Vodafone Landline

pjordan

I just moved into a new house and was looking at the various landline deals and eventually opted for Vodafone since I'm already a VF billpay customer. I initially spoke to them 3 weeks ago, 3 days before I got my house keys figuring I would start the ball rolling.

22 days later, yesterday after about 20 phonecalls and about 4 hours in total on calls and on hold I finally got the line up and running.

In my first call I spoke to a girl, gave her the existing landline number and after she had checked it, explained that I wanted a new number and was offered a package of 3mb broadband and a phone package for 35 euro.

I made my 2nd call a week later after I had heard nothing further to be told that they had a record of me calling the previous week but no details of an order so I set the process in motion all over again.

After another week I had heard nothing again so I called again and was told it was being sorted and I should heard within 5 working days. The next day I recieved my broadband modem but nothing else until I called them after 7 days (5 working days).

Over the past 3 days I made numerous phone calls to a variety of Vodafone personel, many very apologetic and very friendly and trying to help and even quite comically self effacing in what they were having to deal with because of the apparent demand, etc and had lots of promises of being called back, most of which never happened.

On Mon night I called customer service at 19.35 and was put on a holding loop playing some God awful gansta rap song continuiously. After 55 mins of working away at other stuff with my phone on speaker I hung up and called back to be told by Customer Service that their Landline services closes at 2000 and I'd obviously got lost in a loop for half an hour. In the past two days after numerous other calls I finally got an answer from someone in Vodafone that one of the reasons for delay was that the line was showing as "Reconnect Unavailable". Bottom line on this means that if there is an existing Eircom line in the house that has been cut off, you have to call Eircom and pay them 25 euro to reconnect the line before Vodafone can take it over. It took me another 4 calls to Vodafone and 2 calls to Eircom to find this out and was basically told by one of the Vodafone customer service people that nothing else would have been done from their end on this and that the order wound't have progressed further because it was up to me to do the ground work on it.

When I finally got a call back this morning from an admittedly very amusing and helpful Vodafone customer service rep and told him the story, he was about to set me up with a Vodafone Broadband and Landline package and take my order (for the third time). It sems they have a very strange computer system tracking their customers and account details?

Anyway, just thought I'd relay the story with the Caveat Emptor for anyone contemplating Vodafone for a landline service. It was damn frustrating and downright anger inducing at times which led me to against my inclinations, to take it out on the Vodafone staff at the end of the line, so much so that at least one of them hung up on me, but on the other hand I have to equally compliment many of them for their good humour and sterling attempts to help in the face of what is an equally convuluted and frustrating internal system or set up that they are faced with.

And that's all just my initial experience, I'm not yet even sure what the phone service is even actually like and haven't had the chance to set up my broadband modem yet, so I may be back here again with further updates or warnings or maybe even compliments.

craichoe

pjordan wrote: »

I just moved into a new house and was looking at the various landline deals and eventually opted for Vodafone since I'm already a VF billpay customer. I initially spoke to them 3 weeks ago, 3 days before I got my house keys figuring I would start the ball rolling.

22 days later, yesterday after about 20 phonecalls and about 4 hours in total on calls and on hold I finally got the line up and running.

In my first call I spoke to a girl, gave her the existing landline number and after she had checked it, explained that I wanted a new number and was offered a package of 3mb broadband and a phone package for 35 euro.

I made my 2nd call a week later after I had heard nothing further to be told that they had a record of me calling the previous week but no details of an order so I set the process in motion all over again.

After another week I had heard nothing again so I called again and was told it was being sorted and I should heard within 5 working days. The next day I recieved my broadband modem but nothing else until I called them after 7 days (5 working days).

Over the past 3 days I made numerous phone calls to a variety of Vodafone personel, many very apologetic and very friendly and trying to help and even quite comically self effacing in what they were having to deal with because of the apparent demand, etc and had lots of promises of being called back, most of which never happened.

On Mon night I called customer service at 19.35 and was put on a holding loop playing some God awful gansta rap song continuiously. After 55 mins of working away at other stuff with my phone on speaker I hung up and called back to be told by Customer Service that their Landline services closes at 2000 and I'd obviously got lost in a loop for half an hour. In the past two days after numerous other calls I finally got an answer from someone in Vodafone that one of the reasons for delay was that the line was showing as "Reconnect Unavailable". Bottom line on this means that if there is an existing Eircom line in the house that has been cut off, you have to call Eircom and pay them 25 euro to reconnect the line before Vodafone can take it over. It took me another 4 calls to Vodafone and 2 calls to Eircom to find this out and was basically told by one of the Vodafone customer service people that nothing else would have been done from their end on this and that the order wound't have progressed further because it was up to me to do the ground work on it.

When I finally got a call back this morning from an admittedly very amusing and helpful Vodafone customer service rep and told him the story, he was about to set me up with a Vodafone Broadband and Landline package and take my order (for the third time). It sems they have a very strange computer system tracking their customers and account details?

Anyway, just thought I'd relay the story with the Caveat Emptor for anyone contemplating Vodafone for a landline service. It was damn frustrating and downright anger inducing at times which led me to against my inclinations, to take it out on the Vodafone staff at the end of the line, so much so that at least one of them hung up on me, but on the other hand I have to equally compliment many of them for their good humour and sterling attempts to help in the face of what is an equally convuluted and frustrating internal system or set up that they are faced with.

And that's all just my initial experience, I'm not yet even sure what the phone service is even actually like and haven't had the chance to set up my broadband modem yet, so I may be back here again with further updates or warnings or maybe even compliments.

So basically its the same as any company that uses LLU with Eircom.

jor el

Why are you still a Vodafone customer? After that much hardship, I don't think I'd be rewarding them with 12 months of payments.

Anyway, eircom are the only company that can connect a phone line, why anyone would go to a reseller to connect the line is beyond me. If you wanted a brand new Ford Mondeo, you wouldn't go to the Honda garage to try and get it, just because you plan to buy your petrol there in the future.

smelltheglove

I went with BT a while back, who have now been taken over by vodafone and had a similar experince to be honest, although they always had a record of my order. I bet since the process of vodafone taking over bt there may be a few hiccups, not that that is an excuse.

It s just one of those things really, when its doen its done. Most of the problems we had were on the eircom side of things, i.e. getting the line reconnected, there was actually a charge of close to 100 I think but they waived that as they never told me about it at the time of ordering, then there were a couple of problems with the line and we got the modem almost 2 weeks before the broadband was activated which was annoying as hell but it all worked out in the end.

Honestly I dont think we've ever had a smooth transition when it comes to phones or broadband, it seems to be complicated enough stuff. I hope you get it all sorted soon though, like i said, when its done its done.

ejmaztec

Reading between the lines, it seems to me that Eircom can be bloody-minded when you decide to go with the competition, employing delaying tactics etc.

BT in the UK played the same game when competition was introduced into the UK market. An old boss of mine decided to get Cable and Wireless to install an intercom/telephone system, and once installed, it took BT six weeks to flick a switch, during which time the Cable and Wireless phone could only be used as an intercom.

pjordan

jor el wrote: »

Anyway, eircom are the only company that can connect a phone line, why anyone would go to a reseller to connect the line is beyond me. If you wanted a brand new Ford Mondeo, you wouldn't go to the Honda garage to try and get it, just because you plan to buy your petrol there in the future.

Call me naive Jor el but that wasn't so obvious to me and Vodafone certainly didn't make me aware of it.

And whilst I appreciate that Eircom still have ultimate responsibility for the physical infrastructure of lines to your phone jack, as far as I was concerned I already had an existing line and even a tone on my phone (albeit an engaged tone) so to challenge yer parallel to a car, If I had an existing 2nd hand car make that needed repair, I wouldn't feel the need to go to the original dealer to get it repaired, but would be much more likely to go to the wide range of other garages where a probably more competitive service was available

pjordan

Well what a surprise - The saga continues....

Took my modem out of it's box yest and wired it up and nothing, No Broadband.

So I called the Vodafone customer services number and after 12 mins on hold (Listening to that awful crap song that goes "I met yer father an hour ago, he don't show me no respect at all...") and it transpires that again I am at the mercy of Eircom to make the switch in the exchange and they pussy foot about with that for another 21 days after receiving the order from Vodafone, so in the meantime the guy from Vodafone recommended that I go to one of their shops and get the mobile broadband dongle for 7 days.

I went in today and they need photo id, a recent bill, a pint of blood, 3 teeth from a knat, 5 claws nails from a hairy nosed toad and a commitment for the rest of my natural life or for the next 100 years, whichever is the longest.

They sure don't make it easy but it's a bit like Lough Derg, I'm almost getting a perverse pleasure out of the suffering at this staqge and a morbid curiosity in how much more of it there is to come....

Max Power1

ejmaztec wrote: »

Reading between the lines, it seems to me that Eircom can be bloody-minded when you decide to go with the competition, employing delaying tactics etc.

Eircom is separated into ringfenced entities. The eircom that changes over your account to the competition has nothing to to with the part of eircom that is losing a customer. Having working in a similar ringfenced former state company in a different industry - i can assure you that what you are implying is unfounded.

jor el

pjordan wrote: »

as far as I was concerned I already had an existing line and even a tone on my phone (albeit an engaged tone) so to challenge yer parallel to a car,

If you couldn't make or receive calls, then you didn't have a phone line. Simple as that.

Anyway, I'd still walk away from Vodafone before you get tied in. If they're this bad in just setting up, what will it be like if you have a real problem?

pjordan

The latest update...

Well I returned to the Vodafone shop with my sacrificial offerings and all my worldly posessions to exchange them for a wireless broadband dongle for a week and the girl sez, looking at my proof of address, "so is this where you live?" and I said "No, I told you i just moved into my new house and haven't received any bills yet, but is that a problem?" And she says "No, no problem at all but can you tell me the address you'll be using the broadband at?"

So I give her my new address and she says there's not even any point in giving me the dongle cos the reception there is totally crap, so I'm back to waiting for however long it takes for Eircom's whims to indulge me by flicking a switch in the exchange...

Watch this space....

dobsdave

I made the mistake of signing up online in June (as they had the 29euro deal).
Heard nothing till August, just presumed it was an oversight and continued the signup process when they rang me.
When I called them to confirm the 29 euro, was told that was bill pay only.
Fair enough, cancel it so.
Couple of weeks later saw they were doing a 40 euro deal.
Rang up this time and signed up and then nothing, presumed it was a silent switch over:D
So...last monday week got a bill for broadband from before I'd signed up!
While questioning this with a service rep, I was told that in fact I hadn't switched yet at all!
Money was taken out of my account this morning.

I'm waiting for a call back..........

pjordan

Well....

Toward the beginning of the week I had a voice mail left on my phone from Vofafone Customer Service to say that unfortunately they couldn't provice Broadband service on my line (The specific reason I got a landline in in the first place).

I checked the line on Eircom's site and it too said that Broadband was unavailable on that line (But it also said that my previous phone line that I've had Broadband on for the past two years was unavailable for Broadband so read into that what you will re Eircom!!). I also checked it on the websites of a couple of other providers and they were showing Broadband as available, so I opted for Perlico and called them up to make doubly sure that Broadband was available on that line. They pulsed or pinged it and said "definately yes it's available" so I was goin ordering on phone but there was a free Wireless modem for online ordering so I said I'd do it that way.

All was goin well with the ordering process until it came to the part that said they needed a UAN number from Vodafone so.....

Back to Vodafone, on to one person after about 6 mins who said "Sorry you'll have to call customer service on this number.... blah blah" so called the other number and got through to one of the lads that I've been talking to all week (I'm on first name terms with a good few of them now and God bless them they try very hard and are wonderfully cheerful and try to help in what seem to be awful trying and frustrating conditions for them). So he calls me back a while later with a UAN number starting with 9. I put it in the Perlico website and it says "Please put in a correct UAN number". I try it a few times and then call Perlico and they say "The UAN number should start with a 4, 5 or 6" so back to Vodafone and a full 30 minutes on hold listening again and again to that God awful irritating tune about seeing your father an hour ago...... When I finally get through I explain what Perlico have said and the poor Vodafone guy sez the only UAN number he has ont he system is the one starting with 9. AT this stage it gets unbelievably farcical where he asks me if I can call Perlico on another line so he can heard what they are saying so I call them up, put them on speaker phone and have them verify to him that the UAN needs to start with a 4,5 or 6. The poor lad promises to go away and try to get to the bottom of it and get back to me. That's about 6pm last night and in fairness he does call back before they close at 8pm to leave me a message saying he's still trying to sort it.

Anway, today in the post I receive a bill from Eircom re my phone service including phone calls I've made in the past week, even though I never signed up for an Eircom account and only requested a line reconnect. So I called them this evening and now, despite what their website indicates, they say they can actually offer me a 3mb Broadband service.

The strange thing is that Vodafone have details of my order and my a/c but were having difficulties getting my details every time I called and, depending on who I spoke to, it seemed I used get slightly different info each time.

So for now I've totally given up on Vodafoneand gonna go with Eircom for the time being to see if they can do any better (I'm not holding my breath to be honest.

Incidentally, Perlico were saying it would take 3 weeks for the switch over to happen and that I wouldn't get Broadband til then. Eircom have said it should be turned on by 9th Oct.


Watch this space....

b4nd1t

pjordan wrote: »

Well....


Watch this space....

This is all banana republic stuff...

how on earth can we expect to maintain a hi-tech industry when people cant even get connected to the internet!:eek:

foggy_lad

your UAN is your eircom account number!!!

pjordan

foggy_lad wrote: »

your UAN is your eircom account number!!!

It would appear so, but until I got the bill from Eircom on Friday I was of the impression that my account was with Vodafone who I had signed up with and even did a verbal verification with for a Landline and Broadband package. I'd never entered an agreement with Eircom for a service package

dobsdave

Update on my 'account'.
Got no call back, rang them this morning to be told that had been cancelled.
Happy days, bye bye vodafone.