1
Vodafone, the company that sucks
09 August 2011
well after being a loyal customer of vodafone for many years, i have decided to leave.
usually early upgrades and laziness have kept me with them.
but the went too far
I live in south Birmingham so you would think that reception would at the very least be OK(ish)
but even with the home booster its rubbish, on average i loose my signal 10+ times a day
then out and about, god forbid you want to use the internet, its just rubbish
but i have put up with that for some time, because complaining to someone in India just results in more stress
so what was the final straw you ask.
well one day i had zero signal, so i phoned them to ask about tower issues which i was told there were non and it was my phone (iPhone 3GS).
i had to return it as there must be a fault so far ok fine any other company would do the same
my phone was 11 months old so still in warranty
i had a call from the technical dept saying that it would be £150 to fix my phone
so i explained that it was under warranty
to which they replied, this fault isn't covered by the warranty
and that i could claim on my insurance
i tried explaining that the only feature on my phone that wasn't working was that i couldn't get a signal, and surely if the damage was done by myself then most of the phone wouldn't be working, not just the signal.
to which i received the answer, ohh i am sorry but we don't have access to details of the exact fault
and all this whilst dealing with those bloody Indian call centre staff named Bartholomew, hector, james - you know, the traditional indian names
so i claimed on my insurance reluctantly paying the £25 exess
anyway a couple of days later i had my phone returned un-repaired with a letter saying it was unrepairable
and guess what, it worked as it did before (i had a signal)
it turns out that it was the tower after all (yet again)
so i phoned and complained - and Nothing, no response - nothing
i wrote a letter - again nothing no response at all, the same with email
in the end i phoned vodafone uk head-office and asked who the highest person i could send a complaint too
so i did that
eventually about 4 weeks later i get a call,
from an British lady (yes that's right i said British, cant believe i spoke to someone in this country)
anyway as much as she apologised and offered £80 off my bill and shortened my contract to 12 months instead of the 18 i was on
(basically meant i had to stay with them for 1 month)
but as much as i asked the following questions, i had none answered
what tests were done to my phone to ascertain the nature of the problem
how did they come to the conclusion that the problem was caused by myself
why was this problem not covered by the warranty
if my phone was unrepairable, then why was i told that £150 would fix it
had I not had the phone returned and just had a replacement sent out, was I just another sucker who vodafone had screwed over.
but it was impossible to get a straight answer out of them
so now its my time to say fuck you
this is how they treat a customer of over 10 years
usually early upgrades and laziness have kept me with them.
but the went too far
I live in south Birmingham so you would think that reception would at the very least be OK(ish)
but even with the home booster its rubbish, on average i loose my signal 10+ times a day
then out and about, god forbid you want to use the internet, its just rubbish
but i have put up with that for some time, because complaining to someone in India just results in more stress
so what was the final straw you ask.
well one day i had zero signal, so i phoned them to ask about tower issues which i was told there were non and it was my phone (iPhone 3GS).
i had to return it as there must be a fault so far ok fine any other company would do the same
my phone was 11 months old so still in warranty
i had a call from the technical dept saying that it would be £150 to fix my phone
so i explained that it was under warranty
to which they replied, this fault isn't covered by the warranty
and that i could claim on my insurance
i tried explaining that the only feature on my phone that wasn't working was that i couldn't get a signal, and surely if the damage was done by myself then most of the phone wouldn't be working, not just the signal.
to which i received the answer, ohh i am sorry but we don't have access to details of the exact fault
and all this whilst dealing with those bloody Indian call centre staff named Bartholomew, hector, james - you know, the traditional indian names
so i claimed on my insurance reluctantly paying the £25 exess
anyway a couple of days later i had my phone returned un-repaired with a letter saying it was unrepairable
and guess what, it worked as it did before (i had a signal)
it turns out that it was the tower after all (yet again)
so i phoned and complained - and Nothing, no response - nothing
i wrote a letter - again nothing no response at all, the same with email
in the end i phoned vodafone uk head-office and asked who the highest person i could send a complaint too
so i did that
eventually about 4 weeks later i get a call,
from an British lady (yes that's right i said British, cant believe i spoke to someone in this country)
anyway as much as she apologised and offered £80 off my bill and shortened my contract to 12 months instead of the 18 i was on
(basically meant i had to stay with them for 1 month)
but as much as i asked the following questions, i had none answered
what tests were done to my phone to ascertain the nature of the problem
how did they come to the conclusion that the problem was caused by myself
why was this problem not covered by the warranty
if my phone was unrepairable, then why was i told that £150 would fix it
had I not had the phone returned and just had a replacement sent out, was I just another sucker who vodafone had screwed over.
but it was impossible to get a straight answer out of them
so now its my time to say fuck you
this is how they treat a customer of over 10 years
