Saturday 21 April 2012

My Vodafone woes - again

I know I haven’t written for a while and I come back with a gripe! Sorry…

At the end of February I took the brave step of upgrading my mobile to an i-Phone. Gulp. A big step but I had just about had enough of my HTC wildfire S so I thought it was a step worth taking.

As my contract was only a short while in, I had to ‘buy’ myself  out of six months worth of contract – and I had to do that before the change could happen. I duly paid over the phone and received my beautiful, shiny, gorgeous i-Phone.

Move on a few weeks and I get my first statement for said i-Phone. Which included, yes, you’ve guessed it, the fee I had already paid to Vodafone in advance of the upgrade. So I phoned them on 191 and spoke to somebody who clearly thought I was stupid. I’ll confess that I lost my temper with him – big time. Poor chap was probably working in a call centre on the Indian sub content – I did apologise to him, honestly.

Moving on I used my favourite tool of contacting those companies who have p’d me off – Twitter. Usual response, log on to the web site, send us an email, blah, blah, blah. So I did. The response came back addressed to Mrs Apkle which I simply grimaced at. Oh yes, you’ve been charged twice so we’ll arrange a credit back to your account and then refund to you back – simples? You’d think so wouldn’t you. This was on 2 April. I kept checking to see whether the money had been transferred but no, so back to Twitter/emails the response was it takes 7-10 working days which absolutely astounds me in the technological era we are now in. After many a rant I gave in and waited. Now, it was Easter at the end of that week so we lost two working days. I accept that so, being generous I thought it must be with me by Monday 16 April, or Tuesday 17 or – you get me? You know where this is going don’t you – yep, I still haven’t had my refund. I’ve Tweeted, been retweeted and emailed again this week. I think this is a totally unacceptable service – don’t you? I’ve now sent about 7 emails to get my refund all of which are replied to in a very patronising way. I’m now tied into this company for the foreseeable future as I can’t afford to buy myself out of my contract in it’s entirety.

Am I angry – you bet I am, watch this space! My next step is going to be a snail mail to their head office in Reading, maybe that might get a better reaction!

Anyhow, apologies for the lack of blogging, if their is anybody left out there to care! Matt is now home from his travels and firmly ensconced in his old bedroom. I did miss him. I didn’t miss the mess. That is all.

In the words of Arnie – I’ll be back!

By the way – I love my i-Phone, it’s the best, it truly is…….

2 comments:

  1. Hi Heather - I've really missed your blogging - rants and all!!!!!

    ReplyDelete

Hey, thanks for stopping by my ramblings! Thanks for taking the time to comment - I really appreciate it. Looks like the spammers have got the message so I'll remove moderation!