@vodafoneuk Vodafone billing meltdown – what to check for and how to get your money back

[citizenB]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/money/vodafone-billing-meltdown--what-8160549

 

 

 

Vodafone has been under fire this week, after revelations of a huge spike in complaints about billing and poor customer service .

 

 

Vodafone says the problems stem from switching both their customer service and billing platforms to a new system.

 

This was completed by the tail end of last year, but by Vodafone’s own admission was “a highly ambitious and complex programme” and that “the impact of running an IT and a contact centre transformation in parallel was underestimated”.

 

 

Common issues we’ve seen include payments being taken after contracts have been cancelled, being charged for items or services more than once, and direct debits being set up incorrectly or on the wrong tariff.

 

• Check your bill – Make sure your tariff, charges and data allowance on your bill tally with the contract you originally took out (check your email confirmation for this). And do so for all bills going back for the past 12 months.

 

 

• Check your bank statements – Even if your bill is right, the money going out of your account may be wrong. Make doubly sure your bill and your banks account tally

 

 

• Check your credit score – If Vodafone has wrongly recorded a payment as missed or late, this could affect your credit rating

 

 

 

 

Isn't this something we have been telling them for at least the last 18 months !

[BankFodder]

What this means is that Vodafone are overtrading. They don't have enough resources to run their business. This is clear from all the complaints that they are getting and the repeated failures dealing with them. They have also told us directly the same thing that they have a problem with resources.

 

Best advice to everyone is that if you want a mobile phone contract – don't go to Vodafone. They take your money and while things go well – that's fine. When things go wrong, then you have a problem. Vodafone is so big, that they don't particularly have any problem.

 

If you can get hold of customer services and it seems that you will be in some conveyor belt system – and if for one moment they feel they're not getting the money that they believe they're entitled to, it seems that they'll simply blight your credit file and move on.

 

This is part of the reason why we have now stopped welcoming Vodafone customer service on this forum. They have turned out simply to be too unreliable – rather in keeping with their general reputation at the moment.

 

Vodafone are a big disappointment. And of course, they blame it on new IT systems. We seem to hear this from every company, every time things go wrong – whether it's banks, Npower, or what have you. We never have any way of knowing if that is the real reason – or the only reason. And of course it is their responsibility to their customers - and to their shareholders to implement new systems correctly, anyway.

[silverfox1961]

And in fairness to Vodafone it says it’s working hard to redress all these problems, and is hiring 600 customer service staff to help straighten everything out

 

That's all well and good BUT if VF are going to train these new people the same way they trained their existing staff, nothing will change.

 

As VF hate parting with money, I suspect they got the cheapest quote to set up the new software. What do you get when you pay peanuts?

 

The keep stating it is a systems error. OK. Stop using the system and display some common sense instead. That is what is in short supply. The computer says no!