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
Share Your Pain
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19076 Someone from QLD thinks vodafone is Mega Fail at 6 Aug 2011 09:32:46 AM
My Vodafail story:
I moved over to Vodafail in may last year, and went with a HTC Magic. My fiance was already with them, so I came over to get the free V2V calls. At the time, we lived in Sunnybank and the only place we could get reception was by going out to the street or standing on a chair in the walk in robe. Wasnt too bad as most of my time I worked in the Valley and had reception there. Anyway, after using my phone for a few months it was having issues with dropped calls, random restarts, and sometimes just completely losing the VF network. I had the distinct pleasure of calling the call centre and was advised to take my phone into the repair centre at Milton. As I was told it would only take an hour to re-flash the software, I took it in at lunchtime and came back after eating lunch.
First fail (not including dodgy handset and crap coverage): The tech working on the phone buggered up the mainboard, so we have ordered parts from Sydney so you will need to wait for a week for the parts to arrive.
Second fail: Call them after a week without the phone to find out if it is ready to pick up. Sorry, the part was not available in our warehouse, so we have ordered it from the manufacturer. It will take about 3-4 weeks to arrive.
I am pretty pissed off now, but what can you do. One would have thought that you would keep stock levels up of current phone hardware, but that would be sensible.
Third fail: Four weeks later, I still havent heard anything so I give the call centre a call to find out what my options are for getting a replacement. Unfortunately I have no option for replacement as I am on a 24 month contract, so I can buy out the remaining 21 months to pay off the handset and move to another provider at some prohibitive rate, or I can buy another handset outright and just use the sim. Not excited about either of those options, I gave the repair centre a call.
Fourth fail: Sorry, didnt someone call you to tell you your phone was ready last friday (this being the Thursday of the following week). Uhh, no...
Pick up the phone, use it for a few more months and still have exactly the same issues.
Fifth fail: Back to the repair centre, somewhat more nervously wondering how long I will be without a phone for, and advised that it will only take an hour. After another lunch at Milton, back to the repair centre and deja vu time. Exactly the same thing has happened - main board broken, no parts in the warehouse, and a month before I get my phone back.
I am normally very patient, but that was it for me. The repair centre advised that the only way I could get a replacement phone was to go through customer care, so I left and called customer care later that day. I was then told that the repair centre are the only ones who can authorise a replacement phone, but as it was now after 5 on a friday I couldnt do anything until monday.
One useful bit of information I did find out was that if you have two repairs performed on the one device, then VF are obliged to swap your handset with another to the same value or less.
I went into a retail store, and to the storepersons credit, he was very helpful in talking with the customer care people over the phone and organising a swap to a new handset, a HTC Desire.
Sixth fail: As part of the swap, they needed the old phone back. Luckily the store guy gave me the Desire so I had a phone over the weekend, but then I had to go to Milton to pick up the crap phone and take it back to the Mt Gravatt store. Got to the Mt Gravatt store and the guy I spoke to wasnt there, so they were going to give me another phone, but eventually got it sorted.
The new handset is much more reliable, but VF coverage and data speed is still woeful. We moved to Bellbird Park and now have one bar if we are lucky. My fiance is now 37 weeks pregnant, so I am just hoping that I am home when bubby decides to make his arrival because she probably wont be able to call me and who knows how quickly a SMS would go through. She was working at Griffith Uni Nathan Campus where there was also a distinct lack of coverage, so we just used email to talk rather than attempt a phone conversation.
Her contract is up in the next few months, so we will be moving away from VF. Most likely it will be to Telstra because they at least have better coverage and excellent data speeds in comparison.
I moved over to Vodafail in may last year, and went with a HTC Magic. My fiance was already with them, so I came over to get the free V2V calls. At the time, we lived in Sunnybank and the only place we could get reception was by going out to the street or standing on a chair in the walk in robe. Wasnt too bad as most of my time I worked in the Valley and had reception there. Anyway, after using my phone for a few months it was having issues with dropped calls, random restarts, and sometimes just completely losing the VF network. I had the distinct pleasure of calling the call centre and was advised to take my phone into the repair centre at Milton. As I was told it would only take an hour to re-flash the software, I took it in at lunchtime and came back after eating lunch.
First fail (not including dodgy handset and crap coverage): The tech working on the phone buggered up the mainboard, so we have ordered parts from Sydney so you will need to wait for a week for the parts to arrive.
Second fail: Call them after a week without the phone to find out if it is ready to pick up. Sorry, the part was not available in our warehouse, so we have ordered it from the manufacturer. It will take about 3-4 weeks to arrive.
I am pretty pissed off now, but what can you do. One would have thought that you would keep stock levels up of current phone hardware, but that would be sensible.
Third fail: Four weeks later, I still havent heard anything so I give the call centre a call to find out what my options are for getting a replacement. Unfortunately I have no option for replacement as I am on a 24 month contract, so I can buy out the remaining 21 months to pay off the handset and move to another provider at some prohibitive rate, or I can buy another handset outright and just use the sim. Not excited about either of those options, I gave the repair centre a call.
Fourth fail: Sorry, didnt someone call you to tell you your phone was ready last friday (this being the Thursday of the following week). Uhh, no...
Pick up the phone, use it for a few more months and still have exactly the same issues.
Fifth fail: Back to the repair centre, somewhat more nervously wondering how long I will be without a phone for, and advised that it will only take an hour. After another lunch at Milton, back to the repair centre and deja vu time. Exactly the same thing has happened - main board broken, no parts in the warehouse, and a month before I get my phone back.
I am normally very patient, but that was it for me. The repair centre advised that the only way I could get a replacement phone was to go through customer care, so I left and called customer care later that day. I was then told that the repair centre are the only ones who can authorise a replacement phone, but as it was now after 5 on a friday I couldnt do anything until monday.
One useful bit of information I did find out was that if you have two repairs performed on the one device, then VF are obliged to swap your handset with another to the same value or less.
I went into a retail store, and to the storepersons credit, he was very helpful in talking with the customer care people over the phone and organising a swap to a new handset, a HTC Desire.
Sixth fail: As part of the swap, they needed the old phone back. Luckily the store guy gave me the Desire so I had a phone over the weekend, but then I had to go to Milton to pick up the crap phone and take it back to the Mt Gravatt store. Got to the Mt Gravatt store and the guy I spoke to wasnt there, so they were going to give me another phone, but eventually got it sorted.
The new handset is much more reliable, but VF coverage and data speed is still woeful. We moved to Bellbird Park and now have one bar if we are lucky. My fiance is now 37 weeks pregnant, so I am just hoping that I am home when bubby decides to make his arrival because she probably wont be able to call me and who knows how quickly a SMS would go through. She was working at Griffith Uni Nathan Campus where there was also a distinct lack of coverage, so we just used email to talk rather than attempt a phone conversation.
Her contract is up in the next few months, so we will be moving away from VF. Most likely it will be to Telstra because they at least have better coverage and excellent data speeds in comparison.
7 Aug 2011 02:28:45 AM: Welcome to Draconia... (Bellbird Park) been having this problem for 2 years here