I have been with VF for more than three years and have never experienced such shitty service and quality as I have the past three months. Websites fail to load and call quality is so bad that I often borrow my partner's phone (Telstra) to make and receive calls. WTF Vodafone?

BUT I do have to say that reception and Internet connection is very good on the Epping-Chatswood rail line. It's funny that VF is able to deliver such good quality service more than 150 metres underground yet fails to deliver aboveground.

I was a customer of Vodafone for 4 years. I had nothing bad to say about this company until the beginning of this year (2010). I began receiving complaints from friends that they could hardly hear me, calls started to drop out and I would have maximum reception bars on the handset but when I attempted to make a call it would not connect. Also reception issues where vodafone said I had reception I had none.

Unfortunately for vodafone my contract expired in November. I gave them a call (after waiting an hour) to see what was going on and to see if there was some explanation onto what was happening. I was advised that I needed to provide them with 3 examples of time, place and phone number dialled before they would consider my complaint. After waiting an hour and a further 30 minutes to register this complaint, it sealed Vodafones fortune for me.

After being a loyal customer for 4 years, it has become apparent that they really don't appreciate the customer and the best thing I ever did was switch to Telstra. As a previous Telstra customer about 6 years ago, I was a little hesitant as I had, had a few issues with their customer service at that time. To my delight, I have had nothing but exceptional service and reception from them and would recommend that all you people having problems with Vodafone walk with your feet. Hit them in the hip pocket.

I gave up trying to work out why my bills were at $450 per mth. I had been with vodafone for over 10years..and then this year started to experience both poor reception and poor customer service. I explained that there had been no change in my call pattern and I am on a business plan $79 cap plan which is for high users and that my bills were insane. I had constant complaints from clients and friends. I decided to bite the bullet and payout my contract and went to crazy johns on an umlimited blackberry plan to stop the bleeding. I thought this was risky but I needed a quick fix and entered into a $79 unlimited plan. for some reason I have experience better reception and customner service from crazy johns than with vodafone which is all a bit weird..maybe due to blackberry service..No excuse to vodafone...prior to my decision to leaving they offered me a deal to extend my contract with an extra phone which i agreed and then they palmed me off to someone else who reneg on the deal...absolutely ridiculous..

I work in the Perth cbd and over the last month my reception is constantly dropping out... Right in the middle of the metro area! WTF?

I am using 3 network, having problem with international roaming oversea with my iPhone. There is no service at all at the iPhone, even when the setting for carieer is set to Automatic.

Two different handsets - Samsung Jet & Iphone 4 - poor reception at home (Endeavour Hills), have to walk around the house to make or receive calls. Can rarely access internet if away from home wifi, including in the Crown complex, MCG, etc.

Ths biggest setback this retarded network has caused me was a series of 3 day late voicemails from a prospective employer for an apprenticeship interview which i later found was a sure thing if only i hadnt recieved the multiple voicemails just hours after the interview was scheduled. Since then on numerous occasions i have attempted to complain after many bounced or dropped calls, but the process is too lengthy and painful (for a reason no doubt). Over the christmas period i was away from my girlfriend (also with vodafone) and every single call was dropped at 7 minutes on the dot! Over the past few months i have deterred 5 friends from entering plans with vodafone. Im not a number! And in May i am a free man! Fcuk you vodafcuk!

I had mobile internet with Vodafone for 2 painful years. Although I live very close to the CBD (where you'd expect good coverage), it was absolutely abysmal. The supposedly fast internet would contiously drop out after around 30 seconds. Tried to contact Vodafone and they were absolutely useless. Fortunately when my contract finished I moved to a local broadband company, with awesome customer service. I'll never use Vodafone again!

My hunch is that these coverage/billing/roaming issues are the result of vodafone trying to intergrate the 3 and vodafone networks.

We used to live on the sunshine coast. Used to get good 3G coverage in the house.

Then one day that all changed. We could only get roaming. We didn't move. Didn't do anything. But our roaming charges went through the roof. The only thing that changed was the network. Which was the same time all these other problems started appearing.

I've been with Vodafone for a number of years. In the last six months or so, the reception around and in my home as well as around where I work has become very patchy. I often have the phone showing strong 3G signal strength, yet no data through put. I drop back to GPRS mode to get data. In the last few weeks, it has also become common for voice reception in my home to just disappear, with the phone showing 'Searching...'

I signed up to vodafone 3G broadband several weeks ago so that I could access the evenings. After signing on to a 12 month contract I realised that their network is so congested that I couldn't get any traffic through at all - I literally couldn't even access Google's homepage between 9pm and 11pm every night.

After spending several frustrating weeks trying to resolve the issue with their support team, i gave up and paid the $200 contract breakout fee just so that I could start sleeping at night again. Their support service was worse than useless - more than 1 hour on hold, followed by being put through to another deparment and being put on hold again, then hang-ups, broken promises of call backs, misunderstandings, confusion and then nothing.

Thanks for the nightmare vodafone. At least I'm now free of you forever.

Class action, anyone?

I went to call my sister who is on Vodafone, but i cant get through, says the network is not responding

As bad as Vodafone is, think twice before jumping to Optus where customer service is just a rumour and changes in terms & conditions adfter you've signed the contract are the norm. Suggest the best thing to do is get out of your Vodafone contast ASAP and sign-up to use with Telstra's far superior network. It might cost a bit more, but as in everything you get what you pay for. Like flying Tiger versus Qantas :-)

I moved from 3 to Vodafone due to their "better coverage !!!!!!!. The coverage may be broader but the drop out rate for calls is simply NOT acceptable. Even in a high coverage area it sometimes takes me 4-5 attempts to call home.
Its just not good emough

Actually here in the UK where this story is just breaking (we all love the underdog fighting against the goliath), Vodafone is OK. I guess Vodafone started in the UK, so all these years later it should be ok... (and is generally).

When visiting Melbourne, I too noticed that calls were lost much more frequently when I selected Vodafone as my roaming service provider. Most frustrating.

I live in New Zealand, and I get somewhat the same issues. I get slow, crap, bullshit speeds (for fsck sakes, upload is faster than download, but this is "what the people want" according to Vodafone"). Reception is crap. I have full 3G and get around 0.3 Mbit and 0.7 Mbit upload. Https often fails like a whore.

I run a samll business and am on the move constantly. I have found the Vodafone signal getting weaker and weaker with constant drop outs that makes communication very difficult to say the least. Even on the main national hwy there are growing areas of no transmission/reception

I am a customer of 3. I was Perfectly happy with 3's service ( hqve been a customer with them for 5 years)and had perfect 3G reception at my house (40kms west of Sydney) and in the cbd. Since the merger with voda my phone has struggled to make phone calls at these locations and many more not being able to access 3G where I previously could. This isn't what I signed up for!

Living and working in Sydney CBD one would expect excellent coverage, yet it is nothing of the sort - often times I am unable to dial any numbers, receiving an annoying 'BEEP' when trying to dail out. Dropped calls both at home and office are a daily occurance, and I know to stick my head up against a windoe if I want to talk for more then 30 seconds.

Maybe if they spent all that money they are spending on TV ads and sponsoring the lame Cricket *yawn* on their network, they might not have these probs.

Vodafone - the only people who care about your cricket sponsorship are the Indians who keep us on hold for an hour in your lame, rude, annoying offshore call centres.

Working in the CBD in Sydney and living just across the Bridge. Reception is consistently full 3G yet calls drop out consistently after 1-2 mins, sometimes calls don't connect and get automatically directed to vmail, data services around circular quay are absolutely pitiful during working hours. One more note, customer service at the Vodafone store in World Square is the worst I've ever seen "we are just a franchise, we can't help you, you need to use the telephone"..... what a cop out. If you have the vodafone logo on your store you are representative of them, sort yourselves out.

After reading some of the comments, I'm not complaining about the people who work on the service centre, in the stores... as I understand this site it is about the performance of the network.

I keep getting dropped calls - all my friends keep telling me "there's something wrong with your phone" :-\

Calls dropping out, reception issues, poor data performance. Have sent formal complaint via email and also lodged to TIO. Hope I will be released from my current contract.

I live in East Melbourne - I see the skyline of the city not 200m from my open balcony. Yet do I get reception? Nope.

For a year now I've been manually turning off 3G when I get home. The EDGE network at least gave me bars to make and receive calls at home.

Time was when I'd re-enable 3G when I went out: no more. Why bother, when you can't actually use the internet connection? The bars are there but attempting to browse is a fruitless exercise.

Now, to add insult to injury, I no longer get a signal at all. "No Service", it says, unless I actually walk out on to the balcony. I'm in central Melbourne, for god's sake.

I moved to an office in Fitzroy a month ago. Guess what I get, sitting at my desk? Correct. No service.

If Vodafone spent half of their advertising budget on their network we'd all be in a better place. They should be forced to put a bar on new customer registrations until they've fixed their core infrastructure.

Disgusting, Vodafone.

I purchased an iphone 4 only 2 months ago mostly to send and receive emails. I have been unable to do this from day 1. Today Vodafail finally admitted that there is a significant issue and iphone customers cannot send email via the Vodafail network and have been unable to do so for 3 months!!! Continual call drop outs and data speed slower than dial up in a outback isn't helping their cause either.

3 is no better from what I am hearing.

ACCC investigates pyramid and other nefarious schemes, what about this one thats staring them in the face. Issues in sydney have been going on for 1.5 years now, started with no 3G coverage near parammata, to full blown calls dropping off. Got told that contract doesnt cover calls being received in your home, ok fine, so i need to get out of my house to receive a call. Then, get offered 40$ wave off for my incovenience, but calls still keep dropping off. calls last barely a minute and i keep getting charged connection fee.last months bill 305, before that 606, before that 400...and for this sort of service? ..i now have a separate telstra fone to which i forward all my calls..so atleast i can use the telstra reception.so that i dont get embarrased with my clients even when i receive callsss. F%&$ off Vodafone...ur hopeless, infact your ex-customers will setup websites to show potential new and already existing customers how worthless the service is, and infact even if i have to busker outside a vodafone store singing crap about vodafone and its reception, i will so do it now. I take that as community service

Has anyone stopped to think it may be your iphone causing you grief and not the network?
IPhones are known to have reception and antenna issues ands only now that you have moved from trustworthy mobile phone manufacturers to the ifail that you are experiencing drop outs and low reception....

I have had an ongoing issue with my phone and reception for well over 1 year. I have returned my phone on 3 occasions to get it 'fixed'....nothing has worked. I have begged them for another type of phone to try, however, I have to wait until the end of my contract. I can't get phone reception at my house - my husband is with optus and he has perfect reception! I have been a customer for a long time...I can't wait until my contract ends. It is a nightmare, my phone drops out all the time, I feel so rude when this happens when I am speaking to work clients. Something needs to be done!

Compared with other 2 major carriers, Vodafone is operating in a great budget mode and provide relatively good coverage. I am a customer and I am satisfied. If you are not happy, please go to other carriers to experience more and pay more.

NO 3G COVERAGE, WHEN SHOWING ON MAP IT IS HIGHLY 3G BROADBAND ZONE. AREAY WYNDHAM VALE, VICTORIA

Vodafail stuffed up my billings and kept charging my credit card for overdue fees that kept rolling over - even though the bill is directly debited and i always had adequate funds. When i inquired in person, i was told that it related to the billing cycle. When i asked for it to be ectified i eventually got YELLED AT by a female worker in the Macarthur Square branch, in front of other customers. I said that i was going to make a formal complaint. After the complaint, i heard no response. Finally when i rang to end my service with them, they apologised and gave my free $50 credit so that i stay with them. I am now with OPTUS and have not looked back. Much better customer service and better reception. Vodafone is a big bbig customer failure. GO TO THE TIO. Itll make them loose control of their bowels over in the call centre in India.

Had a 3 broadband stick for data when travelling but kept being hit with massive roaming data charges. So while sill in contract, got a new Voda mobile broadband sick as Voda coverage extends regionally. Or so we were led to believe. Since getting it on 27/09/2010, we have not been able to get it to work. Tried multiple computers, it fails. Call Vodafone, on hold for 2 hours before being answered. Told we had to call back next day. Next day on hold for 2 hours. Told it was not activated by the sales person. They activate it, it worked - for the day. Next day it didn't work. Called and on hold for 2 hours again. Re-Activated it again. Next day didn't work again. Repeat above story each time we travelled for the past 3 months.

I lost my mobile BB network in the Byron Bay area this time last year - this was after a software update that took most of the east coast off line for 3 days - but service did not return to my area. Each time I rang it seemed they were using a 'random excuse generator'. After about 4 weeks they told me they would refund my modem and pre-paid spent. But that wasn't the point, it took me 2 weeks of research to determine that VF were the best value for my location. So I contacted the ombudsman. The Ombudsman determined that if they had supplied me with a service for the previous 6 weeks they had no right to now remove the service. Eventually, after 6 weeks my BB was finally returned.

Why do they do these upgrades just before Christmas - surely the busiest time of the year? Why is the call centre no able to directly communicate with the technical teams? If the real problem is overloading at certain times of the year, don't they boost the service during these time?

Vodafone took two weeks to port my number and after several phone calls to them finally got some action. I even had one guy hang up on my when I let him know about how unhappy I was. I have been using the network for around 3 weeks and have not been able to run my business from my iphone due to lack of reception, call drop outs & inability to load maps for directions to client's homes. Very frustrated to read about ongoing problems that were known when I signed up. I am so annoyed as I have now just had a client call drop out 3 times. How bad does that make me look as a business owner??

Well we are the lucky one's...we were able to get out of our contract. The way we did it is to take their advice. The call centre said to get a technician out to test the service (we had really bad reception at our house in Randwick). They never turned up and after a few follow up calls to vodafone, they finally agreed to let us out of our contract. This took a fair few phone calls, but finally we got out of our contract, without having to pay any early termination fees. We have been with vodafone for about 6 plus years, but the last 6 plus months, the reception has been terrible, the call centre takes a minimum of 40 minutes to get through, and voicemail turns up days after the messages were left. Vodafone did try to bill us an early termination fee on our last bill the cheeky ba$tards, but again we rang them up and got into them, and eventually they agred and reversed the charge.

While my mobile phone coverage is ok, my internet has been almost non-existant since the beginning of September. The most frustrating has been ringing help desks, where I have been told that "we can't see a problem from our end"; " our records show that you are in a good coverage area"; "are you in a tall building mamm?"; "we will send you a sharing dock that will fix it"(no, it didn't); "oh, you've rang the wrong department [well can you transfer me through?] no we are having trouble with our phones!". And to the person who suggested contacting one of their shops, when I contacted my local Vodafail shop, I was told by the employee to not be upset because she was having internet problems at her home too. Ten days ago I was promised by Vodafail that they would phone me back to cancel my contract. Still no call, perhaps they are having more phone problems.

I use a Vodaphone mobile usb for internet access when I am away from my home office in Sydney (not Vodaphone). When I am Copacabana on the NSW Central Coast it is pot luck if I can get a connection.Sometimes I can go for hours at time with no connection. Makes working away from the office very difficult. I have rung and they have advised a technician has been to my location and the reception is fine. That is true but it would be more correct to add the words "sometimes". After my contract expires I am out of here.

I have actually being having serious network issues with Vodafone since June this year. This included,
- not being able to make calls
- entire network out for mins and sometimes up to an hour (ie no reception of any type)
- slow to non-existent data services
- SMS that were either not delivered or delivered over 24 hours late

I live in Newtown within 5km of the Sydney CBD and my house is actually 100metres from the telephone exchange, I have direct line of sight to a Vodafone mobile phone tower.

When I complained in June I was told it was a problem with my handset and went through the whole isolation test. I knew this was nit the problem because,
- I swapped SIM into another handset and had same problems
- my partner is also with Vodafone and was having same problems
- I was unable to call friends living in same area who were on Vodafone

After explaining all this to a Vodafone CSR I was finally given an explanation by Vodafone. The Newtown tower was being 'upgraded' which will take a few months so please 'switch your phone back to 2G until the work is complete'.

The biggest issue by far has been the lack of communication from Vodafone. No letter or email to explain what I was told over the phone, no date letting me know when services would be back to normal, nothing.

In short the access to the network didn't improve and by November I had actually found myself working around the Vodaphone problems by,
- switching my mobile back to 2G
- borrowing my neighbors mobile to make calls who was not with Vodafone
- buying a 3G data card and connecting it to a laptop using another Telco's 3G network

I primarily use my phone for business and have been on a business plan for 5 years. The inconvenience has impacted on my ability to work and I will be joining the class action to seek damages and compensation.

Four weeks ago I swapped over to another network after being on hold to Vodafone for over 2 hours. It actually took less than 30mins to swap to the other network.

I don't think Vodafone still understands how pissed off people are about this. When I complained in writing to Vodafone they denied the problems and said they won't be letting me out of my contract.

Letting me out of my contract is the least of their problems, I would have assumed losing our business, we have 5 contracts with Vodafone and have spent over 10k in the last 3 years was a bigger issue for them.

I use a Vodaphone mobile usb for internet access when I am away from my home office in Sydney (not Vodaphone). When I am Copacabana on the NSW Central Coast it is pot luck if I can get a connection.Sometimes I can go for hours at time with no connection. Makes working away from the office very difficult. I have rung and they have advised a technician has been to my location and the reception is fine. That is true but it would be more correct to add the words "sometimes". After my contract expires I am out of here.

I'm with Crazy Johns, after having been with Vodafone for 2yrs & hating it! However, I found out AFTER I changed to CJ's that Vodafone is their carrier! My CJ plan is now ended THANK GOODNESS and I'll be switching to Telstra.. much though I dislike Telstra, at least I'll get coverage.. with Vodafone I couldn't even get reception in my own home!!!!!! This NEVER happened when I was with Optus (prior to switching to Vodafone).

I am with three and wondering if these complaints and law suit also relate to the 3 network as they are now one and the same. I often have reception issues with 3 as well as slow downloads.

Live in the middle of covered area according to Voda coverage map, but my signal goes from no reception to full reception like a yoyo, LITERALLY. I have no coverage for majority of the day. This is DISGUSTING. This has been ongoing since MAY 2010.

I never know if my phone is actually working. I have had days where people have been texting and ringing me all day and I am receiving nothing. If I turn my phone off and then on again, alot of the time it will THEN get reception and I will receive all the messages that peopele have been leaving. So, I find myself turning my phone off and on again throughout the day, just to make sure. Crazy stuff.

I work for a mobile phone manuafacturer and part of my work is to test our phones performance on the Vodafail network. Some days i can make up to 500 calls a day testing for drops, data ect and on some days i get 85% - 90% call failures. Most of the issues started when they switched on the EDGE network and then when they joined with 3. When testing the other 2 carriers they have good quality and not the same issues i have been seeing with Vodafail. Unfortunately i cannot swap from Vodafail and i do hope they fix the issues soon.

I don't get reception anywhere in my house. In the middle of the city in Sydney.When you call them you end up on hold for up to 2 hours. They are taking our hard earned money and not reinvesting into their network..They must be taking the piss.

thumbs up to vodafail for poor reception and dropped calls, no when my girlfriend rings up and likes to babble on i know any minute it will drop out, and now i got a good excuse for not replying to her frequent SMS,,,keep up the good work VODAPEACE.

for the past 5 months I have nothing but issues with reception and call drop outs, getting emails, using the internet and getting voicemails using my iPhone 3GS on the vodafail network. Initially i thought it was my old sim, so i got the sim replaced. still the same issue. then i thought it was my iphone. So vodafail sent it back to apple and i got a brand new replacement 3GS. still the exact same issues if not worse. I have now called vodafail umpteen times without success. apparently they are investigating my issues which is code for 'i dont give a damn'... so next week when ppl are back at work i'm calling the TIO to get out of this contract ($69 of money down the drain each month). Under the trade practices act they need to deliver a 'fit for purpose' product or service as decribed in their contract. I've also signed up for the class action lawsuit... will be going straight to telstra once my contract is up.

Quit wasting millions on your cricket sponsorship campaign Vodafone and start spending that money on the rebuild of your network. almost the biggest marketing presence with the worst coverage. even the Hutchison 3 brand and service was better before you bought it. dont underestimate the momentum to wipe out your customer base with litigation and complaint driven PR disaster. Cant see too many handset brands wanting to partner their precious brand equity with your dog of a product

I live in Melbourne. I can't get reception in my house, I can't rely on reception in the city and the mobile internet is very slow and generally only works every second day.

I wouldn't have signed up if I had known and I've still got 12 more months of the contract! Thanks for voicing the issue Vodofail.

was with vodafone for 18 months with constant call drop outs, they made me go into store and change sim card 5 times, it didn't change a thing once. Live 10km from CBD and had minimal coverage in our house, contacted vodafone about this they said they couldn't do an investigation on the reception as their service to do so was down... this happened 3 times I then switched to Telstra (which I am extremely happy with to this point, coverage is unbelievable, full reception everywhere, and no messy incorrect bills) then vodafone sent a disconnection fee and said it applied as I never got an investigation done on the reception issues, though their service to do so was down... I have called them for the past 3 months and been told they would call me back within a week, not once have I received a call back, emailed through their website, support said they can not help... but this is my fault?? trying to charge someone a fee because the service you are supplying is faulty does not fly very well..... vodaFAIL indeed

Very poor reception at home. Phone goes direct to voicemail when im sitting right next to it with an "outside coverage area" message. Dropped calls and poor reception calling out. To be fair though I had the same problem with an Optus connection at this address. Mobile Data speed is very poor though in the city.

Constant data drop outs, even as I browse the web right now. Total loss of reception, with the only method of bringing it back is to either restart the phone or switch in/out of airplane mode.

I have very poot reception in my home-Mosman, My office-Edgecliff and in locations like Hawksnest NSW .
I also experience 3 drop outs when ever I am on my phone driving from Edgecliff to Mosman or in reverse

Stupidly switched to Vodafone from Optus when I got my iPhone 3GS - worst mistake of my life! Intermitettent reception, callers not able to get through despite full signal on my end, delayed SMS, dropped phone calls (coincidentally manynof these when on hold to Vodafone for help). Currently waiting on resolution of 2 month ongoing issue - my parents are overseas and when I SMS them they receive the message multiple times, and are charged for each one they recieve, Vodafone have said they know what the problem is (their server) but have not yet fixed it. I am counting the minutes until my contract is over to switch to Telstra - pricey but reliable (never thought I'd say that about Telstra).

I don't understand why I have to pay my bill for services that are not provided to me - surely that constitutes a breach of contract?? I'm paying for them to provide a service that they consistently fail to provide. Count me in on any class action!!

We live in the upper hunter valley and very rarely will a call last past 1 minute as it will drop out even with a good signal. I have rang them about this issue and standard answer is that everything their end is working fine. Yeah right.
The latest bug is when we go to Charlestown Square in Newcastle there is virtually no coverage. They have 2 Vodafone shops and they are trying to sell phones when they don't have any coverage.

I have a 24 months plan. I have never been able to access data services. The staff are rude and arrogant. There has been no network upgrades since 2009. There is s serious capacity problem and Vodafone needs to act fast.

Working in real estate, calls frequently dropping out when talking with clients. Often I have to call back enquiries from a landline because the reception is poor, this is never convenient in the field. I am also told by many clients that incoming calls aren't going through to my phone, as if my phone were switched off.

The speed for data is a joke. This is the only reason my iPad is with Telstra and not Vodafail. Loading webpages with both devices(iPad, iPhone 4) side by side in both the CBD and the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney further emphasises the sub-par coverage issues Voda is experiencing.

If I had known earlier I would have signed with Telstra. (The price premium for their product was the initial deterrent, now it seems it is well justified.) I'm sick and tired of talking to 1555's Lara. I'm beginning to think ill just have to sit this contract out. Vodafone....never again.

i live about 300-400m from a vodafail cell station and i know it is one for a fact and i have 0-1 bar at all time in my house i cant even make a phone call without it dropping out, epic fail in my opinion. Not to mention that i also know vodafail has known about the problem for a long period of time in fact when they bought 3 out merging the 2 networks together causing an overload. Hence why we struggle through simple phonecalls.

Vodafone is an international brand and one of the best telecommunication company of the world,which provide its best service to billions of customers.
Me and my lot of friends have been using Vodafone for last almost 5 years but we never ever had any network problem with Vodafone i.e best network in Australia.
I can say that some Vodafone's rival companies trying to make bed reputation of Vodafone but it will never happen in long term as customer know that Vodafone is best....

I suffer constant network drop-outs for no reason at all, even in and around Launceston CBD. Then, if I go more than 20km out of the city I lose all reception altogether. I have tried to talk to Vodafone about these issues, but after an hour or so on the phone to three different people, and having sent a handful of emails, all they would tell me was that the problem must be with my phone. However I know it's not because I tried another handset to no avail and I have friends experiencing the same problems. This pathetic level of service is just intolerable. They can offer the best value plan in the world, but if they don't have the network to deliver it then it's just plain useless. Unfortunately I'm still stuck in my contract until September unless I can figure some way out of it...

I have zero coverage inside my home and it can sometimes take two days to receive a simple text message.

Definitely changing providers when my contract ends.

This time last year I was with Vodafone. I was in Tasmania and could not make a call from north Hobart to Sydney without the call constantly dropping out. My friend was with Telstra and could receive calls even in the middle of Freycinet national park. Then I went to Malaysia for work and could not connect to Vodafone's partner services properly. My colleagues had no trouble with Telstra. This year I switched to Telstra and have had no coverage or service network problems since ... but Telstra is painfully expensive. Australians simply don't have a choice where Telcos are concerned.

Its a hit and miss! Maybe I can make calls, maybe I can't. Maybe I'm contactable, maybe I'm not. Who knows what their magical formula for connection coverage is? What a welcoming experience ... in the first month they barred my incoming/outgoing because I had not paid the invoice. Funny thing (not) is that they barred me because their business sales rep. had not entered any of my details into their system. Then they threatened to re-bar me if I didn't now pay asap.

I have an iPhone 3GS with Vodafone (which has now, unfortunately for her, been passed down to my girlfriend). The reception, for the last 18 months has been lousy at best. One bar almost all day, everywhere. Trying to use the internet on the iPhone is totally useless. You'd probably be quicker going to the server, plugging in a flash drive, and retrieving data that way. I have tried contacting Vodafone many, many times, but have given up after being on hold for hours.

What can I do!

Call drop out and bad coverage contrary to staff advice is main gripe. Calls drop out at several locations around Sydney. Entering Syd Harbour Tunnel from north side, then exiting at East Distributor, New South Head Road at Vaucluse and Watsons Bay, both at the bottom and also up the hill along the ridge. Other unexplainable drop out around other areas. Just not good enough. My work phone with Telstra beats it everywhere but is more expensive. In Vodafone defence I have had no problems with customer service. Steve

I have had nothing but trouble with receiving calls roaming coverage, dropped calls, lack of 3G network and then when I ring to talk to someone I am stuck on hold for hours...when I finally get to talk to someone they tell me it's not their fAult and it's not as bad as what I say?? Then I ask to be released from my contract so I can go with a provider who actually can offer me the service I need and I am denied that as well - yet I am forced to pay for a service that is clearly unable to be delivered as was sold or promised to me... How can they get away with it? They should just release contracts and listen to the feedback from customers - to ignore us just doesn't make good business sense...

Hi. I have been a mobile phone customer of Vodafone since 1995 and overall I have not experienced any issues to mention. I have a "black spot" in my lounge on the Lower North Shore in Sydney but my lounge is a problem for all networks not just Vodafone. I don't use a mobile internet connection but do use data on my Vodafone Blackberry. Only one month did I have data issues on my Blackberry which caused me to overrun my cap and I was hit with charges which upon query Vodafone promptly credited back.

My home internet is a wireless setup with another carrier so I can't comment on that.

I really hope all of you experiencing problems do get resolution soon. We all depend on mobile coverage so much.

I think a very strong message needs to be sent to Vodafone so they are acutely aware of the problems they face at the moment and the massive dissatisfaction across the board with all their services!

Everytime I contact them to complain about an issue - I get a customer service representative denying any issues and wasting my time further on the phone.

Clearly since everyone else is experiencing difficulty - if they just apologised on the phone and told me they were working towards fixing it rather than telling me no problem exists - I would feel a whole lot better.

I

I had a Vodafone Broadband service. For five months or so it as pretty good and I chose to go onto a long term plan. Thats when the problems started - try 27 hours for an i tunes update download or buffering 16 times during a 30second song trial. The cost on my non vodafail mobile to continually call Customer Help was a big cost to me. Each time I woild be told a different reason for the problem. On one occassion they supplied me a new modem which was not compatible with Vista - in 2010 believe it or not. They told me to download a software update, but with no connection I asked how and the moron suggested I go to a public library!!! In the end after months of being told the 'network was being updated' I contacted the TIO, who gave me a number for Vodafail in Australia and a group of people based in Hobart whose only job is to deal with complaints made to the TIO. Very shortly after Vodafail refunded all my money and cancelled my contract. I suggest everyone with a Vodafail problem do the same.

Hi. I am really sorry to hear so many people are having such dire problems with Vodafone. I have been a customer of Vodafone since 1995 and have been happy. I live on the lower North Shore in Sydney and have a problem spot in my lounge but this is the case for all carriers. I use Optus for work and have many more problems with their over-subscribed network.

I wish everyone well and hope that Vodafone does take your complaints seriously and deals with it very soon.

None now ( but maybe in the future after the buyout) ..My contract ended and I changed to 3. Before I left Vodafone I requested the following note be placed on my file: " If at the end of my contract I re-sign with Vodafone, please have someone come around to my house with a shotgun and blow my head off." " Why would we do that?" was the agent's comment . " Because I'd have to be out of my f***ing mind and I wouldn't want to be alive!!"

In the city a friend tried to ring me several times and it rang out with no voicemail. I had my phone on the whole time. Several friends have experienced this with my phone. I needed to speak to a work colleague prior to an important meeting but the same thing happened.
Also my phone coverage is next to nothing more often than not. Calls drop out I'd say more than 50% of the time.

No reception at home.... at work ... Calls being dropped.... Haven't had 3G reception since I've had he phone (its been over a month).

This is very very bad service for $59/month and unacceptable. Definitely not expected from Vodafone.

I too have been a Vodafone customer almost since its arrival on the comms market in Australia. I have both a mobile phone (iPhone 3GS) and a mobile broadband contract. If possible, I would like to get out of both.

On the phone side of things, I get constant call drop outs and most annoyingly the "dud" tone when the network cannot make a call. And when it can make a call, there is usually a long silence while the connection is made. I too am forced to use the GSM network, but still have connection issues.

On the boradband side of things, their softweare is unreliable. I often have to go into (Win7) Device Manager to remove extraneous USB controllers which causees RAS errors and hence no connection. Once connected, there are numerous dropouts, not to mention extremely poor download speeds.

On the support front, I refuse to talk to offshore support people as they are trained only to read scripts without listening to your issues. And I am still waiting for Vodafone to contact me after attempting to have one of my issues escalated.

Who do I turn to to get a service that I am willing to pay for?

I signed up with Vodafone nearly 2 years ago.... was assured at the time it would give excellent coverage. Not even remotely true. I travel a lot out of Sydney for family and work. My partner's phone (Telstra) has to be relied on. When he's not with me on work trips I have to let people know I'll be 'off the air' for slabs of time because I'm on Vodafone. This is not what I expected, or was told, when I signed up at Vodafone in Neutral Bay. To add insult to injury, the signal in my home (in Balmain) fluctuates widely and it can be hard to get (and keep!) a signal in the house.

Renewed an existing contract with 3 in dec 2009 after 2 years of great service, and slowly the broadband started to get slower and the mobile call reception deteriorated until we now have to go outside to make a call and avoid dropouts. Our internet is marginally faster than dial up during peak times and is so slow even when running at it's best I have considered moving house. Vodafone tell me they have been decommissioning 3 towers in the area and pushing all the services through existing vodafone towers. Result, congestion, and poor service quality. They did not tell us and we are still one year away from the end of the contract which is now not worth what we are paying. Vodafrustration rating 10.

I was put across to Vodafone by my work as part of the firm's plan. I live in Harrington Park and get NO reception at home. On the train home it drops out over huge distances. I am constantly having to reset my network when I can see a mobile phone tower and yet have "No Service" coming up on my phone. I regularly lose calls. This is undoubtedly the worse reception I have ever had. Damn that's a big whinge but completely on the mark. I would cancel my contract today if it wasn't linked to my job's plan.

My iPhone constantly drops coverage - has been even worse the last week and having heaps of problems even sending sms. Was at the cricket at MCG yesterday and was unable to even take calls - thinking of changing back to Telstra

I too have been a Vodafone customer almost since its arrival on the comms market in Australia. I have both a mobile phone (iPhone 3GS) and a mobile broadband contract. If possible, I would like to get out of both.

On the phone side of things, I get constant call drop outs and most annoyingly the "dud" tone when the network cannot make a call. And when it can make a call, there is usually a long silence while the connection is made. I too am forced to use the GSM network, but still have connection issues.

On the boradband side of things, their softweare is unreliable. I often have to go into (Win7) Device Manager to remove extraneous USB controllers which causees RAS errors and hence no connection. Once connected, there are numerous dropouts, not to mention extremely poor download speeds.

On the support front, I refuse to talk to offshore support people as they are trained only to read scripts without listening to your issues. And I am still waiting for Vodafone to contact me after attempting to have one of my issues escalated.

Who do I turn to to get a service that I am willing to pay for?

Haven't had more than 2 bars of reception since getting my iphone4 in oct .... Couldn't b bothered waiting on hold for hours & speaking to 'lara'!!! My dog could do a better job than these muppets!

I live on a hill in North Balwyn, Victoria. Should have some of the best coverage in Melbourne. Vodafone us unusable. I regularly get "one bar" on my vodafone phone and "five bars" on my Telstra phone in my other hand. I just got out. Its hopeless - so I dont even try in regional areas.

Hi After being with vodafone for 4 years and being on the business plan, I couldn't make calls, custmers struggled to call me, after changing my phone and sim contacted the network many times they finally gave me over $800 credit on my account. Great but still my phone would be better if my phone worked and stopped dropping out!!! Truth is vodafone used to be great but the last 6 months the service has been very poor and frustrating and has lost me money. They did offer me to end my contract but I hope the service just picks up again!!

Phone reception is usless in Lane Cove. Calls drop out at least once every two minutes, it takes several attempts to send a text message, usually it says there is no reception and that the message hasn't sent, so I resend and it ends up being sent multiple times. Data is a joke, takes 5 minutes to load a page. Mobile internet USB is the same.

no network coverage most of the time. talked to people and it keeps dropping out. So I have to ring them back all the time so costs of the phone call go up for just one call. It keeps coming up with no network coverage so I can not use my phone so this bloody frustrating.
I am getting pissed off. I have rung Vodafone a few times but they just keep saying we are working on this problem. So do not what to do from here

my employer issued managers with a hutchison (now vodafone)mobile handset contract. The reception was not good from the beginning and become worse after the merger with it dropping out constantly over the slightest hill or cutting along the road........just hopeless. Can't wait to move on as soon as out of contract.

I have to stand on one leg in the back of the garden and one hand up in the air to get 1 bar signal strength on the vodafone service other wise its acceptable in the area for what i pay. However suing this company is only going to shut it down and leaving many people out of work. Do not blame the people at the shopfront, go an find the Executive staff and complain to their face. And join an other phone company, who are probably no better?
I am all for some compensation based on case by case. Local government and complaints from people over unsightly towers are partly to blame, holding up the construction of new towers.
Ps my other phone is with Telstra, and i have to have both arms up to get a signal, and their are worse things to complain about than phone coverage!
My 2 cents worth

Sent to SMH - There is another area of Vodaphone's activity that needs looking at and that is the use of its name overseas. So far as we could ascertain from questions asked in Malta the company effectively franchises its name to independent overseas companies without any supervision.

Trusting the name "Vodaphone", we entered into phone plans in Sicily with Vodaphone Italia. The service varied from appalling to non existent - Credits just disappeared and no-one including the local "Tobacchis" could sort anything out. One "Tobacchi" spent nearly an hour on the phone to them, so it wasn't just a "language difficulty"

Appealing to the English speaking Vodaphone Agencies outside of Italia was useless. They had no proper technical or managerial relationship that could help. We were left with the impression that overseas persons using Vodaphone's Italian network were at the mercy of very questionable business practices.

This abuse of a company's own name via unsupervised trade name franchising is surely "unfair trading". We specifically emailed Vodaphone in Australia (using Wifi in MacDonalds) and asked if at the very least they would communicate fully with their colleagues in Italy - to no apparent avail. Indeed when it seemed too complicated it appears they just dropped us.

As to what the franchise status of the Australian company using the name is - I didn't ask. All we ever wanted was reliable iphone and ipad services. We got practically nothing, however much we "recharged" our accounts in Sicily

I would never use a company with Vodaphone's trade mark name again - not Italy - not Australia -anywhere!

Vodafone will not even reply to a hand written letter, delivered by registered post, to their HQ. I have no reception at work, or on the main street of town (which is a city of 100,000). My fiancee's Blackberry died and the mufti at the call centre told her to take it to 7/11 to get repaired! Looks like another TIO complaint coming up. I don't like complaining but if they won't bother replying to ANOTHER hand written letter, then they deserve everything they have coming to them.

I was with Vodafone a couple of years ago and they were brilliant. I switched to 3 because they had the phone i wanted, then came back to voda last year. What a mistake. It to 3 days and countless calls and store visits to port and activate my number, and since then I've suffered constant call dropouts, lack of reception, slow or nonexistent data speeds, continually having to reboot my phone to get a 3GS connection, 24 hour delays in receiving voicemail, calls going straight to message bank when the phone is switched on in a so called high coverage area, you name it. I'm going back to 3.

Vodaphone is the worst network service compared to other service providers,If you are in Plan with Iphone4, just check your bill regularly, b'cos as i have noticed that they are removing some credits even without calls.

Vodafone don't care I'm stiched up in contract and get billed for calls not made and services not used but vodafone can't be contacted and the Bathurst office says little and helps even less, Bathurst office told me that the new phones would work at my home but it does not unless I get lucky afer climbing a tree, all very curious that in 2010 that 20 kms from Bathurst Vodafone can't give me a service that works although they said they could.

I cancelled one billed by month service after being wrongly billed had to pay changed to prepaid and still get the same poor coverage.

I'm fed up having to climb trees to make calls in the rain or drive 1.5 km to make a call that mostly drops, out visitors come and they phone out from my home on other services, the Bathurst Telstra shop told me that the vodafone I have all 3 of them are not suitable for the local coverage that they are city phones, I went to the Vodafone shop and they told me that the phones were fine for in Bathurst and agreed the phones were not suitable for out of town and that the previous vodafone staff made a mistake.

to move to another service I need to buy another phone.

We once had a CDMA service that worked here at my home.

I opted out when my phone wouldn't receive calls either at home or at work. Both places are in suburban Melbourne. Whenever I went into a Vodafone office to complain the phone would ring to tell me of missed calls, so they would refuse to talk to me: "Your phone IS working" would be their comment.

I have joined another telco, and get better reception from them.

I have been with Vodafone for 13 years but enough is enough. I have had my iPhone 3GS for 18 months and the service in the past 9-12 months or more has been shocking. It has got so bad that I have recently become determined to break the contract. But calling the helpline with that damn Lara robot is unworkable.

I wrote a formal complaint to the Vodafone website on 14 December and got an automated reply that someone would contact me within 5 business days. Guess what? Nothing! Nobody has contacted me. It is a disgrace.

The data network just NEVER works. Never! I'm so over it.

I'm getting underwhelming reception in Nth Canberra under Mt Majura (connected to Vodafone via Transact). Similar in Sydney too, visiting rellies over Xmas. But my phone's an old Nokia N95. I was assuming the problem was with the phone, not the network, until I heard about this site and all the problems others were having. As a point of reference, I was previously on the Optus network (via Virgin), its reception was frankly no better. I haven't tried Telstra's 3G to compare.

Multiple dropped calls, bad reception, calls dropping out even before answering. Went from a hopeless 3, to Vodaphone. Even worse, in spite of the promises. Can take six or seven calls to comllete a short convesation. I now ask people to ring the landline. Sometimes, this takes 3 or 4 calls just to pass on the landline number ! ! ! ! !

In order to run our business without the constant dropouts, we have all had to lock our phones to the GSM network. It improves battery life by double (since the phone is not searching for signal) and means we can actually move around whilst talking....making the phones "mobile" once again. We have been VF customers for 11 years and only since they took over "3" has the problem occured. Telstra here we come...

Stuck in Vodafone contract. Promised three months for free - never delivered. Kept on OLD version of plan with higher call costs. When I complained I was offered another free month and 50% off the next two months after that. NONE of this has been delivered. And now I have NO phone reception at all - in the middle of Sydney. I can't make calls, I can't send texts, I can't use the internet on my phone. I can't use my phone to run my freelance business. It's a useless bit of expensive metal. Thanks Vodafone. I want out.

Missing important phone calls both work and family