it's on wifi. I've just tried it on 3G and got a good signal. However on long journeys it has let me down when I have been trying to use any sat nav apps.

This has been in a Huawei G300. I have just got the Moto G and I'm reluctant to cut the Ovivo sim if it is going to be as bad as I would rather change network, probably to 3.

Doc_N

Wammer wrote: »

Does the data connection work better in some devices than others or doesn't it make any difference?

I have very rarely been able to connect at work recently. I can sometimes get emails to download in Gmail, but can't open any pages in news apps. \i don't often use the phone at home and when I do it's on wifi. I've just tried it on 3G and got a good signal. However on long journeys it has let me down when I have been trying to use any sat nav apps.

This has been in a Huawei G300. I have just got the Moto G and I'm reluctant to cut the Ovivo sim if it is going to be as bad as I would rather change network, probably to 3.

Funny you should say that. I tried it yesterday in a G300 in the centre of a city where every other operator provides excellent 3G data and it was abysmal. It was no better in a Galaxy S4 either.

It's never been that good, but Ovivo now seems to have hit new lows. It's free, of course, and you have to allow for that, but I'd never rely on it as the sole source of access to data.

Daz2009

It's only really slow when you're using a browser.The apps appear to function much quicker which would suggest it's the advert interface that's slowing it down

Doc_N

Daz2009 wrote: »

It's only really slow when you're using a browser.The apps appear to function much quicker which would suggest it's the advert interface that's slowing it down

Not for me. The apps are just as bad.

Silk

They did say on FB the other day that they realise that some users are experiancing speed problems in certain area's and they expect to have it fixed in a couple of weeks.

Mark300zx

So what is the general opinion of this service, I am pondering about it as I am a low user and it could save me some cash, how intrusive are the adverts?

Zebrdee

It's not just the adverts but how long they delay you from looking at the actual web page you want. Their adverts page sometimes doesn't appear for minutes. They say you get 1.2MB before the next ad interruption but I find for example, you view the BBC news front page, go to look at a story and ... ... ... waiting for Ovivo. Still, for the price, etc.

NonGeographicalMan

Crabman wrote: »

Did those of you who were 'terminated' get refunds of unused credit?

So far I only got £10 out of my remaining credit of between £15 and £16 on the day the account was terminated. This is despite apparent statements in an email from the CEO that my last £10 topup and all other remaining credit balances would be refunded. The remainder of the balance is in dispute with the Communications Ombudsman. They forced me to go down this route by Instructing me never to contact them again either by email or by phone.

In my year and half with them I had a couple of £3 bonuses for introducing other customers and a small credit payment to reflect incorrect premium rate charging of calling legitimate alternatives for Spanish 902 numbers at the 902 rate despite using the normal Spanish geographic number alternative listed at www.nmn900.com These numbers were also not ever charged at a premium rate when calling them using my Spanish Orange SIM card, clearly showing that Ovivo had charged me incorrectly.

In my view when they have decided to boot a customer out because some of their more recent but now almost most senior customer service staff can't seem to cope with criticism of their web browsing service either not working at all or seemingly providing much slower data speeds (and/or 2G service only on some Vodafone transmitters that are 3G capable) than a mainstream Vodafone SIM they would be pretty foolish not to refund all credit outstanding. This is because if an ex customer feels aggrieved enough at their treatment to invoke a dispute with the Communications Ombudsman such a complaint is likely to cost Ovivo a much larger amount to resolve compared to probably a few tens of pounds at most in relation to any previous bonus or goodwill payment.

In my view where they chuck a customer out because of their new seemingly Ryanair like policy towards dealing with customer complaints it is incumbent on Ovivo to make themselves not look like they are doing it for reasons of financial advantage. If a customer chooses to leave Ovivo (because they are fed up with the forced advertising or much slower data speeds than other networks) but Ovivo is still willing to go on delivering the service to the customer then things are a bit different and they have much less obligation to make a refund.

One point of particular concern for me is they immediately wiped out my credit balance on Sunday December 22nd (just before xmas) and left me unable to make outgoing calls on no notice when I was at a rural address where no other SIMs were available locally. This left me unable to make outgoing calls on Christmas Eve when I was trying to travel through Surrey on a very badly flooded road system including the A24 at Burford Bridge near Mickleham. In my opinion my credit should have remained valid until the point when my PAC code was actually used within the 30 days allowed. At that point Ovivo should have then refunded any remaining credit because they had terminated the service on me.

Unfortunately only Ofcom is responsible for this aspect of Ovivo's behaviour (immediately wiping out my credit and stopping me making outgoing calls on no notice as opposed to not refunding my outstanding credit balance) and they sadly do not investigate individual consumer complaints. They merely note if there is a trend in total complaint numbers by the public against a particular Communications Company under a particular heading. They can however launch an Own Initiative Investigation in to a matter of this kind if they think there have been enough complaints in total to justify such an action on their part.

I still don't understand why Ovivo is doing this as all they are actually doing is making people who were previously passionate advocates for their service (which I certainly used to be) in to now extremely passionate brand disadvocates.

Also if a quid pro quo for the data service being free is that it won't always be as fast as the speeds that mainstream direct Vodafone customers can access then they need to be more up front and honest about this.

Daz2009 wrote: »

It's only really slow when you're using a browser.The apps appear to function much quicker which would suggest it's the advert interface that's slowing it down

Yes absolutely correct. But when I tried pointing this out to their CEO by phoning him personally I got my service terminated for my pains.

However if the web browsing service is being made almost useless by the ads server being defective or unable to handle all the connections it is getting at peak periods this is pretty serious not only for the customer but also for Ovivo as it is their main source of revenue. Previously when they were told the ad server was interfering with the web browsing they turned it off but on this occasion customers were just misled and misinformed by some customer service staff that there was no problem and told the problem was with their phones.

Yet they could have addressed the problem pretty rapidly I would have thought by simply substantially increasing the amount of data a customer has to consume while web browsing before the next advert is served to them. At the time I was made to leave Ovivo ,just before Christmas, ads were appearing so frequently whilst web browsing that it was obstructing the web browsing service unreasonably even when the ad server did not malfunction and block web browsing altogether. This is probably because of the number of customers they seem to have who only mainly use Apps to get around being served with adverts or who only make free phone calls and send texts.

It is a shame the present management have chosen to deal with this situation by summarily expelling customers who complain too loudly (in their opinion) rather than realising they must have a serious problem that needs to be urgently addressed.

NonGeographicalMan

Well a few more points on this now that I have managed to finally port my number safely elsewhere and away from Ovivo Mobile so they are not now able to try and reek any retributive action on me for commenting e.g, by obstructing the outbound number porting process.

Firstly before I left Ovivo I did some further tests on my phone and found it does have a 3G only mode and that whenever I engaged this 3G only data mode and scanned for networks and tried to select Vodafone 3G I kept on getting a "SIM Not Allowed To Connect By Network" message even though Vodafone 3G was in the available networks list. However as soon as I changed back to 2G/3G mode the phone didn't give me that message and instead appeared to try to connect to Vodafone 3G before then immediately dropping back to 2G service but with only G being shown as the data speed at the top of the Android phone's display. However now I have moved to another network if I engage 3G only mode I can connect in 3G with H showing but the signal is just weaker (two bars) than if I change to 2G/3G mode where I then get a four bar signal but only E shown as the data speed on the display. Now I have actually had H shown on the display on my phone (and I also only the once had 3G shown on the display on my phone, although this is apparently a speed in between E and H as H is effectively 3.5G) whilst an Ovivo customer. But these faster speeds only ever seemed to be in large towns so it seems that on any cells where Vodafone has data capacity issues that they allow 3G connection by Vodafone's own customers but not by Ovivo's customers and probably other low cost MVNO networks.

Secondly after my number was finally liberated from Ovivo I made some posts on their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ovivorewards?fref=ts in their Recent Posts section at https://www.facebook.com/ovivorewards?fref=ts responding to various different recent posts from a considerable number of Ovivo customers commenting on slow data speeds or non availability of data service. I commented in response along the lines that I also had these slow data speeds and when I tried to pursue the company about the matter that they terminated my service. The posts were all there at the time I made them but when I checked back later on that day they had all been deleted and my ability to make any further posts on Ovivo's Offers Facebook page had been blocked. So those who are still customers and who have reported slow speed issues on Ovivo's Facebook page had better be warned that their posts might soon disappear and that only friendly sounding posts from undemanding customers will probably be allowed to remain in the long run.

Lastly I should clarify that the main reason I was finally expelled from Ovivo was seemingly because after several days in a row of having no internet access, whilst I also had a temporary problem on home fixed line broadband caused by a router configuration issue, and after trying to report these issues to Ovivo customer service (without success) over previous days I finally decided that enough was enough. So on a Sunday morning when I had no internet service at all and was probably 30 miles away from any working web cafe I also found Ovivo's customer services closed all day so in my frustration decided to call Ovivo's CEO, Dariush Zand on his mobile number that he had chosen to give me in a previous email to me as a customer some months earlier. As a customer of Ovivo from almost the outset I originally had significant issues managing to configure my handset for data service (the original manual instructions did not cover a Sony Ericsson Android phone as that had to be set differently) and also had reason to correspond by email quite vigrously at the point where our data allowance was cut to only 100MB and 50 minutes per month from the original 500 MB and 200 minutes per month. As a result of all this I had both received an email from Dariush Zand with his own mobile phone number and also received a phone call from him a year or so ago when he said he was grateful for my views as a customer and always looking to improve the service taking in to account customer feedback.

So I called Dariush on his mobile phone number around 11am on a Sunday, not necessarily expecting to get through to him personally (the call might well have gone to voicemail) and only in the circumstances of his own customer support department being closed all day on Sunday. In the event Dariush did answer the call but I was simply appalled and shocked by the way he handled the situation. He was immediately cold and extremely unfriendly and treated me, I felt, almost as though I was some speck of dirt on the sole of his shoe, or perhaps even almost as though he was the fictional character Flashman, and demanded to know very aggressively where I had got this phone number from in most cold and icy tones. When I then responded that he had actually given the number to me previously in an email and that he had also previously called me he then told me that I was "Instructed" never to call him again personally and only to ever deal with customer services on any issue with Ovivo before then hanging up on me.

I accept that it was a Sunday but it was 11am, which I consider to not be very unsociable hours given that many large companies have phone lines open at that time of day on Sunday, and also this appeared to be a business mobile number that he had previously chosen to give me. If it was his own personal mobile number that he did not wish to bothered on at certain times of day then it was surely actually very unwise of him to ever give it to a customer. I am quite prepared to accept that he might of course have been involved with family or doing other things on a Sunday and the polite way to have handled my call would have been to say "I'm terribly sorry but I'm very busy with personal matters at the moment but can you please put it all in an email to me and I will look at it as soon as I can". After this I also tried to send Mr Zand one text to express my surprise at his attitude after which he then blocked my mobile number from receiving further incoming calls or texts from my number. Then later that day I got an email from their Customer Services Manager, Mark Howarth, telling me my service with Ovivo had now been terminated, (apparently he does work on Sundays unlike his CEO) although also citing various clauses of terms and conditions that were irrelevant and in fact designed to cover customers making excessive use of data. I was also given my PAC code in this email.

I do not feel that the actions I took were sufficient to warrant termination of my account by Ovivo and I feel that by taking this course of action with me and with certain other customers recently that Ovivo is effectively now making a statement of a Ryanairesque nature that basically it doesn't think it needs to be nice to its customers as it believes its services are so cheap that no matter how many quality or dissatisfaction issues there may be with its products there will always be plenty more customers along soon to replace any customers who leave.

Well if that is Ovivo's attitude then fine there are plenty of other mobile companies that I can give my business to. However I do think other forum members need to be warned that this is how Ovivo are now likely to behave if challenged too often or too energetically regarding issues such as slow data speeds, no data service at all (due to prolonged problems in the now.ovivomobile.com ad server) or having 2G only data service on rural Vodafone mobile masts that clearly show, when scanned by a customer's phone that 3G Vodafone service is available.

So Ovivo may be cheap but it certainly isn't always cheerful and it certainly also isn't always reliable when it comes to the availablity of its data services,.

You have been warned!:eek: