Successfully claimed £100 from Vodafone via ombudsman

mnbvcxz

Vodafone reneged on the moneysavingexpert broadband deal after confirming order and without telling me. Happened to several other people using the mse site as well. Complaints process consisted of waiting ten days for an (Egyptian?) call centre to call up and try and sell me their full priced package. Brick wall to any compensation or consideration.

After the required eight weeks from my first complaint I went to the Cisas ombudsman linked from Vodafones complaint page. I did not have a deadlock letter as vodafone "accidentally" ended my complaint.

You register for an account and fill in a long form that times out after 30 minutes. There is a limit to how many words you can put in your description of the problem. But I made it through it. You have to chose your own remedy and compensation so I suggested £100.

In the end it was rather irrelevant as on the last possible of the 10 working days Vodafone caved and said they would pay the £100. So I never did get an ombudsman ruling on if I had been fairly treated. But at least it's over.

I suspect Vodafone just has no one able to deal with these complaints so gave up. Certainly I never came across anyone who was able to do anything but say sorry.

So there it is. If you get no where with Vodafone its worth trying the ombudsman. It can work. Despite Vodafone insisting it was somehow a "third party" transaction and they should not be blamed they still gave in.

Moneysavingexpert gave me a fairly generic "thanks for your feedback" reply to my email. The voucher processing site for Vodafone never replied to my enquiry.

In the end going topcashback to broadbandchoices (£30) to plus.net (£60 voucher) and saving £30 by prepaying line rental meant it was actually not that different from the Vodafone £100 voucher deals. I'm beginning to think it was a lucky escape. MSE site helps but does not always have the cheapest deals.

So hopefully thats it for eighteen months. All in all a complete waste of time. I have about broken even and lost a bunch of time. Perverse for Vodafone to spend so much on these deals to attract customers but then spend money driving them away...

Lets hope the cheque turns up.

fivegoldstars

Interesting read.
I'm in a nightmare situation with Vodafone too - 5mb on 80mb fibre. Though they assured me I had 30 days cooling off for them to fix it, I tried to cancel to be advised it was 14 days and I'm now stuck.
It may not seem possible Vodafone, but I intend to be a worse customer than you are provider until you let me out of this hell.
Waiting on reply to my official complaint, ombudsman next up.

Tharweb

I have just joined them, hopefully I won't need to cancel, but the contract I got in the post definitely says 30 days to cancel.

fivegoldstars

Tharweb wrote: »

I have just joined them, hopefully I won't need to cancel, but the contract I got in the post definitely says 30 days to cancel.

I didn't get a hard copy contract.
Still, good luck getting them to honour it - their cancellations team are adamant it changed to 14 days in July, despite me having online chats/screenshot that say otherwise. They also refuse to allow me to send these to them, as, bizarrely, they don't have 'inbound email' :rotfl:
Have lodged an official complaint with ombudsman/compensation claim being the next step.

mnbvcxz

Hmm sneaky Vodafone. The latest terms and conditions (not easy to find) from July do vaguely allude to the statuary 14 days and make no mention of 30 days.

Having made a big fuss about introducing thirty days cooling off period a year ago they certainly changed it back very quietly. There are still references on their site to 30 days here and there.

The odd thread in their forum saying why does their contract say 30 days but no one will believe them suggesting it's still a muddle.
https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Other-broadband-queries/Vodafone-won-t-let-me-cancel-my-30-days-trial-period-they-wanna/td-p/2640694

All in all with their leaving the Internet Providers Association and ending their cooling off period it rather seems as if Vodafone has given up.

Best of luck with the Ombudsman. I hope they release you.

Tharweb

fivegoldstars wrote: »

I didn't get a hard copy contract.
Still, good luck getting them to honour it - their cancellations team are adamant it changed to 14 days in July, despite me having online chats/screenshot that say otherwise. They also refuse to allow me to send these to them, as, bizarrely, they don't have 'inbound email' :rotf

Well I only ordered on 19th August and the contract letter came a few days later dated 19th August.

fivegoldstars

Cheers - I'll get my resolution one way or another.