| Product: |
Vodafone Network |
| Date: |
27/01/07 (348 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Good packages and offers now
Disadvantages: Just try making an outgoing call (sigh)
The last time I was with Vodafone was about 7 years ago, when call charges were virtually mafioso extortion and handsets were 'like it or lump it' with the plastic brick in the back pocket and crummy bendy whip antenna. Fast forward, after leaving orange due to their failure (consistently) to adhere to the top up a tenner and we give you 50% back offer, I wrote a stinging letter enclosing two adverts one from voda and one orange regarding the benefits of the PAYT contracts. Orange replied with a sympathetic letter and 20.00 for hurt feelings I suppose so a nice end but they did at least admit their material failures. I got my fone Motorola V500 on orange, so had it unlocked for Vodafone one I got my PAC code (Porting Authority Code - the code they don't tell you about to stop you leaving the network, but that to which they HAVE to give you if you ask for one and they're usually valid for 30 days). So I signed up with Vodafone and initially was very impressed with the spend a fiver and talk the hind legs off a donkey all weekend and free texts .. I soon found out that the only Donkey around here is little old me.
Soon, I had problems making and receiving calls, all inbound calls kept flying off to the great answerphone in the sky, I could be talking to someone for 10 minutes then the phone would just drop the call without warning and when you're using credit each time during the week and having to connect 7 times you soon get pissed off with the frustrating aspect of having the phantom poltergeist phone killer enact retribution every 10 minutes or so. I got soon narked with this game and rang Voda, connected to their Scottish call centre, I explained the problem and was met with well you live in West Midlands and you're running off the Leicester transmitted (do what??????!!!!!!) AND because of all the new contracts we have the calls will drop, so tough.
Oh, right, so let me get this straight then, because I am a Vodafone customer, I have to take the blame because you're too tight to upgrade the CDMA network to manage more call bandwidth and I have to have my calls divert to the answerphone 2 out of three times, and at weekends when I'm trying to make a call and I can't I just have to accept it do I? Well, that's just fine by me, continue to sting me for a fiver a week !!! Idiots.
The WORST is when you subscribe to the 'family option' that's on the basis you can actually get the damn phone to connect to one of the numbers. After the 30 days, they try and take a fiver to re-activate, if they can't YOU have to ring customer disservices, so i topped up with a fiver and rang up, only to be told I didn't have enough credit (after being transferred from 34444 to the PAYT CS helpline which takes 25p for the call charge), so that fiver was now 4.75 and I now didn't have enough to go back on the family PAYT tariff - ARSEHOLES !!!! Complete and utter robbing, thieving lot of arseholes are Vodafone.
When I connected to 34444 I was told that he 'didn't have the right screen to activate the family option' (yeah right!) and that he was transferring me ... what to? The bloody Tardis with a few darleks to chat to, at least the call quality would have been better in darlek land!
Totally inept shower, a network (which is quite clearly stated in their bumpf literarture that they don't guarantee to connect the call and its not their fault if you can't make a call, as per terms and conditions) which is over capacity and even with the hundereds of millions a year the Vodafone group make they don't, can't, won't (you choose) upgrade so that everyone can make a call.
It's one great rip off after another with Vodafone. As soon as I can I'm off, I know I'll miss out on all the talk for ever at weekend offers and the like BUT AT LEAST I'LL BE ABLE TO USE THE BLOODY PHONE TO MAKE A CALL WITH AND NOT SIT THERE WATCHING IT VIBRATE ITSELF TO DEATH TO TELL ME THAT YET ANOTHER MESSAGE HAS BEEN LEFT ON THE ANSWERPHONE. AGGGHHHHHHHH!!!
Vodafone? My god, you need a frontal lobotomy to consider a PAYT SIM and should take a reality check for even considering a monthly package. Maybe I'm over reacting but i never had this trouble with any other provider, and no, the fone is fine, tried it with 3 other provider sims, no problems whatsoever. So, if you live in COVENTRY and have Vodafone, get ready to be screwed big-time.
'How Are You?' P****D AND F****D OFF, that's how I am Mr Chief Executive on 1.5 million a year, I bet your bloody fone works doesn't it????
Summary: SH** network - what else could I say? I love them???
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Last comments:
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- 18/05/07 I never said anywhere in the review that I DID have a vodafone contract ... this was a straight swap over from 'Orrible Orange to Venomous Vodafone. the settings were done automatically at changeover after the PAC code was authorised and accepted via Voda CS.
Still the same problems even now, ive given up calling 2345 its a lost cause.... liek so many call centres manned by chimpanzee's these days, lose their crib sheet and they up the Khyber Pass without a paddle ..
(sigh) |
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- 13/05/07 Okay so you had an Orange Pay As You Go/Talk phone, unlocked it for Vodaphone and signed up to them on a Contract basis. Did you by chance change the settings to have your voicemail sent to the Vodaphone voicemail service rather than the Orange one?
I know it sounds like an obvious question but thats the only reason I can think of why calls kept going to your voicemail and therefore may not have been the suppliers fault. Also Orange phones come preloaded with Oranges firware for the phone. IF you had got the same phone directly from Vodaphone you would have probably seen different menus and the settings internally would have been different. This may have been the cause of your problem.
Also to my knowledge the PAC number allows you to transfer your number from one network to another. I'm not sure what happens when you move not just networks but go from PAYT to Contract at the same time. If someone doesn't tranfer the number correctly they may cause problems for the user. I suspect part of the vodafone database still showed your phone as being PAYG. The reason I say that is because many networks used to apply a maximum call time on PAYG calls in order to prevent users from accidentally running out of credit if they made a call by mistake. e.g. your phone dials the last number whilst still in your pocket/handbag because you forgot to lock your keypad. If that was the reason then it should have been pretty easy to resolve.
As for the 'tranmitter being in Leicester', that was complete crap. They were trying to bluff their way out of not knowing the cause of your problems.
Call centre staff can ususally resolve the obvious problems but your situtation sounds as if it needed someone fairly clued up on how all the technology works in the UK to resolve your issues.
By the way, we don't use CDMA in the uk. Our wireless standard is GSM. CDMA is what they use in the States. :) |
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- 27/01/07 I think we got the message ! |
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