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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20322 Someone from NSW thinks vodafone is phone service sucks, internet is worse and customer service is non existant at 14 Dec 2011 09:14:21 PM
For 4 days this week everytime i dail someone on my iphone, 8 times out of 10 i get the good old call failed. Full service showing on handset and 3g active and showing as well. Hang up and dial again, call failed. Try to call 1555 call failed. Call 1555 second time and get a "customer service" rep only to have to call drop out. Funny thing is i have all bars showing on my phone. I call vodaphone from the office phone and go thru the usual network reset and fault finding on the phone and still call fails. After about a hour of going back and forward the rep says he is escalating this to the engineers to investigate. Rep will call me back when checking and testing is complete. About 45 minutes later i get a call saying to please restart the phone and the issues should be fixed. I restart the phone and yes indeed i can make calls without any call fails showing up.
I test dial about 10 numbers and they all go through without issue. It is then i notice that 3g is not showing on my phone any more. I call the 1555 number again and go through the history of the day and my issues and advised them that after i restarted the phone the last time i no longer have any data services or 3g showing on my phone.
Engineer checks the suburb im in (2066) and says no known issues or updates occurring. Next they asked me to reset network settings again and restart the phone. I explained that i just finished resetting my network settings twice about 2 hours ago and also have restarted my phone 4 times. I have also gone through all the network settings on the phone and ensured that 3g, data roaming were enabled and wireless was turned on. WEasnt good enough for them. Had to waste another hour on the phone with them doing tests. They then run off a lot of suburb names and asked me if i was in any of them as they were known issue sites. As i was not in any of them or even near any of them i told the rep. I also advised the rep that i have driven around for a good hour and have been through approx 20 different suburbs in that time and still no data or 3g activity at all. It was then that the vodafone rep advised there is a nsw wide issue with 3g at the moment and there was no resolution time. I was told the reset network settings one more time and call back in 24 hours if i still had the issues.
Called back today which was about 36 hours with no data or 3g on the phone. Explained that i was pissed off big time with the network coverage. Especially since i have the following history with vodafone this year alone
- january this year (2011) i logged 2 issues with the same sort of problems. Took a week to fix it then,
- Febuary issues with service and call drop outs, data services non existant and people calling me going straight to voice mail.
- march i logged a issue where i was not getting mms pictures or sms's that were sent to me, and for some reason i would get spammed with messages a week later at 1am or 4am or 2am in the morning waking me up all the time.
- april i had issues with the messages again coming a week late and at all hours of the night. Vodafone proceeded to give me 3 months no bills and advised by june/july the network coverage issues would be fixed.
-July still having mms and sms issues, and now on top of that whenever is send a mms to anyone not on vodafone mobile service they will get a link sent to them to access it from the internet instead of the picture
-September service and data dropouts again
-December (2011) as noted in the beginning of this post.........
I am sick to deaf of this crap and this weekend (2 days from now) i am going to optus to cut over my number. I will then call up vodafone and tell them they can kiss my butt goodbye. I recommend everyone who currently has vodafone service do the same because they are only getting worse.....
I test dial about 10 numbers and they all go through without issue. It is then i notice that 3g is not showing on my phone any more. I call the 1555 number again and go through the history of the day and my issues and advised them that after i restarted the phone the last time i no longer have any data services or 3g showing on my phone.
Engineer checks the suburb im in (2066) and says no known issues or updates occurring. Next they asked me to reset network settings again and restart the phone. I explained that i just finished resetting my network settings twice about 2 hours ago and also have restarted my phone 4 times. I have also gone through all the network settings on the phone and ensured that 3g, data roaming were enabled and wireless was turned on. WEasnt good enough for them. Had to waste another hour on the phone with them doing tests. They then run off a lot of suburb names and asked me if i was in any of them as they were known issue sites. As i was not in any of them or even near any of them i told the rep. I also advised the rep that i have driven around for a good hour and have been through approx 20 different suburbs in that time and still no data or 3g activity at all. It was then that the vodafone rep advised there is a nsw wide issue with 3g at the moment and there was no resolution time. I was told the reset network settings one more time and call back in 24 hours if i still had the issues.
Called back today which was about 36 hours with no data or 3g on the phone. Explained that i was pissed off big time with the network coverage. Especially since i have the following history with vodafone this year alone
- january this year (2011) i logged 2 issues with the same sort of problems. Took a week to fix it then,
- Febuary issues with service and call drop outs, data services non existant and people calling me going straight to voice mail.
- march i logged a issue where i was not getting mms pictures or sms's that were sent to me, and for some reason i would get spammed with messages a week later at 1am or 4am or 2am in the morning waking me up all the time.
- april i had issues with the messages again coming a week late and at all hours of the night. Vodafone proceeded to give me 3 months no bills and advised by june/july the network coverage issues would be fixed.
-July still having mms and sms issues, and now on top of that whenever is send a mms to anyone not on vodafone mobile service they will get a link sent to them to access it from the internet instead of the picture
-September service and data dropouts again
-December (2011) as noted in the beginning of this post.........
I am sick to deaf of this crap and this weekend (2 days from now) i am going to optus to cut over my number. I will then call up vodafone and tell them they can kiss my butt goodbye. I recommend everyone who currently has vodafone service do the same because they are only getting worse.....
Does your contract finish this weekend?
You still have to advise VF that you are terminating the contract on or before its'anniversary, the contract does not automatically cease. Judging from other contributors experience you may be in for a long wait for the number to port across to Optus from VF, some people have identified taking longer than 7 days!
If you are unilaterally breaking your contract with time remaining on the contract you may be heading for a black mark against your credit rating..............use caution.
Personally If I were you I would contact the TIO. Tell the TIO you have tried unsuccessfully to resolve the issues with VF, a simple cut and paste of the above will suffice, on the TIO on line form. VF have 10 working days to contact you and try to reach a mutually agreed resolution.
I think your resolution may be termination of the contract as it appears a long term unresolved problem.
TIO contact details at the top of the page under the How To Complain tab.
Vodafail.com Moderation Team
I am still getting call fails when trying to make calls from vodafone and also my data is also still turned off. No internet surfing, emails or anything. I also still do not have 3g showing on my phone. 2 more calls to vodafone to try and resolve and the usual tactic of getting me to do a network reset and wait 24 hours. I asked them to escalate and they advised if in 24 hours it still doesnt work then to escalate. It is now tuesday 20/12 and my number has just ported over to optus. took 3 days to it to cut over as vodafone apparently has system issues (although ive been told that the delay is due to the amount of porting away requests). I also have 3 friends of mine who ported their number over and can confirm that it takes approximatly 3-7 days average across my 2 phones and 3 friends. I have also had 2 friends in the last 2 weeks port from telstra to optus and that only took a couple hours and was completed on the same day.
this is where the battle begins officially i was on a 2 year contract that was supposed to expire 09/12. I have a long history of complaints against vodafone with the amount of calls i have made and amount of complaints. I have also advised them that during the last 2 calls for support that if this is not resolved then i will be cancelling the contract and porting over to optus. I also told the representative to ensure that my comments were put in the case logs word for word "If this is not resolved in the next 24 hours i will start the process of porting across"
I will keep you guys updated as I know this will probably be a drawn out battle from now. I am calling them in the next 2-3 hours to close of my dealings with them. If that is not sorted out reasonably then i will be straight onto the TIO after that phone call.
Called up vodafone to disconnect my plan and ensure no further bills. Chose the option to disconnect and was advised of 30 minute waits as there service representatives were all busy. Hung up and tried a different route. This time chose the option for technical support and made progress. Spoke to a person after being on hold for 15 minutes only. Explained the situation and i wanted to talk to someone in the cancellations department as i want nothing else to do with vodafone. Another 20 minute on hold i actually get to someone who says can help. Well thats at least what i suspect i heard. I put the details across to the support rep as per the original post. I then proceeded to advise them that my number is already ported across to optus and this call is to ensure there is no early termination fee or ongoing bills.
The customer service rep escalated this to his manager and I spoke to a person called Savena. I then spent another 20 minutes going through the details again. She said she would consult the cancellations team and proceeded to put me on hold for 5 minutes. She came back and said well due to the fact that you ported over without talking to the cancellations team you are required to pay the termination fee as nothing can be done about it. I kindly reminded her that nothing is ever set in stone apart from the fact that i will never use vodafone again. I kindly said there is alot that vodafone can do after all the headaches they have put me through with the service and the crap support i have recieved starting with waiving any fees and letting me go my own way. She said she will now look into my case notes and go back to the cancellations team. Another 15 minutes on hold and she comes back. She re-iterated the fact that i ported before contacting the cancellations team then the fees remain.
So what vodafone are after
My number - termination fee of 810
My wifes number - termination fee of 730
Current months phone bill - 210
She then asked me why i didnt contact the cancellations team before porting and my answers were straight to the point as follow
1) didnt want to risk my phone cancelled and loosing my current number before being successfully ported as i know a few people this has happened to
2) Sick and tired of attempted solutions instead or issue resolutions (i.e. 3 months free bills and discounts on other bills)
3) Sick of being a ping pong ball bounced between departments where i can hardly understand the people i am talking to nor can they understand me
4) Sick of wasting my time chasing up issues with my mobile phone that never seem to get resolved
I also said thats fine, i have the amounts you want to pay. This is the last time i want to talk to you guys as i am now contacting the TIO. this call was basically a courtesy call to see if you can come to the table before i escalate it since you are not willing you can deal with the TIO.
I hung up and filed the online submission for this issue. I recieved the response saying someone will contact me within 10 days so stay posted for round 2
Vodafail.com Moderation Team
Vodafail resolutions contacted me and i have given them the history. The outcome is
Waive the $810 termination fee for my number
waive the $730 termination fee for my wifes number
They will send me return satchels for the iphones
I will pay the $210 for the previous month service and i will send the phones back reply paid.
Then i will be at peace with the knowledge that i am no longer with or have any affiliations with vodafail