Dear Vodafone - what has happened? You use to be good to deal with. Where has the customer service gone? I thought CS was supposed to be friendly, helpful and polite. I have encountered the rare experience of a nice CS person in recent months with Vodafone, but more often than not sadly it has been overshadowed by horrific examples of extremely poor customer service.

Recent events - We all know about good old fibre - well we thought it was until we found it was fibre x.  Yes that dram.  Well we then changed to actual fibre.  Then you forgot to close the old account and kept billing that account as well as the new one despite multiple calls and assurances it would be changed.  Resulting in a large credit on the old account  and it not being transferred to the new account (again multiple request and significant time on the phone) Oh lets not forget the time you cut off internet off due non payment of our new account (which was supposed to have a very large credit on it).  But again you failed to transfer the overpayment from the old account that was supposed to be closed to the new account. Again after multiple calls.  Interrupting our business....Hmmm pretty poor.

Then tonight my son was off to his formal, had no credit so raced into a shop to grab a top off.  Well it didn't top up so we called you to ask for help.  Well that seemingly simple task ended in me be yelled at and hung up on by a argumentative, rude obnoxious lady.  Then I rung back on his line to hear the words "your number have been banned"

My son call and I intervened after my son getting no where.  I was very frustrated.  she kept putting him on hold, telling him the code had been used bla bla bla.  Seriously how hard is it to top up a prepaid?  In short she said an old plan would need to be restarted with the credit.  I said no I just want the $20 pp on his phone, she yelled at me and told me I wasn't listening.  Absolutely my voice raised at that point - but I did not swear.  The words were I am no longer speaking to someone who is yelling at me, your not listening get me your supervisor.  She still did not listen, she spoke over top of me and flatly refused to get a supervisor. Again I said and repeated Get me your supervisor. This was repeated a multitude of times. Then she hung up on us.  My sons phone beeped to say the plan was ready to go...

I pressed redial - and the message said you have been banned...  Good lord!

Needless to say I did ring back on my phone.  I spoke to a supervisor who wasn't too bad, put me on hold and changed to a third person without notifying me and he didn't know the full story so again we had to spend more time sorting and explaining it. After another 40 minutes on the phone (time I won't get back) I have the $20 pp on my sons phone.  Wow what a drama for a $20 top up!!  An hour I wont get back of my time.  Hassle my poor son didn't need before going to his first formal.  Absolutely ridiculous drama!

I have heard very similar stories from friends and family - sad really Vodafone.

Please bring back NZ cust service teams!  They were so much better!

Ps I do run a couple of business including retail so I know what it expected of staff.  I am not just a total dick who lost it on the phone.  But 1000% I was angry (again no swearing).  My staff would never speak to anyone the way I was spoken to tonight.  No one should ever be spoken to like this.  This has happened multiple times when dealing with your overseas call centres and it is just not ok.

Once my sons credit is spent, he will no longer continue to use Vodafone, and I will be making steps Monday to remove our home, business or personal use with Vodafone.  My time is valuable and if you won't respect it I will take my business elsewhere.

I believe in letting people know when there is an issue - as I have done when I called back tonight.  But I have zero faith it will be followed up or that next time it will be any better. 

So long and farewell Vodafone - it hasn't been great of late!