26 Mar 2012 - Update Highest Rated Pain Stories Highest Rated Gain Stories Vodafail Local Facebook Page
Dear visitor,

Since its inception Vodafail.com has made a significant contribution towards raising awareness of the problems and issues faced by Vodafone customers.

Vodafone Australia customers have had the opportunity to voice their concerns, their fears and their troubles from every corner of Australia and beyond our borders. You have gathered the courage to stand up for your rights as consumers and to make your voice heard.

Each and every person who shared their story should have a sense of pride in this achievement and the changes that have occurred since the start of Vodafail.com.

More recently, traffic to Vodafail.com has declined significantly. Having achieved the goal of raising awareness and promoting concrete action in early 2011, we have now reached the point of closing Vodafail to new complaints. The site will remain online for as long as possible as a reminder and an example of what is possible when we share our experiences.

It has been a privilege to run this initiative and I'm am forever grateful for the help and support I've received. In particular I would like to thank Melissa, David and Travis for their continued efforts over the past 15 months. I'm also thankful and humbled by the support of ACCAN, Choice magazine and a wide range of media outlets, blogs and websites.

You can still browse existing stories and find out how to file a complaint if you are experiencing problems.

Until next time,

Adam Brimo

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5197 Someone from QLD thinks vodafone is Supercrap at 27 Dec 2010 08:54:45 PM
Vodafone mobile broadband connection is terrible. There had been a long strings of incident since I sign up with Vodafone back in March. All involving the same problem: I couldn't access the internet even when the coverage is saying "very good". First sign of trouble was not long after I signed up in Sydney. There wasn't a connection for 3 days. Took the USB back to the shop, thinking it was a hardware problem. To cut the story short, it turned out to be Vodafone's problem, something to do with "technical problem at Vodafone network". Service went back to "normal" (= slow, but working) afterwards.

I moved to Cairns in April and took the mobile broadband with me. Most of the time the connection is slow, which turn to super slow after 5pm, even when it's on 3G/HSUPA, connection dropped off frequently.

The next incident happened some months later. Couldn't access the internet for about 3 days again. Rang customer service, there was a recorded message saying that Vodafone was having some networks problems in some parts of Australia.

The latest incident was on Nov 31st - 3rd Dec. Rang their customer service which was obviously being outsourced to call centres in India. Spoke to VERY rude Indians who kept on saying there wasn't any problem, they kept on trying to shift the blame to my computer/other things even though after some "diagnosis" it was obvious it was their problem. They insisted that I was the only one in Australia who made a complaint to them! When I demanded to speak to a manager/supervisor, one of them cockily said "I'm THE most authority, you can't speak to anyone higher than me". The cheek of it, I'm sure he doesn't own the company, he doesn't even live in Australia!

I persisted and kept on ringing them. In total I spent 2hr 51mins 27 secs on the phone with them, mostly being put on hold, before they finally gave me an "escallation reference number" to investigate my complaints. Good thing I have a spare Vodafone SIM card, otherwise I would have spent a bomb ringing them from my Optus mobile phone as I don't have a landline. Every single time I rang time, they kept me waiting for at least 20-40mins. before I could speak to a REAL person.

Afterwards I lodged a complaint through Vodafone's website, about the appalling rudeness of their customer service (what "service"?!), telling them that I'm not going to pay for a service I didn't get - why should I pay for my broadband subscription if Vodafone isn't providing what they're obligated to fulfil in a contract (= a broadband service). After some email exchanges, they agreed to waive my subscription rate for the month. It's the first time I kicked up a big fuss about it and I think I should have kicked up a big fuss at other times, too. Afterall, a contract binds not only a customer, Vodafone is also bound to deliver the service I've signed up to!!!

I'm glad I'm not "the only one in Australia" who aren't happy with Vodafone. Bring the job back to Australia, those Indians didn't even know how to treat a customer respectfully.