I am a new customer, PAYING for 500MB per month (says so in the contract). Vodafone will only allocate 250MB to me. My suggested solution to this problem is: Vodafone should deliver its aggreed product. Customer service...I'm not sure I've had any yet (7 phone calls is my attempt to bridge the gap).
Upon examining call drop out, cost, flag fall and coverage, it is very likley (circumstance dependant) that the other networks offer a superier deal, despite less "call credit". Thanks Vodafail.

Can anyone get through "Customer Service" ??? They are an innovative company though. Rather than being on hold for 50mins, they now kick you off after 5... that way their stats look good

It is rare that I will have a phone call without it dropping out at least once. The record so far is 12 times throughout one conversation with a friend. In trying to reach customer service, I called 9 times only to be put on hold and then for the call to just drop out. I am the most easy going customer but this is out of control. Thank you for creating Vodafail and I hope the ACCC either does something about it or shuts them down. They are cutting corners to save a dollar at the expense of the customers. It's the worst service of all time... and that is saying something.

CALLS - Every time I go to make a call, the phone will hang for 30-60 seconds before it can connect through. Every second call I make will also drop out after 5-10 minutes.
DATA - my contract comes with 2GB of data - my smartphone will consistently tell me that I have connectivity issues. One minute I can get it connected to my work emaail, the next it drops off and constantly displays "error conencting" message, somtimes for hours on end.
VODAFONE CUSTOMER SERVICE - tried yesterday for 3 hours to get through to speak to someone, anyone except GODDAM LARA!!!!! After being on hold for anywhere between 15-45mins, my calls simply drop dead. This happened 4 times yesterday. HOW DO I SPEAK TO SOMEONE???

I'm one of the lucky ones. I was with them for a year with an iPhone 3GS - mainly because Telstra was expensive and we're in an Optus black spot here. Always had call dropouts, but accepted it as part of the digital network - until, that is, we had a blackout at home and a sick child. Phones were out, and I couldn't get a signal fro Vodafone anywhere, despite being in their "3G coverage area".

Once child was sorted at hospital, I'd had enough. They told me "go out on the road to make a call - we only guarantee signal to the street - despite being on the top of a hill and facing the tower.

I packed up both phones, cancelled the plans and ported the numbers and told them to shove the service - they had breached their contract. They reluctantly agreed to termination fees, and allowed me to port that day (to Telstra), but took them 2 months to send me the post-paid satchels to return the phones. And the whole time they kept billing me - PLUS $1000 cancellation fee !!!

While their customer service may have improved in some areas (i.e. the Twitter guys were very good), their network SUCKS

I have the same issues as everyone else, constant "call failed" when reception has full bars.... 3G service is appalling and half the time I never have any reception in Rozelle!! Its 5 mins from the CBD WTF??
I called and complained in November - as one one day I had absolutely no service, nor did my 3 friends... I was offered a $10 discount off my bill. After escalating the complaint further, they eventually advised that I would get my monthly bill for November waived. It did not surprise me to receive the November bill, and sure enough, I was charged!!! When I rang to complain the consultant I spoke with claimed to have no idea about the ongoing service issues. Clearly vodafone has failed to even brief their customer service team of these issues, which only makes dealing with them more difficult (not to mention the issues faced with communicating to someone who does not speak English well.
I hope the ACCC rips them to shreds.

New unlimited plan, what fucking joke! I walked out the shop with it working (2bars on Blackberry in sydney CBD) Then 10min later 0 bars.... I havent been able to make a call since. Went back to the Vodafone shop next day. Got told to speak to customer service and lodge a fault... Im still fighthing to get a refund, Had to buy a telstra phone/contract and could not be happier!

Vodafone = Fucking piece of shit

I am getting so frustrated with Vodafone and will NEVER renew a contract with Vodafone again. Call after call is droipping out and you have to ring back for onother fee. Their customer service is and conflict resolution processes are a joke

I'm on Sydneys northern beaches and have had two weeks without a single bar of reception. I spent two hours wading through the slop they call customer service and managed to browbeat them into paying half my phone bill at least. I recommend others do the same if you can get through to a human being within the 8 hours of a working day.

business partner and i both with vodafone...dropouts are reaching a comical climax. Seriously cannot believe how bad the service is, calling customer service is a good cure for apathy as your anger levels will be 100% guaranteed unlike the service.

The public must vote with their feet and get out of Vodafone until the CEO/MD is sacked for signing up new customers when they couldn't provide a service; not informing existing customers of problems; and for providing absolutely positively hopeless service. Vodafone wins the WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE AWARD FOR 2010. PERIOD. Have been with Voda for over 15 years. They don't deserve loyalty. Can't wait to leave. The Telecommunications Authority should step in without being a toothless tiger for us to be at the mercy of a giant corporation which is clearly involved in highway robbery!

I'm a 6 year customer of Vodafone and have noticed their customer service sliding to an all time low this year. On hold for 30 minutes plus every time I call (however, if you call the sales line, you get through in 2 minutes - funny that)... I have also emailed them 3 times to request getting out of my contract because they have been so bad, with no reply.

The minute my contract expires I'm out - can't put up with it any more - but they have lost another 2 year contract from me (and I spend $60-$80 per month).

Nice fail, Vodafone!

wrong information provided even before i signed on the contract. Wrong information again when i went to a different store. Called up to complain, and got a call back less than an hour with a real australian woman who was rude and not the least bit helpful anyway, after talking to someone in India, on hold for 30 minutes in total only to wait for a call back. Saving grace was a very polite gentleman from another store that listened to me and checked up his computer to give me what i wanted straight away, no hassles, no unnecessary documents etc etc... why did i spend all this effort? because vodafone is the only one with the blackberry i want on the plan that suits me. just because you have the monopoly doesn't mean you can be rude and ignorant to the customer. Customer service is crap, network service is below average, bills are unclear and myvodafail account on website is next to useless, vague and unclear.

Just this morning I sent the following e-mail to Vodafone. Then I saw a news article on SMH and this site was linked to it.

--- Sent today 17/12/2010 at 9am ---
Hi,

A couple of years ago, after being with Vodafone Prepaid for several years, I had a number of bad experiences with credit disappearing and poor Customer Care calls and decided to port my number to Optus, a decision I was extremely happy with.

Several weeks ago, I decided to purchase the HTC Desire HD (only available through Vodafone) on a 12 month contract and so I ported my number back to Vodafone in order to get the phone. Since then, several things have occurred that have made me regret my decision and I would like to express my dissatisfaction:

1. My number took a little over 48 hours to port, despite being told that it would only take several hours by the lady at the store. This was only a minor inconvenience, granted, but an annoyance still.

2. I have had a number of occasions when people have been trying to call me and my phone comes up as being switched off or unavailable. I believe reception with the Vodafone network, while decent, is so choppy and I can't predict the reception blackspots, usually in the same area that I otherwise receive great reception. This is disruptive to my work (I work 2 jobs and really need my phone on me at all times due to the nature of my work).

3. I paid my first phone bill (due 30 December) on Monday (13 December). Despite this, I have received a number of e-mail notifications and text messages subsequent to paying, telling me that I still owe the money. It is now 4 days later and MyVodafone still lists money owing. Can you please fix this.

4. I have tried for two days to call Customer Care, at various points throughout the day. I constantly receive the message that "due to unexpected large volumes of callers...." nobody is able to take my call. Top this with the fact that Customer Care are only open on weekdays from 8am to 8pm, and the aforementioned problems, this is ridiculously poor customer service.

I'm sorry for the negativity of this message, however I've completely regretted moving back to Vodafone and am contemplating leaving your company again if things don't improve; I have regretted my decision to leave Optus and it's only 3 weeks in to my 12 month contract.

Can you please tell me how you are addressing the problems I'm experiencing.

Many thanks,
XXXX
--------------- Message End -------------------

Service has been steadily getting worse for the past 6 months with hours and hours of "No Service" messages without any ownership from VF that there's an issue. Yesterday at 5pm I had NO SERVICE again between Crows Nest and Frenchs Forest for over an hour whilst trying to inform my young children's carer that I would be late. What's worse is I'm under contract till August and do not have time to waste waiting on a ridiculously long customer service cue. As far as I'm concerned they're breaching their contract with me but as the consumer you have no recourse. Shame Vodafone. You have to wonder if this is the work of the Hutchison Leadership Team after the takeover. Merger my %$%^#.

I live I'n lane cove Sydney, i joined up to vodafone for the $99 unlimited plan, for iPhone 4 as it was for $0. Signal keeps switching from 3G to 2g, drops out slow data speed and crashes the phone, useless customer service I have ported out to Telstra and have had the best coverage ever and data speeds with not one cutout or drop out!!!! I even paid out my contract as it was that frustrating!!!!! Vodafone should just shut down as there is no solution for this issue!!!

My phone service is, to put it blunty, complete and utter crap now with Vodafone. The staff are incompetent but not so much so to tell me the truth that the network has been pretty much rooted since they started merging with 3.
I have never experience such bad customer service in my life and now that one of my ex-bosses (a certain Croatian prick that worked in the online hotel industry up until about a year ago) works for Vodafone it can only get worse. They have employed yet another incompetent bulls**t artist.

Terrible reception - poor coverage in Sydney metro and random drop outs even in the CBD!
Messaging - Missing or Delayed MMS with some up to over a day!
3G data - What data? 56K modems can download pages faster than Voda's mobile "broadband"
Customer service - should be renamed to customer suffering department. If your experiencing delays, where was the extra resources and communications? The Head of Customer Service should be fired. What a joke.

I called Vodafone straight after work to report some missing texts and the recording says they are now offering customer service 24hrs a day. Great!

Then I get a '40 minute wait' message. I leave a message and they called me back 1.5hours later. I told them I was missing a large number of texts over the last 2 months. She said she would transfer me to the 'Technical Department'.

I then get a '20 minute wait message' which was *immediately followed by* another message saying, "Sorry we are closed for the day, please call again tomorrow." and I was hung up on. Wth happened to their 24 hr a day service?!??!

Really nice way to deal with a phone call - not.

Went to a Telstra store the very next day to look at new plans.

First of all - I myself is a telecomunication engineer working for one of the leading vendors. I called their helpdesk when I was trying to send SMS to Sweden but it did not work. But I could receive SMS from that same Swedish mobile. I asked the helpdesk guy about text message agreement between Vodafone and the Swedish operator Tele2. But the guy did not want to listen and kept saying I was using wrong number. I asked how come the same number works when I try from 3-mobile? He didnt answer and asked me to try his suggestion. And his suggestion was to add 0011 instead of + (when you dial overseas from Aus), country code, CITY CODE (which is only applicable for calling land lines) and then mobile number beginning with 0. So, the number for SMS should look like: 0011 46 03 071234567. Or just to explain how dumb that was I am giving example using Australian numbers - 0011 61 03 0411576891.

I told the guy that this would definitely not gonna work cause CITY code is not applicable in mobile number system. But the Indian guy got angry and he was so rude and said - "you first try what I tell you to try. who is the helpdesk? if you know how to do it, why did you call helpdesk? first try my recommendation, and if it does not work, call back again." and he hung up.

Of course it did not work and I called back the next day. Talked to an Australian girl this time and she agreed that what that Indian guy said was rubbish. But still she could not help to figure out why I cannot send SMS to Sweden but can receive.

Finally, after waiting for 3 months without a solution, and facing other issues like no coverage in my bed room, or underground car parks or even in safeway/coles, I decided to move to Telstra. Could be a little costly but their NextG got the best possible coverage.

So yeah - VERY POOR, RUDE, DUMB CUSTOMER SERVICE and VERY BAD RECEPTION.

I'm talking about customer service this time, and the endless phone queues and run around whenever you call them.

I tried to change my number to vodafone earlier this year (my employer was taking over my phone account) and the operation they said would take 'a few hours' took 6 days. I called them every day, was always kept on hold for over an hour, and was told every time that it would be resolved in a 'few hours'. I was hung up on several times - not on purpose, because I was being rude, but accidentally, because they didn't know how to use their hold/transfer functions. The first day I spoke to 4 different people just trying to get my number transfered, the first of whom was the worst informed customer service person I've ever worked with (I knew more them him).

And I suspect the whole thing too so long because they had me black marked because I got angry when they refused to refund my credit after I'd been on the phone to them for hours. They tried to claim it was my fault for calling the number from their store's website instead of the number for existing customers - even though I was a new customer and had never heard of either number.

CAlls constantly dropping and losing reception in Randwick NSW where i live. Call customer service to be told that there is a 30 minute wait- Great. Problem is I am on a 24 month contract otherwise I would walk. Seems like a breach of contract on their behalf ie not providing a proper service

SUCH POOR SERVICE AT HOME, I HAVE TO STAND STILL AT HOME AND HOPE TO STAY ON A CALL AND AS FOR MY 1.5GIG OF DATA USE WELL , AT HOME NOTHING AND AT WORK ITS OK, BUT STILL UNACCEPTABLE.
WORST OF ALL IS COMMUNICATING TO THEM THAT I A M PAYING FOR A SERVICE FROM THEM THAT I JUST DON'T GET. WHEN WILL IT END......

My vodafone gripes.... in no particular order...
Ordered new HTC Desire HD - tooks a few days and 4 phone calls to finally get it. Wasn't offered insurance for new phone at the time of upgrade, and since told that it can't be purchased after getting the phone. Calls dropping out. Constant searching for 3g and therefore draining my battery, have since turned off 3g and oh guess what... my battery has now lasted over 30 hours. Customer service is a complete joke... at least 60 mins wait whenever you want to speak to them. I live about 8kms from Sydney CBD, I would expect to have a better connection/reception and I am like everyone else on here disapointed to say the least with these issues, call fail, call cannot be connected, can't always get your balance from 1512 as its not avaiable and even when it is you never know when the balance was updated....and then of course you have to look at your balance and then take 10% (GST) off your remaining balance to figure out what you actually have left so that you don't go over your cap... or maybe this is a ploy to get you to go over it to make yet more money from you..suck it up vodafone, sort out the issues before too many more customers walk away!!!!

I went with Vodafone because I liked the competitive rates. But the pay off for poor service is unacceptable. I live in Preston and regularly only have one bar of reception in my house, when my partner on Telstra has all bars. I get the no cellular message at least four times a day. But the most annoying things are the delayed messages - voicemail messages received a day or more after they were left. I use this phone for work, so that's completely unacceptable. I'm locked in for another year, so 12 months more of pain.

How are you supposed to contact customer service when the hold time is longer than an hour, but the crap Vodafail network is only capable of holding a call for less than 2 minutes before it drops out.

I changed to Telstra and Vodafail told me I had to pay the full contract amount out since I did not contact them to tell them about the problem. WTF do you want me to do Vodafail?

Still - the pain of paying out the contract is nothing when compared to the joy of not being on their SHIT network anymore!

Vodaf&%^%gfone!! Poor service and reception pretty much all over sydney, from mobile phones to 3g data. The data plans are expensive. The install software for the 3g cards was abismal, one couldn't uninstall it from ones machine.
I found trying to navigate the super crap lara system to complain about being over charged or to cancel my contract was extremely bothersome as most times I couldnt get through and when i did i got cut off for holding on to long because i wasn't speaking to the right person. Have since moved on to another network happily.

I estimate 75% of my calls drop out. Signal strength is poor and my phone regularly displays only one bar (or sometimes no service) even though I live and work within 5 km of the city centre. Data speed is also very poor, web pages freeze in the middle of loading and downloading even one or two e-mails can take minutes. Also regularly swaps out of 3G. I have tried calling their customer service line but gave up waiting. I then lodged a complaint via their website on 26/11 but this has not even been acknowledged.

I've been with vodafone for 10 years on pre-pay and never had a problam - and now that I'm postpay I never stop having problems with them. Their network sucks almost as much as their customer service. The constant drop outs and poor 3g coverage means that I am unable to send texts when I'm in shopping centres.
I would rather be set on fire than have to call them again.
Why do they waste their money hiring people to get on twitter all day and promote stuff? Spend that cash on getting an Australian based call centre again!

Big mess. Have recently signed up to crap service.
Here's a hint everyone - check out Vodafone's media pages for the names of the CEO, Head of Customer Service, Head of Retail etc (I found them in about 10 minutes). Then send an email to all of them outlining your problems & why they have failed. I received a call from their escalation compaints department the next day.

The other night I couldn't log in to my Vodafone account to check my bill, after 90 minutes on hold (to be exact), an arrogant an unapologetic operator answered. When questioned about why the waiting time had been so long, he simply stated that they were "very busy". When I raised my issue, he then said that he could not get into the system to reset my password, and that I should call back in 24 hours. When I said that I didn't think that I should have to call back, but rather that they should call me back when the system was up again, he eventually agreed to arrange a call back for me. In the meantime, I sent a complaint via their website, which I received the following generic, pathetic response:

"Thank you for your email. It is always disappointing when a customer is unhappy with any aspect of our company and we regret that you have been dissatisfied with the service you received during the above mentioned phone call. Vodafone continually strive to achieve the highest possible standard of service and go to considerable lengths to train our staff in all aspects of customer service. We are currently experiencing a very high volume of incoming calls and i do apologise for the wait in queue. Thank you for bringing your concerns to our attention. Your feedback allows Vodafone to improve their business for the future."

No Reception every night after 12am. Call drop many many time and i can't seem to be able to receive any call.
Waited on the customer service helpline phone for 1 hours and they;re not willing to tell me what happen. First they told me is a SIM problem so i walk into the shop and get a replace SIM and same issue occured again. Talked to another service staff at the shop, he said they are issue with the 3g network tower lower north shore, he ask me to turn off my 3g network and use 2g instead. I was like... what about my internet??? why do i pay for 2g speed?

I have to say that the vodafone network has been disgraceful for the last few months. I have been a vodafone customer all my life and so is my whole family. I am now actively looking to change networks. No recept, internet not loading getting messages coz nobody can get through to me. I emailed customer service and they copied and pasted their PDS section for network coverage.Friends and work colleges are having the same problems.The SMH article was confirmation of what I suspected that vodafone were hiding the truth. Seriously unhappy.

Had to wait 67mins for my call to their service centre to be answered. This was after being directed via "Lara" into a particular queue. When my call was answered, the Vodafail consultant said she could help me and transferred me to another area (and another queue), only to wait a further 42mins. I also signed up for mobile broadband internet. BIG MISTAKE! Reception and speed is very poor. They have made3 mistakes on my monthly invoices since I joined. Offered to increase my monthly allowance from 3gig to 4 gig, but have never fulfilled this promise, even after bringing it to their attention. Service sucks. Network sucks.

For about a week I had no internet connection. I tired to access the internet at different times and different places. I contacted Vodafone Customer Service earlier this week and spoke to a customer service consultant from what I believe was an overseas call centre. They did not inform me of any broader problems on the network, nor concede it was a vodafone problem. They simply sent me the default settings, and suggested it may be a phone issue. Now I understand from the SMH article that others have had similar problems. I finally got web access last night.

After many years as a Vodafone pre-paid customer - and suffering the odd "unannounced" issue with voicemail - I have decided to switch to another carrier following this recent debacle ... moreso since Vodafone continue to claim that no problem exists.

Dropped calls, "No Signal", slow data or no data, inability to make or receive calls, voicemail messages received days later, text messages received hours later, useless customer service.

Vodafone have completely mis-managed the integration of their network with that of "3" - and we the customer are now paying the price!!

I'm just glad that I'm pre-paid so can walk without any problem.

- experiencing volume and reception problems on my phone which were completely denied by vodafone - they blamed my hardware - i only know the truth from blogs and comments like this
- trying to call Vodafone customer service and waiting 47 minutes on hold

I work on the 45th floor of a major building in Martin Place and right now as I write this I have one fffing bar!!!!!! I moved away from Telstra because their costs and customer service were dredful but now I have to deal with this!! Oh and I also don't bother sending sms anynmore, last 2 weeks have seen my txts take over 12 hours to reach their destination.

Have had ongoing problems, mostly at work location in Darlinghurst and also in the inner west, "no-service", no 3G, slow 3G, 3G data but not able to make voice calls, was standing in a public place on call and call dropped out and so did calls of people standing around me - i asked one what provider and it was vodafone.

Had a no service drop out TODAY 17 Dec 10 in the late morning.

Have contacted VF complaints but no reply after 5 days so placed TIO complaint today.

I just wanted to speak with a real human!! Shocking customer service!

My phone is my business and without it I loose customers. Not only is my phone dropping out every 5 minutes but one of my biggest gripes is dealing with foreigners in these overseas customer services centres. I don't think any of them have had any proper training and they are hopeless! So much for customer service! Vodafone should have full customer support in Australia!

waited for an hour to talk to customer service. LARA automatic phone operator is shit....website is shit,takes ages to load and service is shit.

New Voda customer (2 months in to what is going to be a looooooooong 24 month contract), and right off the bat Voda are a disgrace! I live in the heart of Sydney's CBD and my phone, without fail, loses all reception when I cross the bloody Harbour Bridge...The Harbour Bridge!! If you can't get service on one of Sydney's major landmarks, where can you?!

SUMMARY:
-Customer Service = SHIT
-Reception = SHIT
-Satisfaction = NIL
-Recommend to friends = YOURE DREAMING

I can't imagine how a Corporate could offer worst customer service. I have spent hours and lots of my Vodafone credit listening to their hold music. When they screwed me with an over blown bill, they told me to get lost. When I complained to the ACC, they rang back immediatly to kiss my @ss.

I tried to call customer service all afternoon yesterday and after I went through all their tedious options, the call would drop out, in the same place, every time.

I dont see what the big deal is for the most part. I have a vodafone blackberry in sydney and would never call the service great but its concistantly average. Optus is just as average in my experience. Telstra network rocks but they have the WORST customer service and their plans are a bit behind now aswell. The network will get better, all this whinging will make sure of it.

Like many vodafone users, I suffer from poor service with optus. Poor service with mobile reception, internet usage and customer service. The telcos abuse their position as market share dominators and refuse to rectify any issues until you go through the pain of contacting the TIO. I had an optus customer rep refuse to verify my identity on the basis that it happens to also be a girls name. The issue was only rectified by optus when I contacted the TIO. I never have reception on the train, my phone drops out and forget about using the net. The ACCC needs to watch for anti-trust behaviour with so much of the market share belonging to a few clowns.

I live in inner west, But too many times NO SERVICE AREA, And more than One hour waiting for customer service line, I gave up, upset, angry...I will never get Vodafone again, swear!!!!!!

constant drop outs all across sydney, Nothing but brickwalls when i call customer service , called complaints they say ring customer servive I4 is used for business dont know how much money i have had to spend for re - dails ect.. dont even start me on the data dowload side of things

I've been with Optus and then Vodafone, and Vodafone has robbed me for 6 months, saying i'd get credited my payments due to poor service - i now want to port away and they won't pay me the due balance in my favour.

I've just been with them barely for 2 months now. I received a DOA phone. I've immediately called them and they've promised to send me a replacement. I even have a reference number. But still I've yet to receive the replacement handset. On top of this I often get dropped calls, switching from 3G to noG or even no signal. They have a non-existent customer service. Utter failure. I'm even on the phone at the moment with them just to disconnect my contract and still It has taken me an hour and a half just to get to someone. This is pitiful service.

I have to re-dial every time I call my parents in Sydney, I mean the calls keeps dropping all the time. I can't browse or use the net, my phone has hardly a bar of reception! And I am paying for 2GB of data that is hardly used. Try to speak to someone and expect to be on a waiting call for over one hour, disgraceful! - I recently paid my last bill - $390 including insurance for stolen mobile, which I don't even want to remember what a nightmare this was just trying to get this matter resolved. After paying this bill I noticed VF deducted the same amount by direct debit! - I am now short $390. I mean, I don't get a service but they don't even blink to charge you as soon as they print the bill!!! SHOCKING. I can't be bothered to contact customer service and spend half of my day waiting for someone, AND let me tell you going to a Vodafone store is not any better, AT ALL!!!

It's the whole "head in the sand" attitude that Vodafone management clearly have. They aren't having problems, it's our location, phone, sim card * delete as appropriate. No, it is your service. Both your customer service (virtually non existent as you can't make a call long enough without it dropping out to contact anyone) and telecom service.
I won't go into all the problems I've had in the last 6 months as they are exactly the same as every other Vodafone user, just fill in the blanks.

I can handle long waits on customer service lines if they actually fix the problems but its easier not to call... I can never understand the call centre staff due to their strong accents and they rarely fix the problem first go. They need some good performance management to get their call wait times and complaints down.