Vodafone - Awful Treatment. Any advice

Sean__2

Firstly, this is my first post on a forum of this kind so please forgive me if I get anything wrong. I have tired to resolve an issue directly with Vodafone with no luck whatsoever, so thought that this would be the best place to ask advice.

This post is quite long, but here's my story.

Below is a letter addressed to Vodafone's Customer Services Manager which I planned to send out on Monday, which outlines my case.

Customer Relations Manager
Vodafone Limited
The Connection
Newbury
Berkshire
RG14 2FN

Dear Customer Relations Manager,

I am writing to you in regards to an account I hold with Vodafone, with the account number XXXXXXXXXXX, after failing to come to a resolution with your online and telephone support staff despite countless attempts on my part.



I took out the 30-day rolling contract back in July, with the intention of using it for just one month whilst I waited for an internet connection to be restored in my house. As per the agreement, the contract in question has a cost of £30-a-month, covering 10GB of data usage.

This is on top of a £50 one-off charge for the device.

As explained to me in the store, once the contract is nearing its usage limit of 10GB, I would be alerted accordingly, so that I have sufficient time to buy an additional bolt-on which would avoid any over-the-top charges. 



Unfortunately, no such communications were received, despite Vodafone having all of my contact details.

It turns out that all of the 10GB was used up in less than a week, but because there was no communication from Vodafone (and the Mifi device does not have push notification abilities, so even any texts would not be delivered) and due to the fact that tracking on the My Account section of the website is so delayed in its reporting, I managed to go over by 2.37GB.

By time it was feasibly possible for me to track my full usage, it was too late to act, and I had a bill with additional costs nearing £60.00. But this was just the start of my problems with Vodafone.

Thinking that this was a pretty straight forward problem, and that common sense would prevail, I reached out to the support team to explain the situation and try and have it resolved as soon as possible.



Initially, I was told to reach out to the retail store which sold me the device and ask for them to put a note on the system to explain that I was advised that I would be alerted before the 10GB was completely used. With this information, I reached out to the store - Vodafone London Paddington - to request that they leave a note.

Unfortunately, despite a number of attempts, the store's number did not connect me to a member of staff, but rather an answer machine which requested I leave my details and await a call back. I did so, and three weeks later, I'm still waiting for them to return my call...



Having not been able to progress the case due to this problem, I then once again spoke to a member of Vodafone support staff on the phone, who said that they would pass the case on to someone senior who would call me back within 3 days.

4 days passed and I had heard nothing, so once again I got in touch to check how my call back was progressing.

A member of your live support team told me that 'Justin' would be giving me a call back that day to discuss the situation. Again, no such call was received. (Are you spotting the trend here?)



By this point Vodafone had already left a bad taste in my mouth; weeks had passed, and I had spent countless hours on the phone trying to resolve this problem, talking valuable time out of my day to have promise-after-promise broken.



With this in mind, I considered my most recent call to Vodafone a last ditch attempt to resolve this with your support staff. But the problem still wasn't fixed.

I spoke to a member of your team who said that a 20% discount 'good-will gesture' could be placed on the bill, bringing the total down by just under £12.00.

After several weeks of proactively reaching out to your company to try and resolve what seemed like a pretty easy-to-solve case, Vodafone's final offer was to remove £12.00 from the bill. I consider this pretty insulting to say the least.

It's also worth noting at this point that because I did not want to accept the good will gesture without some consideration, we arranged for the person I spoke to to call me back at 6pm the following day - no such call was received.



Throughout this whole experience the Mifi device has remained off, totally inactive and not a single KB of data has been used, and yet because the account remains open due to the dispute, I am still being charged an additional £30-a-month for absolutely nothing.



I feel that the way I have been treated by Vodafone is appalling. Despite the fact that I have a bill in dispute, I am still a customer, and yet have been shown the worst level of customer service I have ever experienced with a phone company. 



We are now approaching the 8 week deadline before you suggest that the case is taken to the Communications Ombudsman Services, so please consider this the final chance to resolve the situation before I do so.

I am requesting the following:



a. That the outstanding balance on the account of £125.96 be cleared. (This amount covers the disputed overage and last month's contract charge, despite there being zero use on the device);

b. My Vodafone account be closed and the contract cancelled and;
 


c. I receive a letter of apology from Vodafone's Customer Relations Manager.

I hope that Vodafone is finally able to see sense in this case, admit its mistakes and come to a resolution which reflects the severity of the problems which I have faced.

If you are unable to agree with the above, please include a letter of deadlock with your reply, so I am able to pass over the case to the Ombudsman right away.



I look forward to reading your reply.


Yours Faithfully,






Before I was able to send this letter, and without any additional incoming communications from Vodafone, I received a phone call and letter from a company called Ardent Credit Services explaining that Vodafone have passed the account on to a collections agency and that failure to comply with their demands of payment (despite the fact that this is a disputed account) would lead to a default on my credit account.

I guess my question is where do I go from here? I am going to be sending the above letter to Vodafone this weekend, irrespective of being told by Ardent that all communication should now go through them.

Any help? Thanks.

mobilejunkie

Contact the Web Relations Team (see Vodafone complaints thread - it's so long there must be a hundred explanations as to how, thogough having just needed to go down that route (again!) myself it wasn't as easy as it should be. You're wasting a stamp and your time doing anything else with this lot.

Sean__2

mobilejunkie wrote: »

Contact the Web Relations Team (see Vodafone complaints thread - it's so long there must be a hundred explanations as to how, thogough having just needed to go down that route (again!) myself it wasn't as easy as it should be. You're wasting a stamp and your time doing anything else with this lot.

Thanks for the reply. I have in fact been talking to them for the last hour or so, and they're totally unhelpful. It has got to the point where although there is clear mistreatment in this case, I am being quoted company policy and standard practise processes, rather than having someone help move forward with this case.

Silk

Sean_ wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I have in fact been talking to them for the last hour or so, and they're totally unhelpful. It has got to the point where although there is clear mistreatment in this case, I am being quoted company policy and standard practise processes, rather than having someone help move forward with this case.

From what you've said my understanding of the situation is .....
You bought a Mifi and 30 day rolling contract of 10GB
You failed to monitor your usage and because it was in a Mifi you didn't get a warning text within 80% of limit.
You disputed the bill thinking it was unfair and they offered a 20% reduction.
You refused the discount and refused to pay the bill so has now been passed to debt collectors.
Meanwhile you didn't cancel or give notice and the account was left running attracting further costs of £30 a month.


Based on the circumstances I would think the 20% discount is fair and reasonable. If it's not already happened, by passing on to debt collectors, they will trash your credit rating for the next 6 years.

Sean__2

Silk wrote: »

From what you've said my understanding of the situation is .....
You bought a Mifi and 30 day rolling contract of 10GB
You failed to monitor your usage and because it was in a Mifi you didn't get a warning text within 80% of limit.
You disputed the bill thinking it was unfair and they offered a 20% reduction.
You refused the discount and refused to pay the bill so has now been passed to debt collectors.
Meanwhile you didn't cancel or give notice and the account was left running attracting further costs of £30 a month.


Based on the circumstances I would think the 20% discount is fair and reasonable. If it's not already happened, by passing on to debt collectors, they will trash your credit rating for the next 6 years.

That's half of the problem, and I suppose the fairer half of the account balance. But because I have been unable to close the account due to the dispute (which has dragged on for months as on several occasions they said they would return contact and didn't) I have since been charged an additional £30-a-month for line rental. Within their terms and conditions? Almost definitely. Fair? Absolutely not.

Silk

Sean_ wrote: »

That's half of the problem, and I suppose the fairer half of the account balance. But because I have been unable to close the account due to the dispute (which has dragged on for months as on several occasions they said they would return contact and didn't) I have since been charged an additional £30-a-month for line rental. Within their terms and conditions? Almost definitely. Fair? Absolutely not.

The account requires 30 days notice to be given, as you said you only took it for a month you would have given notice straight away. If you don't give notice the contract will carry on.

cklass

Are you sure you've been in touch with the Web Relations team? They're not the same as Live Chat or the Customer Services team on the phone. There's a form you have to fill in on the Vodafone website to contact them.

Vodafone

Hi Sean_,

Thanks for making me aware of this.

So I can get things looked into further, email me with your details via the link in our profile here.

All you need to do is copy and paste the link into your web browser and it'll take you to the Contact us form on our website. To make sure it reaches me, quote the code WRT135 - MSE in the subject line.

Once sent, you'll receive an automated reply with a reference number. Post back with this and I’ll check I've received it.

Kind regards,

Lee

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