In the queue for 25 minutes on a Monday morning. Already had one failed call because the guy on the other end of the phone couldn't hear me because of "a loud noise" on my end of the line, although to be fair to me I had to ask him to repeat himself several times because he kept cutting out, so I don't think the issue was on my end.

So if Spark was bad, this is taking the piss. It underlines why I wanted to avoid both of these companies, but I end up having to do something with Vodafone. We signed up last week, so it's been seven days. I'm pretty much out of mobile data and have to buy more (conveniently with Vodafone), and I check the installation order today and find out that without me even saying anything the CSR had put 7th November as an install date. Which is awesome, because I'm probably not going to be available on that day to wait in for a VF tech.

Got through and the guy on the other end of the line (in NZ this time) couldn't find the order number, because it wasn't in the system. Had to ring someone else to find out about the order because it either wasn't in the system or hadn't been updated. Then there was another 5 minutes on hold before he finally told me that it's going to be another week before anyone gets around to installing things - 10th November. So great, because I'm not going to be here, but fourteen days to get it installed? That's a damn joke. I was supposed to get a text telling me when this was sorted out, but that didn't happen either.

So we have an initial sales call that took twice as long as it should have taken because of the poor quality of the line (we won't go into the CSR having trouble with the street names in Te Reo, because she did her best). Then there's no updates. If I hadn't called today, I wouldn't have had an update. The order number isn't in the system. The outsourced call centre workers are on the worst quality line, and we can't hear each other. Even when we can hear each other, they have trouble understanding the place names.

And then there's a two week wait for someone to come and spend half an hour to come and plug in a damn cable modem.
No one has sorted out billing yet. I don't know when I have to pay, or how I'm paying. The customer portal the sales CSR was so keen for me to get signed up to contains no information at all - because I have to plug in an account number and I don't have that.

I'm not given any information, there's no updates, no one is coordinated, it takes half an hour to get any information from people, if those people can hear each other. Hey, I think I know why Vodafone is haemorrhaging money!

I'm seriously thinking of cancelling this and moving our cellphones away, because this is ridiculous. I'm prepared to wait, but I don't think I should be treated with contempt and then be locked into a 12 month contract. If they can't get this stuff right at the outset, and if I'm in the dark from the word go, if communication is awful even on the sales side, then what's it going to be like if it doesn't work and it's $199 to cancel?