Posts by Cogitarius

Help selecting a 7" tablet.

Re: 'Pay as you go' SIM fraud at Heathrow dispensing machines

Good point -- thanks :)

'Pay as you go' SIM fraud at Heathrow dispensing machines

On arrival at Heathrow Terminal 4 a few days back I bought a Vodafone 'Pay as you go' SIM for GBP20 from the dispensing machine at the exit. It carries a yellow sticker claiming "Preloaded with GBP10 talktime", which was the prime reason for my buying it as I needed to make several local and international calls. On activating it, however, I kept getting error messages saying it had no balance for either voice calls or text messages.

From Heathrow I took it to Vodafone's Paddington Station store, where the sales lady promptly told me this was a common fraud being perpetrated on unsuspecting users of Heathrow dispensing machines. She refused to do anything about the GBP 20 I had just wasted, so I was forced to pay for another GBP 15 topup to be able to use the SIM. What's worse, she also said the SIM itself would have been free if I'd bought it from her store!

I tried complaining to Vodafone on their UK website, and after filling in myriad details, the complaint disappeared into a black hole with only this cryptic error message to show for my pains:

"Sorry, there seems to be a problem

We’re working as hard as we can to fix the issue. In the meantime, if you need to get in contact please send us an email using this link."

Having done so, they're now putting me through even more hoops, demanding I create an online account and provide even more details just so they can verify my bonafides!!

What's intriguing is that they haven't yet tried to deny either the existence of such fraud, or their knowledge of it .