So, after I’ve visited the store once a month, called Vodafone at least once a month and started chats with them online, I decided to contact their CEO. It’s such an absurd thing to do, but I had reached a point where I was completely stuck. Nobody would help me. I would be sent to their outsourced customer support where my case would die. Unless I was transferred first. In one call I was transferred three times and ended up at the first person again. That was a fun experience. She recommended me to call in later.

So back to the presence. Yesterday, Nick Jeffrey did come back to me. Well, Christian from the directors office would come back to me. At 16.41, he tried to reach me. He couldn’t get through to me. I was in the middle of Brighton and I had no service. According to Vodafone, this is a prioritised area. I would really like to see how Vodafone works in normal areas then.

I never spoke to Christian. I came through to Sandra when I tried calling them back. Sandra and I spoke for 2 hours. I asked her if she would let me speak to Nick (I understood that Nick wouldn’t take my call, but I wanted to know if she would be able to help me). Sandra told me “No need, I am authorised to speak for Nick Jeffrey”. During this phone call, Sandra told me a lot of things. Well, she told me everything that was printed in the standard phrases in front of her, but she also told me that she could see that it had been issues in the area. But ending my contract was impossible.

So, after 2 hours, I ended the call. Sandra had told me that she would not reevaluate the case, Vodafone would not help me and if I wanted to get further, I would have to go to an ombudsman. Sandra did offer me £82.50 for my issues. That was a nice treat. “50% off for three months” as a “good will” from Sandra. I tried explaining that it’s not a good will if the service isn’t working, but Sandra assured me that the service was working. Except when it wasn’t. So here I am, 15 months left on a contract that I’ve already paid £720 for so far.

I ended the call with a question for Sandra. “Would Nick be happy with this call and this resolution?” and she thought he would. She couldn’t cancel my unusable contract as “it wouldn’t be fair to other customers”.

So I am sorry, Vodafones other customer. I was wrong to try to request a company to provide me with a working service. And remember, Vodafone is happy to have you as a customer. Well, that’s at least what an SMS told me this morning.

Christian and Sandra are altered names and it’s not their real names. For further information about this publication, please email anders.hagstroem@gmail.com or tweet @andershagstrom.

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UPDATES:

MONDAY

James at the directors office at Vodafone contacted me to follow up this blog post on Monday evening. No new decisions made yet.

TUESDAY

James contacted me again after speaking to senior management. They agreed on offering me £150 for all the issues I’ve had. This is still not even close to what I have requested.

I’m trying to be reasonable with Vodafone and I want this resolved, so I have offered to pay for the phone I have through them. The exit fee from this contract is £650 and I’m not gonna agree to pay an exit fee for a service that never worked.

Sandra said this would not be possible on Sunday. However, Sandra never once cared to actually look in to anything on this claim. James has so far done that and at the moment I’m waiting for him to come back to me. Will update this post when I have more info.

FRIDAY

James called me back and accepted my terms regarding buying the phone from them. I don’t have to pay for the subscription that never worked, and they get paid for the phone.

Guys, it’s always worth to stand up against companies. Always.