Vfone Shop in Blanchardstown Ripped off my 80 year old mother

funkyship

My 80 year old mother had problems with finding the Whatsapp Icon on her phone,

It wasnt an issue with her mobile but rather a lack of technical ability on her behalf. she brought it to the Vfone shop in Blanchardstown who said they would "fix" the problem for her and charged her 30 euros.

However there was nothing wrong with the phone in the first place. Vodafone Blanch said they upgraded the firmware on her phone (which wouldnt have sorted out a Whatsapp issue)

My mam rang me and told me this so I contacted Vfone engineers in the Blanchardstown Shop (Jimmy) who refused to give my 80 year old mother her phone back until she paid the money.

I believe they are rip off merchants who are fixing problems and charging for issues which never existed in the first place...

jeffk

Does not surprise me at all, there is one staff member in there and to say he has the manners of a dog would be an insult to dogs

I think you have to be a special type of person to get and keep a job in a phone shop

This is it

Make an official complaint to Vodafone, see where it goes. What exactly did they charge for, repair?

micks_address

This is it wrote: »

Make an official complaint to Vodafone, see where it goes. What exactly did they charge for, repair?

Yeah id message them on twitter about it. Seems the quickest way to get responses from phone companies these days

okidoki987

funkyship wrote: »

My 80 year old mother had problems with finding the Whatsapp Icon on her phone,

It wasnt an issue with her mobile but rather a lack of technical ability on her behalf. she brought it to the Vfone shop in Blanchardstown who said they would "fix" the problem for her and charged her 30 euros.

However there was nothing wrong with the phone in the first place. Vodafone Blanch said they upgraded the firmware on her phone (which wouldnt have sorted out a Whatsapp issue)

My mam rang me and told me this so I contacted Vfone engineers in the Blanchardstown Shop (Jimmy) who refused to give my 80 year old mother her phone back until she paid the money.

I believe they are rip off merchants who are fixing problems and charging for issues which never existed in the first place...

Liveline with Joe Duffy Rte Radio 1 is where you should go if Vodafone don't sort it for you but tell them you will be going on the programme, big companies don't like negative publicity.

bossdrum

The €30 does seem a bit expensive to 'find' the whatsapp Icon on your mother's phone but why did she think it was the correct place to bring her phone for that problem? Why didn't she ask you?

If they didn't charge they would be flooded with people wanting all sorts of 'problems' fixed such as adding apps, backgrounds etc.
The problem wasn't vodafone's and technically they did fix it if she now knows where the Icon is and they also did some general updates.

If I go to the doctor tomorrow and just talk to him about last nights TV he will still charge me €50 even though he didn't fix anything.
When you interact with a business you are using their time and unfortunately that has to be paid for.

Charles Babbage

bossdrum wrote: »

The €30 does seem a bit expensive to 'find' the whatsapp Icon on your mother's phone but why did she think it was the correct place to bring her phone for that problem? Why didn't she ask you?

If they didn't charge they would be flooded with people wanting all sorts of 'problems' fixed such as adding apps, backgrounds etc.
The problem wasn't vodafone's and technically they did fix it if she now knows where the Icon is and they also did some general updates.

If I go to the doctor tomorrow and just talk to him about last nights TV he will still charge me €50 even though he didn't fix anything.
When you interact with a business you are using their time and unfortunately that has to be paid for.

. If it is question of adjusting settings on the phone then charge €3 or €5 and put this on the list as review of phone setup.

antodeco

Was the phone under warranty? If so, there shouldn't have been any charge

bossdrum

antodeco wrote: »

Was the phone under warranty? If so, there shouldn't have been any charge

The OP told us there was nothing wrong with the phone, it was his mother's lack of technical ability.
Should I go to the Ford garage to learn how to drive a car?

Shelflife

bossdrum wrote: »

The OP told us there was nothing wrong with the phone, it was his mother's lack of technical ability.
Should I go to the Ford garage to learn how to drive a car?

Well it’s not saying a lot about you if you can’t spare 5mins of your time to help out an 80 yr old woman.

silver2020

okidoki987 wrote: »

Liveline with Joe Duffy Rte Radio 1 is where you should go if Vodafone don't sort it for you but tell them you will be going on the programme, big companies don't like negative publicity.

FFS - are you serious.

The nation has plenty of issues and you want a disputed €30 fee get national prominence?

Probably the most stupid suggestion on boards so far this year - and there have been some bad ones.

Neowise

bossdrum wrote: »

The OP told us there was nothing wrong with the phone, it was his mother's lack of technical ability.
Should I go to the Ford garage to learn how to drive a car?

If you did and they charged you €600 for upgrading the engine, you'd be pretty pissed that they did that and charged you for it when it was not necessary.

Edit. probaby should add another zero to that bill. €30 being 10% of a €300 euro phone, and €6000 being 10% of a new ford car.

JDxtra

Mobile phone shops can't be dealing with every little question about phones, they'd be overrun. There was no fault with the device.

Your mother should have approached a family member in the first instance, but I can understand she probably wanted to be indepedant.

Just put it down as a lesson learned.

antodeco

bossdrum wrote: »

The OP told us there was nothing wrong with the phone, it was his mother's lack of technical ability.
Should I go to the Ford garage to learn how to drive a car?

Not sure if you meant to post mine, and if so, obviously completely missed the point of my post.

Regardless of the OPs situation, if the phone is under warranty, there's no charge. Whether it needing repairing or not, still no charge.

So if its still under warranty, I'd be querying why there was a €30 charge.

FourFourRED

antodeco wrote: »

Not sure if you meant to post mine, and if so, obviously completely missed the point of my post.

Regardless of the OPs situation, if the phone is under warranty, there's no charge. Whether it needing repairing or not, still no charge.

So if its still under warranty, I'd be querying why there was a €30 charge.

The point of your post isn’t valid. We don’t even know what model of phone it is and who the manufacturer is.

The warranty is given by the phone’s manufacturer and covers any defects in the hardware. It doesn’t cover basic how to fixes.

She was charged for a software update and labour (the staff members time). As laughable as it is. But it’s not something that’s covered by the manufacturer’s warranty.

bossdrum

Shelflife wrote: »

Well it’s not saying a lot about you if you can’t spare 5mins of your time to help out an 80 yr old woman.

In a previous job in a financial area I had clients and spouses partners come to me come regularly for no particular reason or a variety of reasons which were not relevant to my job.
Once I rang B&B's and booked accommodation and on another occasion I booked rail travel. This person didn't have a credit card so I used my own and they reimbursed me.
I never billed for this but I didn't tell my boss either because you cannot run a viable business doing favours for free.

Maybe the OP's mother problem only took 5 minutes (which I doubt). What happens when it is 20 people a day coming in with the same problem because they hear there is a free service being provided?

Maybe you can set up a shop yourself to provide such a free service and tell the landlord and utility provider they should ashamed to expect payment from you because you are such a good samaritan yourself.

paddy19

funkyship wrote: »

My 80 year old mother had problems with finding the Whatsapp Icon on her phone,

It wasnt an issue with her mobile but rather a lack of technical ability on her behalf. she brought it to the Vfone shop in Blanchardstown who said they would "fix" the problem for her and charged her 30 euros.

However there was nothing wrong with the phone in the first place. Vodafone Blanch said they upgraded the firmware on her phone (which wouldnt have sorted out a Whatsapp issue)

My mam rang me and told me this so I contacted Vfone engineers in the Blanchardstown Shop (Jimmy) who refused to give my 80 year old mother her phone back until she paid the money.

I believe they are rip off merchants who are fixing problems and charging for issues which never existed in the first place...

Vodafone have a perfect right to charge what they like for any service they provide.
They do however have to make sure that they are clear that there will be a charge and what it is likely to be.

Did Vodafone make it clear that there would be a €30 charge before they did the work?

If they haven't made it clear that there would be a charge then they can't charge.

Lundstram

People defending this are as bad as the prick in the shop. It's an 80 year old woman struggling to find an app on a phone FFS, 5 minutes would've fixed her problem. You know, an act of kindness. The very concept seems to be lost on assholes looking to make a quick buck from an old lady.

antodeco

FourFourFM wrote: »

The point of your post isn’t valid. We don’t even know what model of phone it is and who the manufacturer is.

The warranty is given by the phone’s manufacturer and covers any defects in the hardware. It doesn’t cover basic how to fixes.

She was charged for a software update and labour (the staff members time). As laughable as it is. But it’s not something that’s covered by the manufacturer’s warranty.

Surely if something wasnt working and it had to be sent off to be fixed, that's a warranty repair?

I think your missing the intent of my posts. 100% should have not been sent off by your man.

However, if it was sent off because they deemed the handset faulty, it would've been covered under warranty (assuming it's in warranty if course) and had no charge.

Regardless of the guy being an @ss, if they deemed it faulty (and in this case seems it clearly wasn't), the "repair" could've been covered under warranty, and no charge.

So sending off "for repair" is one thing, but charging for what they deemed to be a faulty handset, shouldn't incur a charge under warranty.

Now obviously if it's not under warranty, there is a charge for a repair.

Again, not agreeing this phone needed to be repaired. I'm just saying the cost of repair is a separate issue to it being sent off for no reason.

beauf

bossdrum wrote: »

In a previous job in a financial area I had clients and spouses partners come to me come regularly for no particular reason or a variety of reasons which were not relevant to my job.
Once I rang B&B's and booked accommodation and on another occasion I booked rail travel. This person didn't have a credit card so I used my own and they reimbursed me.
I never billed for this but I didn't tell my boss either because you cannot run a viable business doing favours for free.

Maybe the OP's mother problem only took 5 minutes (which I doubt). What happens when it is 20 people a day coming in with the same problem because they hear there is a free service being provided?

Maybe you can set up a shop yourself to provide such a free service and tell the landlord and utility provider they should ashamed to expect payment from you because you are such a good samaritan yourself.

What happens is you put a notice explaining this and a price list. Or make people make appointments and charge for your time.

We have dysmal consumer regulation in Ireland.

elperello

The shop assistant could have explained to the lady that a relation could do what was needed for her but if she wanted VF to do it the job would cost €30.

That would take 2 minutes to explain and could have avoided this situation.

JDxtra

We don't know what was said between the elderly woman and the store representative. Maybe the request was misunderstood and the phone sent for repair.

beauf

I assume there was a detailed invoice.

Shelflife

bossdrum wrote: »

In a previous job in a financial area I had clients and spouses partners come to me come regularly for no particular reason or a variety of reasons which were not relevant to my job.
Once I rang B&B's and booked accommodation and on another occasion I booked rail travel. This person didn't have a credit card so I used my own and they reimbursed me.
I never billed for this but I didn't tell my boss either because you cannot run a viable business doing favours for free.

Maybe the OP's mother problem only took 5 minutes (which I doubt). What happens when it is 20 people a day coming in with the same problem because they hear there is a free service being provided?

Maybe you can set up a shop yourself to provide such a free service and tell the landlord and utility provider they should ashamed to expect payment from you because you are such a good samaritan yourself.

I do run a retail outlet as it happens and while I agree with you that you clearly can’t do it all day long we do carry out a lot of unpaid work for people.

Topping up their phones with credit, checking bills for them, addressing and posting letters for them etc.

They don’t take long and if someone starts to take the piss we no longer do it for them. In the long term it pays off as it’s good customer service.

It doesn’t cost anything to be nice .

Suckit

silver2020 wrote: »

FFS - are you serious.

The nation has plenty of issues and you want a disputed €30 fee get national prominence?

Probably the most stupid suggestion on boards so far this year - and there have been some bad ones.

That's exactly why Joe Duffy's radio show exists. Nobody is suggesting that it take up the entire airwaves or even the airtime of that show for a day, but mention it on it and make people aware. It's a radio show where people ring in or contact about their gripes or where they think they were ripped off. He doesn't have to air it, and most of the time won't. Unless the OP said 'his mother may suffer from some illness in the future' - that might tweak Joes ears.
FWIW, your reply is one of the most ignorant and arrogant that I have read on boards this year, and that takes some doing.

elperello wrote: »

The shop assistant could have explained to the lady that a relation could do what was needed for her but if she wanted VF to do it the job would cost €30.

That would take 2 minutes to explain and could have avoided this situation.

It wouldn't even have taken 2 minutes to do the actual 'job'. He could have clicked 'all apps' then scrolled to whatsapp, long pressed and put it on the home screen.
Roughly 10 seconds.
He would likely have had a compliment leading to some word of mouth business.
People knowing that shop is decent may decide to use them.
I am guessing she went to vodafone shop because she is a vodafone customer.
First thing I would tell her would be to switch network if that is the case.
If he wanted money so bad, he could have tried to sell her a screen protector, or explain that he would have to charge €5 or even €10 :eek:

beauf wrote: »

I assume there was a detailed invoice.

I hope there is, and it's posted here.

freshpopcorn

Lundstram wrote: »

People defending this are as bad as the prick in the shop. It's an 80 year old woman struggling to find an app on a phone FFS, 5 minutes would've fixed her problem. You know, an act of kindness. The very concept seems to be lost on assholes looking to make a quick buck from an old lady.

It’s very common with Vodafone OP. They just want money and then they don’t care from what I can see.
I work in an electrical shop and we don’t sell phones and we often get in older ladies generally looking for advice and help with there phones and if we aren’t busy we’ll help them out because we know they’ll get know where by going to the vodopone shop or they’ll just tell them a good phone is broken.

Vodafone are scrotes. The worst customer service of all.

Yggr of Asgard

So an 80 year old ventures out in the middle of a pandemic to get help in finding a missing application icon on her phone. Seriously?

So if this story is as told than business or not the shop should have deployed human decency and showed her (she is a customer after all) and 120 seconds later she would have been on her way home to safety.

There are groups run by age Ireland I believe that offer 1:1 courses run by IT people who teach older people phone knowledge, how to use zoom, what’s up.

The OP could make contact with them and ensure their family member gets support from there.

But if my 80 year old family member left the house during the pandemic to find an icon on her phone I would have different priorities!

testarossa40

The OP's failure to re-engage with his thread following his "sensational" accusation speaks volumes imo. That a purported IT Network Security expert (according to his profile) was unable to help his mother find the Whatsapp icon on her phone is quite extraordinary. Also I note the OP is not a stranger to posting his mother's alleged grievances against Vodafone Stores on these boards (and is already quite familiar with the "Joe Duffy Strategy"). Maybe over-exposure to fake news & click-baiters has made me unduly cynical but I'd have locked this thread, oh, 27 posts ago...