Question
When the calling costs begin to equal the cost of transportation and actually being there people should begin to realize that they're paying too much.
Vodafone loves the price of 37.5p/minute. So much so that pretty much everything which is outside a standard bundle is going to cost exactly that. 37.5p is what Vodafone already charges for excess minutes over and above a subscriber's package. The move to introduce that rate for virtually any non-bundle activity sees some …
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> It’s a good job that doctors’ receptionists never put you on hold
Hilarious.
The best of all (in my experience) is the Gwent Out Of Hours GP service (0845 6001231) which takes seven and a half minutes of useless message before you even get to the stage of being put on hold. With a woman's voice going "If. You. Want. To. Try. Our. Inter. Active. Do. I. Need. A. Doctor. Service. Please. Go To. doubleyou. doubleyou. doublyou. Dot. Do. I. Need. A. doctor. Dot ..." etc ad nauseam.
On finally getting through, you can expect at least half an hour on hold.
I swear it's a revenue raising service.
All very strange. I live abroad at the moment and when I call my doctor, I speak to my doctor. They haven't got a receptionist and no other doctors I know of here have one either. I might not speak to my own doctor out of hours but I do speak to a local doctor directly without waiting. All on local "normal" numbers with no waiting (occasionally they'll be engaged if they're all on the line but that almost never happens). BTW this isn't private health care I'm talking about.
I've got so used to it that it's a bit shocking to be reminded of how it works in the UK.
you might be interested in saynoto0870.com
@ Graham,
You'd have thought the post office would have some sort of email to post type interface for just such an issue, perhaps upto 4 sheets of paper plus envelope all for the cost of the normal stamp? Maybe a secure app or a secure web interface rather than just emailing them though.
"You'd have thought the post office would have some sort of email to post type interface for just such an issue, perhaps upto 4 sheets of paper plus envelope all for the cost of the normal stamp? Maybe a secure app or a secure web interface rather than just emailing them though."
It's called a "printer", and you can buy one yourself.
I think it ought to be obligatory to allow customers to cease using a service via any of the means by which they are able to subscribe to it in the first place.
I had to cancel some unrequired web hosting by post, giving a fortnight's notice - was barely half a dozen clicks to sign up for it.
Based on my recent experience with the Red Apostrophe, dead tree plus snail mail is probably the most efficient way of solving problems. Five phone calls later and I STILL can't access my on line account despite the usual myriad of promises to sort it ASAP.
The most amusing attempt to login was when I got dumped onto an error screen from their Oracle back end servers telling me to contact the sys admin.
They haven't a clue about website stuff. Their social media escalation page (code is WRT165 if you're keen) demands a whole bunch of info through an insecure page!
http://www.vodafone.co.uk/contact-form/index.htm
> what happens to the phone
Interestingly, when my SO got a new phone (from O2) not long ago, the phone itself was on a completely separate finance agreement. So it looks like the operators are wising up to this one.
If it's an "all in one" agreement that includes the service and phone then you can keep the phone without paying any more. If, like my SO, it's on a separate agreement then you'd still have to pay for that.
The thought had crossed my mind...
Vodafone are still old school in that they just charge a fixed monthly amount which doesn't specify 'service provision' and 'phone repayment' parts separately. Indeed, once your contract end date has passed, Voda will happily continue to charge you the same amount unless you contact them to renegotiate.
This is unlike o2's "refresh" which does indeed specify which part of your monthly fee is the phone-repayment, and which part is the service-provision. I suspect this would indeed give them a nasty little wriggle-out of this part of your contract if they raised charges above RPI and you wanted to leave.
I shall await Voda's response with great curiosity...
Also, if you happen to be an iPhone-wielder, don't forget to call customer services to have it officially unlocked for you before you post that letter off to big-red.
don't forget the MNV networks that they host.
So I think you are right. They don't want to be half arsed when it comes to managing us plebs, sorry bog standard consumers. We don't make them enough dosh to be bothered with. I think their game plan is to move everyone who is not a business customer or on a MNVO to another network or to one of the MNVO's they run.
Got pissed with this mob years ago when despite the OFCOM rules they wouldn't let me take my old number with me when I deserted ship. No desire to go back.
A mate of mine is battling with Vodabill over excess usage charges because they are trying to force an update onto his phone which doesn't fit on the phone, so it downloads till it runs out of space, aborts and then restarts and downloads all over again. KerChing KerChing KerChing and there isn't even a setting to say that you don't want the Vodadumb bloatwear on the phone, so there is no way to turn it off and stop it happening except by pulling the SIM card out of the phone.
We had a problem at work where we ordered a voice only SIM. The user ended up putting it into a smart phone and happily used data. As data wasn't part of the tariff, we were charged out of contract rates for the data, resulting a bill of over £1,000 for UK data.
We protested that we'd never asked for data and Vodafone told us that they can't disable data on a connection. Not impressed. We fought and got a lot of the money back, but couldn't get the full amount back.
http://ee.co.uk/help/add-ons-benefits-and-plans/price-plans-and-costs/ee-price-plans/changes-to-numbers-starting-08-09-and-118#what
But, NHS England says doctor's surgeries shouldn't use 084 numbers. Many banks and customer service lines are changing to use 0345 or 0370 instead of the 08 versions (03 numbers come out of inclusive minutes).
Called up and the person on the other end didn't know about the changes and had to look it up. Even then the way it was worded was confusing as 'Your bundle was not affected.' by which they meant in bundle stuff wasn't changing but over bundle charges were. They said 37p as well not the with VAT charge and didn't mention that I could get out of my contract. In fairness this was probably the first they'd heard of this. Will call up again today to confirm getting out of the contract has to be done in writing.
0800 numbers are free with all operators/plans from July 1 under the Ofcom rules coming into effect then. Vodafone are making some changes then and more on August 10.
Some operators are spinning it as magnanimity from them to be giving us the privilege of making the free calls which Ofcom have mandated. Many are using the changes as justification for raising prices to balance their loss of revenue, as they did when EU roaming charge caps came in.