In the last couple of years my Wife and I been Vodafone customers the following has happened.



We added a 1GB data charge to my phone before heading down south on Holiday. It didn't work. I figured I had set up the Bluetooth modem on my laptop incorrectly but on return after still no joy went into a Vodafone store to find it was an issue with their back end APNs. $60 later we had no mobile internet connection during our trip, and we weren't refunded for what was their stuff up.

When we switched from Prepay to On Account (and changed our numbers because you couldn't port them internally. Incidently would have been fine if it was an 027..). My Wife was set up with a mandatory credit limit due to limited credit history. I set up the same limit because it would be handy if my phone went missing. Some months later we got 2 letters, on the same day. Mine said their new billing system no longer allowed them to give credit limits, and it had been removed from my account. The letter to my Wife said her credit limit still applies. After ringing them, then ringing them again between 8am and 9pm we finally got the answer. It's because hers is mandatory and they've made a business decision not to offer voluntary credit limits. This directly contradicts the fact that their letter to me said their system didn't offer it, it was a business decision not to offer it.

But moving on to the last 30 days..

We both bought iPhone 3G Ss and went on the iPhone $40 plan. Prior to that we had Vodafone family on my Wife's account which wasn't offered for iPhone plans initially (The website ONLY mentioned bestmate and traveller as valid add-ons at the time, Family has since been added). Family was removed, it no longer showed up under the add-on screen in my wife’s My Vodafone. To replace this, we added a Best Mate on each phone so we could continue to call and text each other. Then August happened and we received a phone bill that said Vodafone Family was still active. It took 2 phone calls to Cairo to get this removed, and a note placed against our account so we can ring back next month and get a $20 credit for the over charge. Of course this couldn't be done now as the account already had a positive balance and adding $2 + $20 is apperantly more than the Vodafone billing system can handle.

A few days later I go to check my account balance. I have 0 texts (a couple of days prior I still had 65) and a few dollars in charges built up. I certainly didn't text to other people all that much and logged into My Vodafone to see if I could get more details as to what had happened. It turned out Best Mate had randomly removed itself from my account.

I called Vodafone. They promptly told me to call back in 2 hours as their system was being modified and they couldn't access what they needed to.

I called Vodafone again. After a 25 minute phone call they credited back 47 texts and 20 minutes to make up for those used calling my Best Mate. They said they'd credited back negative $ balance from texting my best mate but this hasn't happened yet.

My Vodafone is the slowest system on this planet. It took me 30 minutes last night of repeated attempts to log on and find out I hadn't been credited. Although this has never been all that unusual for the service.

I went to Telecom to find out about pricing and how much better/worse off we'd be if we switched. I then went to a Vodafone store to enquire about what would happen to the credits we're owed, final bills and discuss the reasons why we were looking seriously at leaving.

They didn't care. They weren't very helpful and besides assuring us we'd get refunded what was owed to us, all other questions were met with "You'd have to talk about your new provider about that"…



So that's it. No attempt to put it right and convince us not to change. No helpful answers to questions, and certainly no service worth paying for. I hold little faith getting the credit we're owed is going to be an easy process based on previous experience.

So I'm going to head into Telecom tomorrow. Goodbye Vodafone.. And good riddance.







** Update **


I've been contacted (thanks Johnr) about this and it looks like things might be getting sorted out after all.  :)