Warning:Vodafone - worst ever connection experience & "Customer Service"

Nrocon

Here are the facts.
I was on a slow (but functional) connection with Smart Telecom. (Recently bought by Digiweb)
Being a Vodafone mobile customer I received a call from them on the 8th of May proposing a broadband offer which was more attractive in speed & price. Naturally I signed up. The sales guy assured me there would be no break in service, that the switchover would be instant. He then corrected himself by saying ‘well, less than a second’. This reassurance came despite my explanation to him that Smart (and not Eircom) were managing my physical line.

All promises. No problems. Five working days. No service downtime. Great.

On the 20th of May, having had zero communication on any medium, I rang back to see what the hold up was. I was informed that “all they were waiting for was my Smart Telecom account number” (– which hadn’t been requested, just my UAN). So I had to go through the whole sign-up contract details again. No biggie. A minor irritation. I was told the application would be “prioritised” at that point, due to the delay.

On the 28th of May, having still heard nothing, I called again – I was breezily assured everything was in progress, I should have some action by the 30th.

Then it happens – Sat morning I sit down to do some work- no broadband. I ring Smart/Digiweb to discover that the process of taking over the line was started (but not completed). I was now in Vodafone limboland the first day of a Bank Holiday weekend. No service downtime? Yeah sure.

I ring first thing Tuesday morning (3rd June) to be met with the same placating comments of “it’s with our provisioning team”. When I asked if they could perchance contact their “provisioning team directly” and maybe move things along they say (and get this) – they have no capacity to phone anyone in that team. (This from a supervisor, whom I had asked to speak with). The ONLY way they can communicate is “through the system”. ?. You would think the two departments were like two separate companies that are at loggerheads with each other and will only communicate to each other via solicitor. No. Can’t pick up a phone. Even though we are a communications company. ?.

This is me here at my wits end, 5 days without any broadband, despite all the promises. I am trying to work using a (Vodafone) tethered phone which I am currently getting about 100 to 200K down (when it doesn’t drop off 3G – a frequent occurrence even though I’m in an urban area)

This is an utterly unacceptable sub-par sales/service experience brought to my doorstep by incompetence and a support system that cannot do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.

This is a warning to anyone out there thinking of signing up. My experience sucks and remains unresolved. It is not an experience I will forget.

ED E

1. Never ever trust a salesperson
2. LLU handovers take time, like you seemed to suspect

Nrocon

So, just to keep you all informed, I rang yesterday (again) to be told that now that Vodafone have taken control of the line, someone has to come out and change the socket. Today? No, I don't think so - Friday. So, after waiting for action on the initial sales call for a period of 3 weeks, this was to be followed by 13 days without ANY broadband. (That is, assuming someone actually turns up on Friday).

Is that Vodafones definition of a frictionless changeover?

Pawwed Rig

Do your research before you change over. A quick browse of their Talk To forum would have shown you that their customer service does not exist and they take a long time doing the simplist tasks.
Now that you are already committed you just need to live with it until you can go with a different provider. It is what it is. I would recommend against getting too stressed with them as it is like banging your head against a wall.

Vodafone: Darren

Hiya,
If you private message (via the link in my signature) over the below info, we can ask the orders team to look into this for you?

Landline number/CRN:
Contact number:
Address:
Date of birth:
Link to your thread or post:

Thanks,

Nrocon

If you bothered to read the other thread you posted on you would note that I sent "Vodafone Representative - Danielle" my details on Friday afternoon. (At least three working days ago). "Progress" on that post involved me ringing "Customer Care" (again) yesterday. I understand your efforts to continue to attempt to polish Vodafones public rep. I will continue to outline the failures to date. Danielle did not respond.

Vodafone: Darren

My apologies, I've passed on those details - could we ask that one of these threads be merged or closed, as having two open for the same query can lead to confusion of this kind?

Thanks,

Nrocon

That's right, it's my fault there was no response. Don't forget to read the other thread to ensure you are familiar with the list of Vodafone failings.

Close away.

Nrocon

I'd say thanks but it'd probably get stuck in my keyboard.

PLUG71

Nrocon wrote: »

If you bothered to read the other thread you posted on you would note that I sent "Vodafone Representative - Danielle" my details on Friday afternoon. (At least three working days ago). "Progress" on that post involved me ringing "Customer Care" (again) yesterday. I understand your efforts to continue to attempt to polish Vodafones public rep. I will continue to outline the failures to date. Danielle did not respond.

I had very simular experience with them but was stuck into a contract.
However me being me I refused to pay my bill!

This was last september and I still hav'nt been contacted, not one letter or call.

So screw them because their customer service is a joke!

I think that they will just carry charging me from september however I will take this debt to the grave!!:mad:

Rant over :rolleyes:

PLUG71

Vodafone: Darren wrote: »

My apologies, I've passed on those details - could we ask that one of these threads be merged or closed, as having two open for the same query can lead to confusion of this kind?

Thanks,

Not to mention that it looks twice as bad for Vodafone!!

Sully

I'm new to Vodafone, and have had issues getting setup.

Vodafone on Boards is awful slow at responding and getting things done, which is shocking, so I have so far taken to calling Vodafone Customer Care over the phone and found the people I have dealt with have been friendly and efficient. I got an outbound call today following up on my issues and apologising, and assuring me they are working on fixing it. Hopefully it will get sorted promptly, but over the phone has been good so far whereas Boards has been awful.

Vodafone: Darren

Hi Sully,
I'm having trouble finding a thread from yourself in our Talk To section, could you link to it so we can follow up please?
Found it, doesn't appear in the search results for some reason.
It looks like we got the first PM with details on Monday, sent them over to the landline team, and followed up on Tuesday to check if you had been called?

Thanks,

Glenalla

Must agree with the terrible customer service.
I purchased Suresignal in August 2013, I am now on my 4th unit and still not working 10 months, yes 10 months, on. I have wasted so much time on the phone to them and simply cant afford to spend between 1-2 hours per day going through the same tests day after day. They keep promising me it will be fixed in 72 hours and, guess what? its not. After more wasted correspondence I get the same 72 hours carry on again!.
They have admitted there are serious issues with the suresignal units but no-one can tell me what they are doing to rectify this.
An absolute disgrace.

Vodafone: Darren

Hi folks,
If you have any queries, please do post them over in our Talk To section here - we aren't actively monitoring this section, so if you'd like anything followed up, it's best to start a thread so we can look into it.

Thanks,

Sully

Vodafone: Darren wrote: »

Hi Sully,
I'm having trouble finding a thread from yourself in our Talk To section, could you link to it so we can follow up please?
Found it, doesn't appear in the search results for some reason.
It looks like we got the first PM with details on Monday, sent them over to the landline team, and followed up on Tuesday to check if you had been called?

Thanks,

I posted on the Talk To on Friday last afternoon. When I was asked Monday morning to send my info I did, pretty quick. I heard nothing, so I asked for an update the following morning. When I got my reply, quick enough, I was told to confirm I received a call from Vodafone. I replied saying I didn't, and asked could we deal with it online. I got no reply until the next day, late afternoon, so in the meantime I decided after waiting to call instead, as it was clearly quicker.I got my reply back saying I needed to contact the call center and to confirm a time that suited me followed by another PM from Vodafone saying they will deal with it online so I replied to this, pretty much instantly. As of yet, I have received no contact from your online team and that was yesterday afternoon.

Personally, having to wait a day between each reply is pretty slow in this day and age. I'm impatient, I agree, but it just made much more sense to call Customer Care because if I didn't I would still be waiting for Vodafone on Boards to address my concerns.

Teagwee

I think threads like this should remain here, mainly for the informative nature of the customer service response that one can expect from Vodafone (or indeed any other ISP). While it might be fine to direct specific queries to the 'Talk to' forum after you've become a member of the captive audience, being forewarned is forearmed as far as I'm concerned.

Turtlez

Question. I just was going to reg to get VF broadband in, Like after reading this im been put off BIG time. 1 I am with SKY now they suck but have great CC but the speeds blaa anyway if I am to switch to VF from SKY more or less I could be stuck in limbo with no internet for weeks/months? Also anyone who has it how are the speeds? It says on Uswitch 100mb/20mb is thaqt in anyway right??


Cheers and hope ye have ye1r problems solved. Come on VF people wont want to go with ye if they keep reading this type of stuff! Me for one wont be going with ye until I am sure all will be fine.....

Turtlez

Question. I just was going to reg to get VF broadband in, Like after reading this im been put off BIG time. 1 I am with SKY now they suck but have great CC but the speeds blaa anyway if I am to switch to VF from SKY more or less I could be stuck in limbo with no internet for weeks/months? Also anyone who has it how are the speeds? It says on Uswitch 100mb/20mb is that in anyway right??


Cheers and hope ye have ye1r problems solved. Come on VF people wont want to go with ye if they keep reading this type of stuff! Me for one wont be going with ye until I am sure all will be fine.....

Pawwed Rig

Turtlez wrote: »

Cheers and hope ye have ye1r problems solved. Come on VF people wont want to go with ye if they keep reading this type of stuff! Me for one wont be going with ye until I am sure all will be fine.....

Just do your research and you'll be fine. They are all available in the talk to section of this site. Read 10 pages of thread titles for each company you are considering. look closer at the relevant threads and you will get many peoples experiences both good and bad then make your decision.

Nrocon

So here I am, day 16 without broadband. The sub-contracting KN Networks engineer visited me on Friday - connected my line to whatever supply is in the cabinet, and tested in my house. His device read 50 down 20 up. I plug in Vodafones supplied modem and it won't authenticate. When I ring they tell me it will 'happen automatically' after a period of days (that being Friday last). I ring again today (Monday) to be told by someone in customer services that they can't 'see' my line so they can't test it to see what is wrong. They have submitted a request to <whateverdepartment> and are coming back to me tomorrow. If I seem calm I can tell you I am not. I AM UTTERLY INCENSED AT THIS POINT. VODAFONE:HOW CAN YOU BE SO INCOMPETENT? And if anyone from Vodafone starts to explain the complexity of what is involved here and how it's not their fault it will only make me more annoyed. I JUST WANT IT SORTED.

dazdrog

Nrocon wrote: »

So here I am, day 16 without broadband. The sub-contracting KN Networks engineer visited me on Friday - connected my line to whatever supply is in the cabinet, and tested in my house. His device read 50 down 20 up. I plug in Vodafones supplied modem and it won't authenticate. When I ring they tell me it will 'happen automatically' after a period of days (that being Friday last). I ring again today (Monday) to be told by someone in customer services that they can't 'see' my line so they can't test it to see what is wrong. They have submitted a request to <whateverdepartment> and are coming back to me tomorrow. If I seem calm I can tell you I am not. I AM UTTERLY INCENSED AT THIS POINT. VODAFONE:HOW CAN YOU BE SO INCOMPETENT? And if anyone from Vodafone starts to explain the complexity of what is involved here and how it's not their fault it will only make me more annoyed. I JUST WANT IT SORTED.

something like that happened to me too, order originally started for fiber around start of april, around second week may a week or so after i had a installer out my line finally went live only to find out im on a adsl2+ package {12mb) and have to wait a few days to put thru a order for fiber.

erm what? i ordered fiber in first place. so i get told a installer will have to come back to the house a week later. so in the meantime a second router appears at my house, installer comes a week later spends 20 seconds at my house and less then 5 at the cab and 2 months after i order with vodafone i finally have the product i ordered. i wouldnt be surprised if you have the same issues i had. ive also been billed twice for a vodafone talk product that i never ordered or used once, i have had them removed from my bill tho, and also got a reduction of 20 euro for 3 months. so over all after all the effort of gettig it set up, now that its working im happy, customer care could defo do with a little work but defo not as bad as magnets!!

Sully

Nearly a week later and we are one step closer to being a complete Vodafone customer! The broadband router is on route and my installation date is next week. Customer Care called me twice today to ensure everything was going according to plan.

Nrocon

Day 17.
Now I'm being sent a new modem because the first one 'might' be faulty.

Nrocon

Day 18 no broadband. (40 days since initial order) What a surprise, my second modem delivered today doesn't work

domeld

Guys in Limerick are completely useless. If you have synchronization but no authentication this is 100 % vodafone issue. As it looks username has not be created/created right.

Nrocon

And yet they are sending out a contract engineer to fix what Vodafone are saying is a line fault? There was a KN Networks engineer here to connect the line in the first place - his tester confirmed 50 down 20 up to be available before he departed - leaving me to slip back in to the cold, uselessly incompetent hands of Vodafone who are sucking my life away trying to get what by now is a basic necessity (for my work).

It's like I'm stuck on a remote island somewhere in the Antarctic. And its 1982. And Telecom Eireann have taken over Vodafone from the inside out, so the incompetence can persist. Like some kind of cockroach that just doesn't go away.

ED E

If you still see sync no auth the morons have you on the wrong port on the DSLAM. They'll see a healthy sync but you won't get any ip traffic as the port is disabled/enabled for another line op.

Send the kn guy to the cab when he comes.

Nrocon

Sounds plausible. Does that mean KN have to be added to the list of incompetents? In fairness though, I stood at the cabinet while he connected - the info/wiring records seem to be non-existant and they don't have the keys to the new fibre-connected cabs (which is a few feet away - there's a copper multi connecting the two). As I was saying.. ..1982.

limey_tank

I was waiting 6 weeks for the LLU handover to vodafone. And then over a week of no internet at all for no discernible reason. Many of the support staff don't appear to have been trained correctly, I finally got one fellow who knew his stuff and there didn't seem to be any problem at all....

Anyway the upshot of this is I now have a slower connection than I was getting with Magnet (although €20 cheaper). I'm wondering is it worth it.

Magnet: 5600 down, 1000 up
Vodafone: 3300 down, 500 up

Nrocon

So ED E was right in relation to the second problem in connecting me. As of yesterday afternoon the issues were finally sorted.

In closing I will now attribute the first 13 days without broadband to vodafone process delays/incompetence. The subsequent 7 days were due to a combination of KN networks and legacy issues surrounding a flawed local cabinet install. (The patch panels on the copper links from new cab to old cab which are 10ft apart were wired incorrectly in the first place, setting up a lovely little challenge for KN engineers)

If Vodafone support staff/system was competent enough this could have been sorted on the first visit by the engineer.

I am now getting 40 down 10 up, which is not the 50 down/20 up that was promised, but I am giving it a few days to see if it at least behaves consistently.