Okay so usually I hate it when people go on huge rants about large companies because let’s face it, the majority of the time they’re probably getting it right, and with a huge organisation, it’s pretty likely that a few people will have a bad experience. However, the beauty of being a hypocrite gives me a special license to acknowledge this, and write a rant anyway, good eh?
Setting the scene – its late October 2011, I’ve just seen some of the new features of the iPhone 4S (mostly the new camera optics), and having become a bit of an apple tech fanboy since moving to mac a couple of years ago, I thought I’d take the opportunity to upgrade early in my Vodafone contract, which ends July 2012, thus extending it to July 2014. So I called up and was excitedly told by vodafone upgrade team that I could indeed have a new iPhone 4S for £139. I thought this was a bit steep considering I was taking out another 24 months but being a mug I moved some savings and paid up anyway.
The very next day I was the proud recipient of an iPhone 4… wait.. this isn’t a 4S at all.. its the same as the one I already own, an iPhone 4. Three phone calls later I had someone admit that they’d sent the wrong one, to their disgruntlement I had an email that proved I did indeed ORDER the right one, though this was Vodafone guy’s first assumption that he stuck to for a good half hour. They then agreed to pick up this incorrect handset but informed me they no longer had stock of the iPhone 4S model I had ordered and paid for, this would be in ‘hopefully mid next week’.
Three weeks later nothing had happened, I had been patiently waiting and called again to be told they did not know they had to pick up the handset but that it would probably be done ‘next couple of weeks’ but ‘we really can’t tell where you are in the queue of people waiting for stock’ and why don’t I try going to a store as they have stock, and they’d be fine with me taking the handset there so long as ‘you make sure they call us when you hand it over’ – great, so I’m now vodafone middle management? what’s the pay like? Again, being a mug I tried this to no avail, most stores were out of stock each time I visited – fair enough, if apple don’t ship to Vodafone, then sure, they can’t provide them I thought.
But, after several friends getting iPhone 4S via Vodafone I was beginning to realise how stupid I was being. Calling just before Christmas, a full two months post-purchase-and-wrong-handset-delivery I was told ‘yeah we’re still out of stock but we can’t sort it out its too close to christmas, call us in January’ – fantastic. So I dutifully called on the 4th of January and after a nice half hour on the phone I was told that ‘We’re very sorry it appears you were stuck in a returns thing that we have’ – quote unquote. ‘What does that mean?’ I daringly inquired. ‘Well it just means you never would have got your new phone, so let me see what I can do about that’. Ten minutes later my operative returns to tell me they can try and get it sorted and we’re sorry this happened. Then I made my next mistake.
The next mistake was thinking ‘it’ll be better if I stop all of this now’ – I know you’d think this would make sense. So I said ‘Okay I’ll be in my office tomorrow, the handset is there – refund my £171.74 now (cost of handset plus some nonsense admin fee they’d slapped on to extend the contract early, despite the fact that only benefits them), pickup the handset then and cancel my extended contract to 2014′, they said fine, refunded my £171.74 (a week later actually, you thought ‘now’ means right away? silly!) and then said ‘Call us back to make sure we have cancelled the new contract once its been picked up, I mean I could check it but i’m not in monday’ – again I’m thrown into handling the affairs of their staff for some bizarre reason. So I thought okay fine, money on its way back, handset being picked up tomorrow, all is well.
Twenty minutes later, my colleagues are on the phone saying DPD have turned up to pickup a phone handset, and where is it. I managed to instruct them as to where it was buried in my draws of my desk and get it to the DPD guy before he left the building, but wowzers – even a simple pickup date was too much to ask to get right? that was interesting. So it was picked up, great I thought, that’s that over with.
Today (well over a week later) I remembered to call back, so, having donned my Vodafone manager’s uniform, I dialled and explained the above, sans the sarcastic hyperbole I’ve thrown in for your enjoyment. I was then told ‘yeah so the warehouse don’t have confirmation they have received it back yet and obviously as it was the 4th it should be there, what you’ll have to do is take the DPD paperwork into a store and show it to them’.
Really? I have to prove you picked up the phone you gave me by mistake? Apparently so. More updates to follow but needless to say this has been a ludicrous ride that if even one member of staff I’d spoken to had looked at the notes on their system and thought ‘Hey this guy has had a crap experience with us, I should do something about it for him’ then a lot of the above could have been averted. I’m curious to know if its the same with all of the phone providers, but in the 9 years I was with Orange prior to joining Vodafone in 2010, I never had problems like this.
UPDATE
Having posted this rant on the Facebook wall of Vodafone UK, the very helpful Holly at Vodafone got in touch to help smooth things over. They are now allowing me to prove the phone was sent to the via scan and email instead of going to a store and explaining the whole story – thank god, and have kindly offered to refund my current month’s bill for the bad experience I’ve had with them – fair enough. A victory for the power of moaning, social media and those who do their jobs helpfully and professionally!
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