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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14174 Someone from NSW thinks vodafone is FAIL at 22 Jan 2011 01:58:44 PM
I used to be a loyal Vodafone customer. I've been with them since the 90's and i'm afraid i have to start looking for a new provider.
Here's my tale.

I picked up an iphone 3GS particularly for 3G data access and particularly liked the fact that Voda offered free tethering so i could use it as a 3G modem when i am out in the field. Data has never been particularly fast, but i wasn't concerned. Since about mid 2010 though, data access on my iphone has been extremely slow and sometimes non-existent. Complained back then, no outcome.
September, went to NZ and used data to get Ski reports. The data access was much better there, and i used a fair bit. Happy to pay the bill, but got a call after i got back telling me i had to make a part payment on my phone bill to cover the excess. The operator was rude and persistent, quoting contract clauses to me. Naturally i told them to piss off and i paid it on my normal bill date. That made me angry. I got an apologetic phone call a week later, but the guy still wanted me to pre-pay. Ha ha very funny.
A few weeks later in October, my wife had a baby. Out of 30 SMS's that i sent after the birth, 5 reached their recipients, so a lot of my closest friends were put out when "i forgot them". Data access still slow, useless most times. Missing and late voicemails, SMS's etc. Complained again, was told it was my phone.
Shortly after, i dropped the phone, it broke so i claimed on insurance. Relatively painless process, except the store refused my request for a loan phone (even when i pointed out the ACCC finding) and it took a month to come back as a refurb unit. Lucky i was able to borrow an old phone from a mate. Interestingly, i had the same problems with voicemails and data once it came back Now, the phone has failed within the 3 months insurance warranty. Won't power on. I've made calls to Marsh (Voda insurance), the Voda call centre (useless), and 3 trips to stores and everyone is bouncing me to someone else and won't take the phone. One of the stores even bounced me to another store because they had no logins to their systems due to the 24 hour password changes after the privacy leak. Not to mention i can't get my bills from the links they email me so i have no opportunity to check them. I was charged a weird amount last month and i can't see the bill to make sure that i'm not being overcharged.
Another interesting thing is that the guy at the store i was last at mentioned that if i turn 3G off on the iphone, it works better. Isn't 3G kinda the point of a decent data network these days?

So, i think the TIO is my next stop. I would rather allow vodafone to sort this out, but they don't seem to want to and i can't think of anything worse than to spend another 2 hours waiting on hold again.


22 Jan 2011 02:12:40 PM: Lodge tio complaint online, painless, try make a note of some of the inconvienieces (drop outs, slow messages etc)
I did , voda released me and my wife from our contracts (I had about 9 months to go, wife had about 18 months to go), ported to telstra, believe it or not, $129/month unlimited calls texts etc is about same as my voda bills were, instead of 1 gig, I now get 3 gig, got an iphone 4, reception is great, downloads are like comparing dial up to cable.
Even if it were more expensive in my business I couldnt continue being tarred with the vodafone brush any longer. I am stoked
22 Jan 2011 02:14:28 PM: one more thing, ported saturday morning 10:00 am, when I checked 1 hour later, the telstra fone was up and running
22 Jan 2011 03:45:01 PM: OP here, just tried to give Voda one more chance. The IVR didn't even put my call through. "Technical problems" it said. Sorry Voda, you are about to have TIO problems from me.
22 Jan 2011 04:44:48 PM: you need boundries with this mob, enough is enough get out as soon as you can. Who knows how long it will take them to fix their failed network, they have no idea when they will fix it.
28 Jan 2011 09:03:40 AM: www.abc.net.au 4 corners did an expose on phone companies and their business praotices if anyone is interested. TIO is the way to go!