
Which planet?
@1980s_coder Which planet are you on, and which Three are you referring to? Not the one I've been with for 3 years. Best of a dismal bunch, based primarily on price. The "service" is universally poor.
Vodafone has once again come under fire for poor customer service, this time for its handling of a computer glitch that led to customers being overcharged. A spokeswoman admitted the company experienced problems last year when it migrated records onto a new billing system. "Unfortunately, there were some problems during the …
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I echo 1980s_coder's sentiment.
I can't speak for the shop, i tend to find that shop staff in mobile places are, at best, mediocre. (I apologise to those here that may work in one, I appreciate that this is a sweeping statement and that some staff go above and beyond, but like with Apps on the Windows App store, the barrier to entry isn't that high).
Whereas I have had issues with Three support, like not changing a tariff when they should and a few other things, these do get resolved relatively easily and they recompense any costs incurred.
All in all, I can't imagine using any of the other providers at present.
All telcos are shite, CS is like playing roulette, sometimes you win but most of the time you lose. For example i had a poor time with three but so far with 6 months of vodafone i havent needed to use CS so that is a win. I dread needing to though.
Wife is with orange-now-EE and has given up on trying to correct a website snafu on her account (doesnt involve money so 'meh'after four attempts)
The other telcos always look appealing but are all equally crap at dealing with problems.
I have to say when I have called Three they have actually been pretty good, they gave me a timescale for an issue, a manager called back when promised and they phoned to make sure I was happy and all was good. I am obviously comparing them with former phone service Orange who are the most useless shower of shits that ever flopped out with the afterbirth anywhere, but I have to say I was pleasantly suprised.
I do but in my defense it is purely due to signal strength in my neck of the cumbrian woods (otherwise i wouldnt!)
Oddly enough about 3 weeks ago they sent me a text about 'improving the masts in my area' which was previously t-mobile speak for removing masts. Low and behold the signal improved *and* i now get H+ rather than 3g (but isnt actually any faster of course but looks prettier)
In my case it's the SureSignal booster at home causing the problems. There's several people seeing the same thing and Vodafone haven't been very forthcoming on progress of the fault so far.
I suppose I have to take some of the blame for being a victim since I chose them as a provider last year. But I need a signal booster at home and at the time that seemed the only way to get one. I managed to argue them down to £50 for the cost but it still irks me. The damn thing is costing me an extra £1 a month in electricity as well.
Ironically on Monday night I was swearing at them (and the Gvt. Gateway) because I wasn't getting authentication texts. I eventually tracked that down to my phone which at some time during the day had dropped off the network without telling me and needed a reboot.
Some times it seems that technology hates you :-/
Like Adam Payne I've had the joys of sampling every provider in this country, and he's right. They are pretty much dismal across the board. Orange (while a Hutchinson brand) was brilliant, until France Telecom bought them and things were progressively switched off. I'm only tolerating Vodafone because at least their customer service is reachable beyond 8pm in the evenings.
I've been with Tesco Mobile now for 2 years and highly rate them. Not had any issues either with billing or the anytime upgrade that I did. Equally - their insurance is good and handled my cracked screen simply and quickly.
As for Vodaphone, my wife had a large bill for data on one month which we disputed - after being on hold for (what seemed like ages) she was told to go physically into a shop in the town centre in order to sort it out. Why she couldn't do it over the phone with the customer services speaks volumes. She's ditching them once the contract comes up.
Back at the end of 2015, I opted to leave Vodafone due to poor signal and poor customer service when complaining about the poor signal.
Before I called for my PAC, I thought I'd have serious issues with this but the call lasted 15 minutes, the said I was at the end of my committed contract and I'd just have to pay the final months bill.
Well, then I got a letter in January stating that my final bill was over £240 and that I must pay it as soon as possible, I immediately called up and they said - oh no, you don't have to pay it, we're going to take it out on your direct debit. I asked them not to and that the overcharged bill was more than I expected (usually £39) and what the extra £200 was for and the cited an "early termination fee" - they also said that my bill had not been generated yet and to call back in some days to modify the bill.
So I called back some days later and got a different person who said there were no notes of my previous call and they'd have to investigate again, I demanded an immediate answer - I could see I was at the end of my committed contract and they couldn't provide a reason for the £200 termination fee. After about 3 hours on the phone they decided that the £200 fee was unjust and had no reason to be on my bill and they said they would remove it (yay).
Fast forward 7 days, I check my bank, I'm more than £200 down - I can see Vodafone have taken over £240 from my account.
I tried to resolve this with Vodafone on the phone but again I got a different person who said no notes were on my account - as this useless wet paper towel couldn't assist me I informed her of my intent to perform a chargeback to which she said there could further fees and problems with my (disconnected) account. lol.
I couldn't deal with her anymore, so I hung up and performed a chargeback since the money was taken the night before.
Sounds like my experience with Verizon here in the States.
I point blank ask when my contract expired so that I could switch to a new carrier, they tell me Feb 14, so I switch on the 15th. Two days later I get a message from Verizon that I now owe them nearly $300 in ETF & to pay immediately. I debate the charge on the grounds of their previous comments, they claim the other phone CSR was mistaken, & that the ETF is valid. I tell them to bugger off as I refuse to pay *any* EFT at all, and the phone CSR starts saying something about them just auto-submitting the bill to the card I have on file as the payment method. I laughed & told them to go ahead & try, since it was a *CreditCard* & covered by Visa, I could claim the charges were fraud, get them refunded, & leave Verizon to explain why they had attempted to charge for something they no longer were authorized to even consider. It's now been two months & I've yet to hear from Verizon nor get any notices from my credit monitoring service, so I'll consider Verizon as properly chuffed, stuffed, & given The Finger.
It seems *ALL* the cellphone carriers need a serious lesson in Customer Service, simple math, & why attempting to shaft your customers is a great way for them to decide to NOT be your customer anymore.
I thought it said "partial outrage"
Had an image there of Voda customers trying to be properly outraged but having all the energy required for a real rant being gradually sucked from them by the Kafkaesque nightmare that is the customer services of any modern wallet sucking enterprise.
"a very small number of our customers.." , it is irrelevant how many customers have a problem because for that customer, it is 100% of the customers that matter. Saying only a small number are affected denigrates their poor experience as less important to the company, explaining away any failure on their part to deal with it seriously.
.......switching to GiffGaff? Best of both PAYG and contract. If you want to pay monthly, then buy a "Goodybag" and set it to repeat monthly. IF you want to change tarif every month or switch to PAYG, then you can do that EVERY/ANY month. If you wanted to move your number away from GiffGaff (why would you do that???), you can get your PAC from the website, unlike other providers who desperately argue that you should stay with them and only give the PAC code when you threaten to report them to the regulator.
Join via https://giffgaff.com/orders/affiliate/peterm42 and get £5 free.