richms:

 

frednz:

 

You know, I get the feeling that in some cases it's not that large companies aren't willing to negotiate with customers, but it's more that the computer systems are so inflexible that it's extremely difficult to make "non-standard" adjustments to a customer's account. I've sometimes been told that "the system won't let us do that", which seems like we live in a world of robots where humans have lost control of their systems and relations with "real" people!

 

 

If the system did just let them do that, then you can bet that they would have to spend a hell of a lot auditing it and hauling people up before HR when they decided to make the "non standard" adjustments on friends etc phones.

 

Best not to allow the systems to give the low tier staff any access like that at all.

 

Fair enough, but as long as managers can deal with relatively trivial "non standard" adjustments, then I guess it's not so bad. It's already been pointed out here that other Telcos have a temporary hold period during which accumulated data is not written off, so perhaps Vodafone should also redesign their systems to accommodate something like that?