To criticise Vodaphone's inefficient staff - what stories do you have about this company

[Fadingmemory]

DD is a student. This morning she rang Vodaphone if the direct debit for her phone contract could taken from her account on 29th January after she has been paid from her p/t, job rather than today. She was assured that would be fine and that her instruction would be actioned immediately. Except that it wasn't and she has been put beyond her overdraft limit. The bank told her she would be charged unless she cleared the excess by 2pm. How? Magic?

If any of you work for Vodaphone, is there a deliberate policy of agreeing to such an arrangement when there is no intention of obliging. Very bad PR. Why wasn't she just told, 'No,' right from the start.

Shit company. After loads of hassle too boring to go on about I cancelled my Direct Debit due to them helping themselves to my bank account & taking ages to refund. I still had 20 months to go on my mobile contract, but they did not argue. So now I get a text from them every month & pay by card via the My Vodafone app. I feel insulated from them stealing my £££ now 😀

I don't see why Vodafone should pay the bank charges though? Even if they told OP's daughter to cancel the direct debit with her bank it still would have been too late on the day. As I said before all direct debits are processed one working day before they actually come out - that's why you are told you have to have funds in the account one working day ahead of the direct debit leaving otherwise they fail.
The problem is that OP's daughter rang on the day when in actuality the DD had probably already gone to ask for the date to be moved - not possible for the company or the bank I bet!

If someone had advised her properly she could have recalled the DD and so had the balance restored before 2pm (bit of an arbitrary time though as close of business is usually 4). Bank is at fault there really. Still, she might be better using a PAYG phone until she has a regular enough income to service a regular monthly bill.

They are shit, I had no end of problems until I got my solicitors involved.

They've just been fined 4.6 million by OFCOM due to poor communication.

They are AWFUL my scenario with them has honestly got so bad and stressed me out so much that I can't even explain it to anyone or attempt to complain again...I don't even want to think about it!
Basically I'm now stuck paying them for a contract that is not active and have got another contract with another provider that actually works!

I've always found their customer service to be fantastic, really helpful and very polite... maybe I've just been lucky but I've had to deal with them quite a few times and they've always been brilliant.

Now BT on the other hand... their customer service is utterly appalling; I can't wait to never have to deal with them again!

They are shit.

Cancelled my contract with them after 4 days.

2 years later I check my credit report and there's an open account on there! But apparently it's not an issue because there's no adverse marks

cinnamon do you happen to have a business mobile account by any chance? Consumer and PAYG customer service teams are overseas call centres. business, public sector, government and very high value individuals have their calls answered in the U.K.

There's a big difference and VF actually do quite well on the business side.

We had them for broadband and had terrible problems. We complained like mad and in the end have left some things unpaid ( including bills they sent us after we left them for BT. They kept part of our contract going and charged us for it despite us telling them we were leaving completely. ) One issue we had was their failure to change our address in their database even though we told them over and over. This caused huge communication problems but they couldn't seem to grasp that it was any issue at all even when we told them there were pursing us for bills we'd never received. Just awful.

OP here. To any of you who criticised DD's tardiness and disorganisation I am heartily in agreement. My point is that she should have been told a firm, 'No,' from the start. Many thanks for the replies. I have suggested she complains to the CEO, tweets it etc but that is up to her. I suppose that inadequately trained staff with no notion of howmto deal with customers either do not know the rules/limitations when it comes to direct debits or they tell a customer what he/she wants to hear to get the phone call ended and the next one logged.

I wouldn't expect a company to have to explain how direct debits work to me though.
I bet the staff member assumed she knew how the direct debit worked (I mean who could possibly assume a direct debit could be changed same day?) and thought she meant next month's payment.
I'm sure Vodafone are shite generally but I'd be encouraging my daughter to tak responsibility for herself here, not offloading the issue on to a third party who can't control what your daughter does with her own banking.

Absolute shite company. They cut my phone off. Like completely dead. Couldn't make or receive calls. Told me I had an unpaid bill of over a grand which was due to my phone 'getting a virus or something'. Turns out they incorrectly shut off my phone and the £1000 was a disconnection fee and to pay off remaining contract. Took weeks to resolve and I missed out on a freelance contract because of it.

I have a complaint with the Ombudsman about Vodafone. There are so many complaints that the wait is currently 10-12 weeks from the investigation stage, ie when they have received Vodafone's side of the story. It's usually 6-8 weeks.

They've overcharged me for a whole year and they have no record of what I agreed to pay at the outset. I've had promises to pay a credit that doesn't materialise and no record of the promises either. Finally they pretended they had found the recording of the original conversation where I'd agreed to the higher amount.

Funnily enough l'd been with them for 3 years without issue before then. I've moved to O2 now and ported my number as that's the only way I can be sure the Vodafone contract is cancelled. They can't get any money anyway as I cancelled the DD 3 months ago when I worked out I'd already paid more than enough for the 12 months.

The complaint to the Ombudsman includes a time and stress payment of £210 as I'd kept a timesheet of the calls (and phone notes) and billed them at £20 an hour.

Meh nope normal contract, and not an expensive one either, sim only bog standard one, every time I've gone to renew it they've offered me a discount for being a loyal customer (not much as it's a cheap contract but it's a nice gesture) and they've been really helpful when I've had issues. I had one problem where the direct debit didn't change accounts properly (their error not mine) and the system automatically cut my phone off, which pissed me off, I rang up and they sorted it straight away and corrected the issue with lots of apologies. That is the only time they have made a mistake and other than that they've been impeccable and the best customer service I've had to deal with. Even when they got it wrong the people on the other end of the phone were polite, helpful and apologetic, when I've had to deal with BT they have been rude and bullying. I know it completely depends on who you get on the day and what training they've had so maybe I've been lucky with Vodafone and unlucky with BT but I have sworn never to use BT again after repeated bad experiences and I will be switching my broadband to Vodafone as soon as I can!

Missed the end of your message : Although, meh you are right I have always spoken to a UK person, it's not a special contract though, just a normal one. I do always ring in the middle of the day/morning (on a work break for example). So maybe this is why my experience has always been better?

Like cinnamon I've got a personal contract and have never had a problem - quick to sort out DS going over his data, quick to sort blocking outgoing calls/texts (again DS!) and putting it back on. I have never spoken to anyone not in the UK (usually someone in the same city - we have a huge vodafone call centre based here and I've often ended up chatting away about something to obscure and local for 'overseas training')