Vodafone roaming charges…

 

I’ve spent the last few weeks in discussion with Vodafone about what I believe is a scandalous bill for roaming data charges. Vodafone agreed to reduce the bill by 25%, but this still represents daylight robbery.

Fast forward a few weeks and the BBC’s Watchdog program highlighted several cases similar to mine, where people had been charged ridiculous sums of money for trivial amounts of data transfer. All the people mentioned in that program had their bills reduced by 100%.

Vodafone should apply the same discount to all people in the same circumstances, not make a big deal about a couple of high profile cases then exploit the rest of us.

I would like to take this opportunity to pass on a few bits of advise for anyone dealing with Vodafone, or any other mobile phone network for that matter.

  • Do not deal with the regular call center. Go straight for the cancellations department and start your conversation with the phrase, “I want to cancel my contract.” As soon as you do this you will speak to someone who can actually make a decision. Invariably they will offer you something to keep you on your contract. This may be a bill adjustment or a new phone etc. I’m not saying you will get the perfect answer, but it’s a start.
  • Write emails to every consumer show, ombudsman and regulatory body you can. Someone like Watchdog may pick up your case and shame the company into doing the right thing. I’m convinced if I had written to Watchdog one month earlier I would have had my bill reduced to nothing. As it is I’m Billy Anonymous and Vodafone are happy to ignore me.
  • Be as big a pain in the butt as you can. They are exploiting you. The least you can do is give them a hard time about it.
  • Vote with your wallet. Once this whole affair is over I will never put money into Vodafone’s pockets again.

I’m sure all networks are guilty of this sort of behavior, but I can only speak about my experience of Vodafone. After 10+ years of being a satisfied Vodafone customer, I can safely say I think they’ve now dropped off the bottom of my customer satisfaction chart!

Hell hath no fury like a Tim scorned. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Author: Tim...

DBA, Developer, Author, Trainer.

12 thoughts on “Vodafone roaming charges…”

  1. Aye!…

    It ain’t just vodafone, for sure!

    Sloptus (Optus for those not familiar with Australian slang) just nailed me an absolute fortune for using my mobile in roam mode in Europe…

    an absolute *fortune*!

    unreal…

  2. This situation will improve within Europe by summer as the networks will be forced to reduce roaming data fees. T-Mobile have announced they will drop their prices by 80% by summer. The fact they are able to do this and still make a profit highlights how underhanded their current pricing models currently are.

    Noons: Keep banging on at them and hopefully you’ll get somewhere!

    Cheers

    Tim…

  3. No problem with non-Oracl topics… just wondered if they are not Vodafone’s billing software provider…

  4. Hi.

    Sorry, I don’t know if Vodafone use Oracle or not, but I’ve got a feeling they will never want to hire me now. 🙂

    Cheers

    Tim…

  5. Hi Tim

    I’ve just read your post and can understand why you would feel unhappy. As I’m sure you will appreciate all complaints are handled on an individual basis as each case will usually have different circumtances that have to be considered.

    Vodafone certainly doesn’t want you to feel unhappy and I’m sure you like us would want to discuss an agreeable compromise. It’d be great if you could get in contact with the Forum Intervention Team. Just head over to the link at the bottom of this post, complete as many of the requested fields as possible in our contact form and include the code FIT135 in your message. You can even include a link to this page if you like; that way you don’t have to repeat yourself.

    Look forward to hearing from you soon.

    All the best.

    Cooldaddy08
    Vodafone UK

    https://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatch/Portal/appmanager/vodafone/wrp?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=Page_Help_ContactUs&pageID=PCU_0002

  6. The page produces an error when you try to post a message. Wonderful service from Vodafone once again…

    Cheers

    Tim…

  7. I had similar issues with 3. Not the same problem but a number of different problems with the same outcome. Writing to the Ombudsman and then making the operator aware of it is normally the quickest way to get a result, at least it got me my £150 back from 3, and a number of other issues resolved. When you think how much effort they put in to winning new customers, you’d think they’d try and keep them happy!!!

  8. Ah Tim,

    A man after my own heart!

    I remember at the age of 26 after working for several years for permanent employers and then going contracting, having my bank manager refuse to give me a mortgage because I hadn’t got 3 years accounts. This was the Midland bank as was (now HSBC of course) and had been my bank since the age of 10! It was quite funny as well as annoying at the time, because I remember the branch manager was about 14 years old, wearing his smart suit and trying to tell me, as the advert for another bank says…”it doesn’t work like that”!

    I said, “Look here pal, you can see my history with your bank going back over a decade…unless you do the right thing here, you’re going to lose every opportunity to do business with me…forever”.

    Didn’t do any good so I went home and wrote out a termination letter and took great pleasure in handing it to him the very next day as I cleared out and closed my accounts. I then faxed him the transfer completion details of the pension I’d had with them and then transferred elsewhere…if I could find the guy now I’d send him more stuff to really tick him off!

    I moved to Barclays and have had great service with them for over a decade – touch wood! Yeah I know, some will have had bad experiences with them and gone the other way…until they cross me, I’ll stay put.

    Cheers
    Jeff

  9. I don’t think the prices are fair, but then I don’t think the price of anything is fair. Be careful in the first place people, you will not always get your money back just because you make a noise.

  10. Yes i felt the burn on vodafone from my recent trip to turkey. I get home with a $500 phone bill and i only sent 200 text which i have unlimited texting. My service is t-mobile and they said they paid already so now i owe them for these fraudulent charges. There is no way i am paying this bill. I tried calling customer service in UK but no one has helped me because i am not a vodafone customer. They picked up myservice as the roaming carrier as soon as i touched ground overseas. So i hope i get some resolution such as you did. Thanks for giving me some kind of hope.

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