Shocking Vodafone Service (data bolt-on)

Haggisman

Haggisman

Haggisman

Soldato
Joined
6 Oct 2004
Posts
19,604
Location
Birmingham
Just after a bit of advice on how to approach this with VF, and if anyone has had anything similar?

On Tuesday last week, I hit the warning level I've set on my phone (1.8GB out of the 2GB I have on my contract).

Knowing I had almost 2 weeks left before the next billing cycle (tomorrow), I added a £3/500MB/month data bolt-on to tide me over, all good.

Yesterday, I removed this bolt-on, so that it wouldn't renew on with my billing cycle (I normally only use ~1 - 1.2GB, so don't need it).

20 minutes later I get a text confirming that it's been removed, fine.

2 minutes later I get another text saying that I've exceeded my data allowance,(despite the fact I've only used ~2.24GB) and I'm now being charged £6.50 for 250MB!

So it looks like as soon as I cancelled the renewal of the bolt-on, they've removed the extra data, meaning I've effectively been charged £9.50 for ~250MB...

I phoned them up, and they essentially said "tough, you cancelled the bolt-on, so you no longer get the data you've paid for, but we can add it on again for £3" (i.e. meaning I pay £12.50 for 250MB...)

So far I seem to be hitting a brick wall with getting them to see sense here; why on earth would I pay for extra data, not use it all, then cancel it and get charged extortionate rates for going out of bundle?!

It seems like talking to their CS team is getting nowhere (the best they could offer was an "early upgrade" by putting me on a new 24 month contract and sticking the 6 months I have left on the end, which TBH I don't think I really want to do after this, and a quick look shows I can probably get a better deal elsewhere anyway).

So does anyone have any contact details for somewhere I can escalate this to?

Thanks!
 
Mail [email protected]. Be precise with the issue and say what's wrong (dates, things you did, what you expect). The exec team behind this mailbox can get things done that the front line team won't do. While I understand that it's obviously been a rough time, try not to make the mail too emotional as it will take the trust away from your main points.
 
I've posted the same thing on their own forum, so hopefully one of their CS people will see it and sort it out! If not, I'll send an email to that address, thanks :)

I've not had any complaints until now, but this is ridiculous, it's not so much the £3 - it's only £3 :p, in fact that almost makes it worse, the fact I'm hitting such stubbornness and stupidity over such a trivial thing :p

If this isn't resolved satisfactorily, I will be doing as you advise and taking both my contracts elsewhere :)
 
Their eForum is Customer to Customer, so don't bank on any employee seeing it. It's a waste of time.

After my experience with Vodafone yesterday (see the Smart Ultra 6 thread), I can only echo what others have said. Email the CEO and leave Vodafone ASAP. Before yesterday I would have sang their praises as I've never had a problem with them, even after having a couple of issues which were sorted quickly, but yesterday took the biscuit and left me phoneless.
 
Haha, email sent, let's see how much they want to keep me as a customer :p

I'm curious... so if I were to toggle the bolt-on on/off a few hundred times, do you reckon they'd try to charge me £3 each time? are their systems really not smart enough to detect when you're mid billing cycle, and not cancel it until the end of that cycle? :confused:
 
Last edited:
I've had several bad experiences with Vodafone and will never go back to them. Good to know that their service is still impressive ;)

It probably costs them more to service and fight you than it does to settle this with common sense.

And it's crazy that you now need to go right to the top to get things sorted. Whatever happened to the service in customer service?

I think a good dose of social networking bashing sometimes also makes them see sense.
 
Just got a new contract with Vodafone... Gave them the bank details for the direct debit. They issued a bill, hadn’t registered the direct debit in time, the payment failed and they then charged me a late payment penalty as well as sending me a text about a missed payment and to pay up immediately or the services would be restricted… All their fault of course which they readily admitted, a “known issue”. All sorted now allegedly, but I’ll be double-checking the next bill and keeping an eye on things until I see that direct debit starting to go out !
 
Vodafone's billing system seems to be awful. Be especially careful that they aren't charging you for Spotify when it's supposed to be free for a year. This has happened to myself and a couple of others I know (including my pal PMKeates who is on this forum).

Also the My Vodafone app is bloody awful, nowhere near as good as My O2. It tells you nothing and seems to have no relationship to your final monthly bill.
 
I have been a first hand victim of the spotify thing and i now always tell people to check before they activate it - it will say if it will be free or not on the webpage and if it should be free you have to phone up to get it activated.

And hey, the app is better than the three one which is flippin shocking with how long it takes to update etc...
 
I'm not using Spotify (had my contract since before they started it) so don't have to worry about that (hopefully!! :p).

Had a copy-paste response to my email to the CEO confirming they've received my complaint and to expect a phonecall, so lets see what they say!
 
Just had a phone call...

They're refunding the £6.50 over-limit charge.

And the £3 bolt-on cost.

And giving me an extra 2gb/month.

I guess I can deal with that :p
 
Got a letter today on behalf of the CEO, said they'd tried to contact me unsuccessfully (well duh, you cancelled the contact number), telling me to ring a number to arrange the return of the phone and also saying that I should get in touch if I get any future bills and they'll cancel them as a gesture of goodwill. Got a DPD pickup arranged for next week. Fingers crossed that'll be the end of my relationship with Vodafone.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom