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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282 Someone from VIC thinks vodafone is Massive FAIL at 17 Dec 2010 02:28:10 PM
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.
27 Dec 2010 06:58:26 PM: You dont know how lucky you were, not being able to send sms to Sweden, try running a business and not getting any sms messages from anywhere, and not being able to receive calls, and having callers who cant even leave a voicemail message, but insted the vodafone message gives them the impression that the phone has been disconnected. Even Vodafone couldnt retrieve sms messages sent to or tell me who had tried to call me. "it all dissapeared" they said. This went on for eight weeks.Try running a business with this going on and being continually assured it will be fixed by tomorrow. I still get crap receptiona lot of the time, some sms messages dont come through and at times callers cant reach me, cant send emails at all ( vodafone did acknowledge they had an ongoing problem with email).
Vodafone (via a senior manager who I wont name) refused to release me from contract.Perhaps its time to email her again and with all this publicity maybe I should suggest she look at releasing me from the contract, refund what I have paid. As for her her denials regarding a lot of these issues that have come to light more recently, I may include ..."I told you so"
27 Dec 2010 07:36:51 PM: 'I myself is a telecomuication engineer', mate, Why don't you learn english first and improve your grammer before making race based comments. Yes, Vodafone's coverage is shite and most probably their call centre is nearly entirely manned by people of Indians origin (mind you, so is telstra & optus). How about sticking to highlighting what issues you're having with Vodafone and keeping your racial issues to yourself.
27 Dec 2010 07:43:24 PM: Well, speaking of grammar the correct spelling is 'grammar' not 'grammer' :)
better 'clean up your backyard' before you preach buddy ...
27 Dec 2010 07:46:47 PM: I think he is just stating that the Indians are a pain in the you know what to talk to because they don't speak fluent English and pretty much just know enough to read a script in front of them. Useless, they piss me off
27 Dec 2010 07:54:40 PM: How in the hell was this guys comments racial/racist or whatever. Your a bit of a sensitive little princess arent you.
27 Dec 2010 08:15:26 PM: How can the guy's comments be perceived as "racist"? He was stating that the guy he was speaking to was "Indian", that is hardly offensive!
Vodafone is constantly disappointing it's customers. When you are frustrated, it is extremely annoying to be told by someone at a call centre that your problem is easily resolved using the technique they suggested when you know it's ridiculous and it won't work.
So lay off about your racial views 27 Dec 09:36:51 PM - you're the one with the issue!
27 Dec 2010 08:17:23 PM: I understand how annoyed you would have been but you don't have to point out what race you spoke to. It appears to me that the guy you spoke to were dumb because he is an Indian????
27 Dec 2010 08:19:08 PM: Not "were" but "was".
27 Dec 2010 09:07:31 PM: But its true, most of the time when you speak to an offshore helpdesk the last thing you get is help, all you get is frustration at the lack of communication from the so called helper.
28 Dec 2010 07:38:24 AM: whenever my phone was on 3G i have to use area codes to call down the street. lmao, im guessing down my street is long distance now
29 Dec 2010 08:05:35 PM: you are all sad, stop hating here, proper spelling or not. at least were all on the same page when we say vodafone sucks. they have coverage outages all the time and there response constantly is that tower or signal updates are being performed as to the reason there is difficulty, however that is what the have been saying for 2 years as i worked for a vodafone dealer. plus i used to call the indians everyday and i would tell them how to do there job
31 Dec 2010 09:59:19 AM: Vodaphone has Customer service in India,now when I say I spoke to CS in India and Indian told me so and so I am racist?common people what a easy way to abuse...or are you ashamed that you are from India?
31 Dec 2010 10:32:38 AM: Dont people realise that English is the most dominate spoken language in India. I believe they also have the world highest percentage of English speaking persons too.
1 Jan 2011 02:12:26 PM: to be honest u guys seem to be having fun putting up with all this, and since u are putting up with all of this i think u guys deserve to be treated like this. How difficult it is t change service providers ??????
1 Jan 2011 07:42:11 PM: What a fool you are, dont you know what a contract is, dont you know that telcos prey on the fact that customers are locked into contracts??? That is how difficult it is to change service prividers!!!
2 Jan 2011 07:26:49 PM: Yeah i have been trying to change my service providers and it could cost a rediculous amount so shutup you obviously know nothing
4 Jan 2011 04:42:44 PM: Re: 31 Dec 2010 12:32:38 PM
Actually its China :)
4 Jan 2011 07:42:54 PM: According to Wikipeadia India is second to the USA in highest percentages of total number of population that speak English. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language
9 Jan 2011 02:18:15 PM: i think people are pointing out the fact that they are indian because you can actually understand how their comments would sound to a customer who is annoyed by the crappy service they are getting. I work in telco and the amount of times i have had a indian answer my call and be rude, speak over me, swear, hang up and over all annoy me are very high to the few that are amazing at their job. like a chic named star at virgin....she is awesome at her job!!! and a guy from voda who says his name is tom is awful, rude and pisses me off. I actually hang up if i get him (hehehe a little bit of pay back)
21 Jan 2011 10:41:06 AM: For a network engineer you sure are dumb putting 0 in front of the swedish mobile number.