Well, I have to say that Vodafone provide an adequate ISP service in terms of their product, uncapped broadband cable, but their customer support is the worst I have ever encountered with an ISP. It was better when their call centre was based in NZ, but now that they are based offshore, their customer support staff seem to be unreliable (don't call back when they say they will), either deliberately lie, or are just plainly confused (say they will amend your account and do not do it). They also don't seem to keep accurate logs of calls, and keep you on hold for ever. A logical train of thought seems to be too difficult for some of them.

NZ-based ISP support is so much better. At least you get to talk with someone who has had a reasonable education and understands basic concepts of computing.

Perhaps this incompetence is a deliberate strategy of Vodafone, so that customers will get so frustrated trying to get errors fixed on their accounts, that they just eventually give up and pay Vodafone for an erroneous invoice. This is quite dishonest if this incompetence is by design.

My story is this: I manage my elderly aunt’s Vodafone account and back in May implemented a few changes.

On 23 May I rang Vodafone and asked them to disable their Yak Pak service (Monthly charge $20.39).

On 26 May, I rang Vodafone and asked them to upgrade the internet service from LightSpeed 60G to Unlimited Ultrafast Cable 50 and disconnect digital TV (Sky via Vodafone).

The Vodafone technician said that the service would take effect from midnight on the day that I called, and she also said that a new modem/router would be supplied within a couple of weeks, but the existing modem/router would continue to work with the uncapped service, but at a lower speed. A couple of weeks turned out to be one month, as the new modem/router did not get installed until 26 June.

At the time that I requested this service I was told that our account would be entitled to use the BestMates service, where you get to nominate up to 5 long distance or mobile numbers that can be used at no cost if the call duration is less than a certain timespan (from memory, I think this is 1 hour of free calling). I logged into my Vodafone account but could see that the BestMates service was not enabled on the website. Was the technician wrong or was this an administrative bungle on the website?. Whichever it was, we had to proceed without a service that had been promised.

Our Vodafone statement of 11 June arrived, and I was shocked to see that we were being charged for 64134 MB (64 GB)of extra data over top of the LightSpeed 60G datacap. This amounted to $94.39. We did not exceed the 60GB datacap of the old service until after midnight 26 May, so there should not have been any charge.

I rang Vodafone support about 14 June and was told that the lack of Bestmates service and the erroneous data charge was an error on their part. The technican said that due to some administrative reason she would have to look into the case and call me back within 48 hours. That call never came. I rang them back a week later and told them that our June account was in error, that our modem/router had not been installed, and that we still had no BestMates service. Much apologies were given and I was told that the BestMates Service had not been enabled because there was an outstanding “ticket” on our account. I said that this “ticket” in Vodafones administrative system is not my error but Vodafones, and suggested that they fix it and provide the services that I had been told would be effective from midnight 26 May. The technician said the ticket related to the fact that there was hardware waiting to be installed and I responded that, again, this is Vodafone’s issue, not mine.

I asked the Vodafone support person to tell me what I owed them, excluding the erroneously charged items. I was told $58.43. I thought this was too low, and asked her to double check the amount, but she insisted it was correct. So I paid it, thinking that all issues would now be resolved.

The modem/router was finally installed on 26 June. On 27 June I was finally able to set up the BestMates service, over one month after it had been promised. The outstanding ticket was now resolved

On about 10 July we get a statement from Vodafone dated 7 July. Like the previous statement, this one is full of errors:

1: we are are still being charged for a Yak Pak that we asked to be disabled on 23 May ($20.39)

 

2: We are being charged internet traffic usage from 07/06/15 to 06/07/2015 of 18097 MB ($26.54)

 

3: We were not able to use BestMates service for regularly called mobile numbers because of the outstanding “ticket” issue, even though we had been promised it from 26/05/2015 ($32.06)

 

This is a total overcharge of $78.99. I have given up calling Vodafone support as they don’t seem to be able to perform any logical synthesis when it comes to problem solving.

If Vodafone does not fix this issue by the end of this week I will close this account and used an NZ based ISP with an NZ-based support team.