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Hello,
First of all I’m really sorry for the long story, but it’s an ongoing problem that I cannot seem to resolve on my own, so please bear with me!..
I’d really appreciate some help with an ongoing issue I have with Vodafone, they cold called me at the end of September, telling me (not offering) that they will be sending me a tablet out because I’m a long standing customer and they wanted to say thank you, during the phone call there was no real mention of a cost involved in the tablet, until the end of the call after he’d confirmed he’s put it through for next day delivery (at a cost to me), at this point he read out… very quickly a lot of terms and conditions, not much of which I heard.
The next day I receive some cheap “smart tab” thing, and a sim card, knowing that I’ve now been sold a contract I call them immediately and ask to return it and cancel, they advised they would send out a special delivery bag for me and I could return it without issue. On the 6/10/15 I returned the tablet and sim cards in the unopened box (literally had no interest in viewing the contents, so left it security sealed) I have proof of delivery saved on my PC from royal mail to say that they received the item the next day.
Thinking that was it I went about my business until about two weeks later, I received a text from my bank telling me that Vodafone had attempted to take ~£16.50 from my account, but seeing as it’s my bills account and I keep money tight in there, it was refused due to lack of funds, my bank does not charge me for this kind of thing, luckily. I immediately called Vodafone and explained they were trying to take money from my account for a tablet I had returned to them, I was advised to ignore it as it was an error, that they had confirmed with the warehouse that the tablet had been returned and not to pay the outstanding balance.
A few days passed and I received an automated phone call from Vodafone telling me that my balance was overdue and I needed to pay immediately to avoid disconnection, I pressed an option to get through to an advisor and explained that I had previously been told that I did not need to pay the sum due as I had returned the tablet and sim unused within 14 days and cancelled the contract. The second advisor told me that the contract was not cancelled but that they would do that now for me and again said that I did not need to pay the outstanding balance.
A few days later I try to make a phone call, only to be told that my phone is restricted, my other 2 phones on the account are the same, at this point I’m getting quite angry so instead of calling them I visit my (not very) local store who after I pay to get a train there and waste over an hour travelling tell me they can no longer deal with accounts and payments in store and to call the call centre. I call their call centre, explain all over gain what is going on and advise them that they are in breach of contract for disconnecting me, the advisor quickly apologises and tells me he’ll reactivate my phones and that my unwanted tablet line will be cancelled.
The next day one of three of my phones is working, the others are still cut off, after calling again and explaining the situation all over again I managed to get the other two phones re-activated.
My normal bill cycle date then comes around and I notice it’s a bit higher than usual, Vodafone have simply added the ~£16.50 onto my bill this month along with £21 for “line rental”, under a “mobile broadband” line.
I called them once again, asked them to refund the money and ensure the line was cancelled, this time I got through to the cancellations team who advised me that the line was still not cancelled (this is over two weeks after the item was sent back) and that he would do an “immediate disconnection” which would close the line off within 24 hours and solve the problem.
Presuming that everything was done, I left it and carried on until the next bill date, only to find my bill was once again high by £21 and to no surprise I’d been charged again for a mobile broadband line, so I called up again, this time I asked to lodge a formal complaint as I felt no one was dealing with my problem, I was taken through a complaints procedure, and told again that the problem would be resolved and not to worry, I noticed after about a week and a half to two weeks that I’ve still got 4 phone lines shown on my account, so I went through to retentions team, explained the issue and they told me they would put it through for a cancellation, this was on December 11th however he did advise that it would be a 30 day cancellation as there was an outstanding complaint on the account, I asked for an update and the advisor told me he would email the colleague dealing with the complaint to ask them to call me with an update.
So the state of play today is, my billing cycle has just started again and my bill is once again showing a line rental for £21 for “mobile broadband” of which still has not been cancelled, I have had no update on my complaint to Vodafone, the total number of calls I’ve made because I kept being blind transferred from one place to another and being hung up on has exceeded 20 phone calls, over 3 hours of my life have been wasted sitting on hold and travelling to and from a store who wouldn’t/couldn’t help me, I’ve had just short of £80 taken from me that they were not entitled to and no one seems to be dealing with this.
It’s actually getting very frustrating and stressful for me having money taken from me. Can anyone advise a way to put an end to this? I’m willing to take this to the ombudsman and court if I have to.
I have a series of phone call recordings from various dates I can send to the ombudsman for review if needs be, though I'd rather not have to go down that route.
Also does anyone know if I would be entitled to any form of compensation for my time, train tickets and such for all the hassle, I'm pretty sure it's up to Vodafone to offer a good will gesture if they want to but it's worth the enquiry.
Many thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
Tucker
First of all I’m really sorry for the long story, but it’s an ongoing problem that I cannot seem to resolve on my own, so please bear with me!..
I’d really appreciate some help with an ongoing issue I have with Vodafone, they cold called me at the end of September, telling me (not offering) that they will be sending me a tablet out because I’m a long standing customer and they wanted to say thank you, during the phone call there was no real mention of a cost involved in the tablet, until the end of the call after he’d confirmed he’s put it through for next day delivery (at a cost to me), at this point he read out… very quickly a lot of terms and conditions, not much of which I heard.
The next day I receive some cheap “smart tab” thing, and a sim card, knowing that I’ve now been sold a contract I call them immediately and ask to return it and cancel, they advised they would send out a special delivery bag for me and I could return it without issue. On the 6/10/15 I returned the tablet and sim cards in the unopened box (literally had no interest in viewing the contents, so left it security sealed) I have proof of delivery saved on my PC from royal mail to say that they received the item the next day.
Thinking that was it I went about my business until about two weeks later, I received a text from my bank telling me that Vodafone had attempted to take ~£16.50 from my account, but seeing as it’s my bills account and I keep money tight in there, it was refused due to lack of funds, my bank does not charge me for this kind of thing, luckily. I immediately called Vodafone and explained they were trying to take money from my account for a tablet I had returned to them, I was advised to ignore it as it was an error, that they had confirmed with the warehouse that the tablet had been returned and not to pay the outstanding balance.
A few days passed and I received an automated phone call from Vodafone telling me that my balance was overdue and I needed to pay immediately to avoid disconnection, I pressed an option to get through to an advisor and explained that I had previously been told that I did not need to pay the sum due as I had returned the tablet and sim unused within 14 days and cancelled the contract. The second advisor told me that the contract was not cancelled but that they would do that now for me and again said that I did not need to pay the outstanding balance.
A few days later I try to make a phone call, only to be told that my phone is restricted, my other 2 phones on the account are the same, at this point I’m getting quite angry so instead of calling them I visit my (not very) local store who after I pay to get a train there and waste over an hour travelling tell me they can no longer deal with accounts and payments in store and to call the call centre. I call their call centre, explain all over gain what is going on and advise them that they are in breach of contract for disconnecting me, the advisor quickly apologises and tells me he’ll reactivate my phones and that my unwanted tablet line will be cancelled.
The next day one of three of my phones is working, the others are still cut off, after calling again and explaining the situation all over again I managed to get the other two phones re-activated.
My normal bill cycle date then comes around and I notice it’s a bit higher than usual, Vodafone have simply added the ~£16.50 onto my bill this month along with £21 for “line rental”, under a “mobile broadband” line.
I called them once again, asked them to refund the money and ensure the line was cancelled, this time I got through to the cancellations team who advised me that the line was still not cancelled (this is over two weeks after the item was sent back) and that he would do an “immediate disconnection” which would close the line off within 24 hours and solve the problem.
Presuming that everything was done, I left it and carried on until the next bill date, only to find my bill was once again high by £21 and to no surprise I’d been charged again for a mobile broadband line, so I called up again, this time I asked to lodge a formal complaint as I felt no one was dealing with my problem, I was taken through a complaints procedure, and told again that the problem would be resolved and not to worry, I noticed after about a week and a half to two weeks that I’ve still got 4 phone lines shown on my account, so I went through to retentions team, explained the issue and they told me they would put it through for a cancellation, this was on December 11th however he did advise that it would be a 30 day cancellation as there was an outstanding complaint on the account, I asked for an update and the advisor told me he would email the colleague dealing with the complaint to ask them to call me with an update.
So the state of play today is, my billing cycle has just started again and my bill is once again showing a line rental for £21 for “mobile broadband” of which still has not been cancelled, I have had no update on my complaint to Vodafone, the total number of calls I’ve made because I kept being blind transferred from one place to another and being hung up on has exceeded 20 phone calls, over 3 hours of my life have been wasted sitting on hold and travelling to and from a store who wouldn’t/couldn’t help me, I’ve had just short of £80 taken from me that they were not entitled to and no one seems to be dealing with this.
It’s actually getting very frustrating and stressful for me having money taken from me. Can anyone advise a way to put an end to this? I’m willing to take this to the ombudsman and court if I have to.
I have a series of phone call recordings from various dates I can send to the ombudsman for review if needs be, though I'd rather not have to go down that route.
Also does anyone know if I would be entitled to any form of compensation for my time, train tickets and such for all the hassle, I'm pretty sure it's up to Vodafone to offer a good will gesture if they want to but it's worth the enquiry.
Many thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
Tucker
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