On my recommendation, my parents purchased a prepay phone to do the occasional txt a few years ago. That phone hasn't been used for a few months, and when they turned it on today, they tried using it to send a txt, but back came a message that their credit had expired. No previous message had been received to warn them that their credit was close to expiring, maybe because it was off, and Vodafone don’t queue text messages?

There credit therefore has been wiped, and the balance showed that it expired mid November. I told them that it should be simple to just top it up via credit card by calling 777. So I tried to do this for them by calling 777. When I tried this, and selected credit card, I got a message that said that to would need to talk to a customer services representative, however because there was no credit on the phone it wouldn't allow me to do this, as it costs a $1 for customer service. It then sent me back to the same menu to top up. (Chicken and Egg loop) I also tried to set up an IOU to allow me to speak to CSR to fix the system, but sending a txt to that IOU number, nothing happened, and no text or $5 IOU credit was received. I therefore tried entering the credit card again at 777, and this time it went to a menu, however after I entered the phone number, I received a message that said something like the maximum number of entries had been received for that number. I tried the 777 number again, and after selecting the credit card option again, I just got a dead line.

I therefore tried to do a top up online. I had to first register the account and number. Once that was setup, I entered the credit card number, but yet again I experienced a problem. This time, it said that that credit card was already in the system, and I couldn't reenter it. I therefore tried selecting an 'existing card', by entering the last 4 digits of the same card, and this time it said that the credit card wasn't on file. This is the same card that it said previosuly said was already on file.

After wasting an hour I have given up. Vodafone don’t allow you to contact them in this situation, and I have got to say that this is a very buggy and non functioning self serve system. Maybe I have just found a particular flaw in their systems.  They will now probably have to go and purchase a prepay card to top it up when they next go shopping. Come on Vodafone, fix your systems, otherwise you will lose customers.