Vodafone refusing to cancel account without termination fees, but their agents refusing to install?

Zverklez

I signed up for Vodafone fibre broadband after moving in to a house, but the installation has not been completed. OpenEir, their installation agents, won't install, calling us to cancel every few weeks for unspecified reasons. It has now been months without a service, but both Vodafone and OpenEir are refusing to let us out of the situation, with Vodafone saying we are liable for termination fees until our 12 month contract is up.

To me this seems like it should be illegal - we are paying for a service which is not being provided. Is there any way out of this?

HazeDoll

I had something similar when I moved into my own house. Months of half-baked excuses and deadlines of "Three to five working days."

Record all your phone calls with Vodafone. Use the audio recorder on your phone. (Keep a written log of calls too with times and names and key points so you don't have to trawl through the audio recordings later.) Tell them you are recording everything. Get every person you talk to to identify themselves. Ask them to be clear about their level of responsibility and if they say it's not really their responsibility insist on speaking to a superior. Ask them what steps are being taken right now and what's next. Ask them what recourse you will have if the promised next step doesn't happen.

If you're talking to somebody with a very unfamiliar accent the tendency is to politely agree even if you have no idea what you're agreeing to. You're going to have to say "I'm very sorry, I can't understand you. I'm going to need to speak to somebody else."

Tell them you expect them to waive all costs for the weeks when the line isn't working. Don't get off the line until they have committed to an answer. You will need to keep insisting on a clear answer or on being put in contact with a superior. If they say "That's a possibility and we'll definitely look into it" ask them what criteria will apply. They are well used to dealing with these situations, there's no way there isn't a hard and fast policy. Ask them what it is.

Don't lose your temper or raise your voice, this gives them an excuse to refuse to interact with you.

They can't hang up on you so exploit that. Give them the impression that you have plenty of time on your hands, even if it's not true. They employ hundreds of people to answer phones who know absolutely nothing. This is so you give up after a few tries because you're getting nowhere. Instead, politely waste their time. At one point I was giving an unfortunate girlie a scene-by-scene description of Home Alone because she had clearly been told not to pass me up the line. I was about 20 mins into it when she eventually was allowed to put me through to somebody who could address my case.

Later that day I got two calls from two different people, both of whom told me they had personally been giving responsibility for handling my case. Neither of them knew about the other. They both had different incorrect pieces of information.

You might have made the same mistake I made by being pleasant and cooperative for too long. Time to be awkward.

HazeDoll

I should add that I was such an awkward customer that when they eventually sorted it all out I didn't have to pay for the months it wasn't working and I got a few months at a greatly reduced rate too.

Have you tried communicating via Twitter? Could be worth setting up an account. They don't like having these conversations in public. They'll ask you to move the conversation to private messages but don't cooperate, keep everything that isn't personal info in public.

HazeDoll

One more thing...

I didn't do this at the time but I subsequently heard that a good tactic is to ask every representative you deal with to read you the record of your interactions with the company relating to this issue, from your first contact with them to the present. I'm told this will get you passed up the line. No idea if it works but I can see how it might.

Is my seething hatred for Vodafone showing?

KildareP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058234299/vodafone-refusing-to-cancel-account-without-termination-fees-but-their-agents-refusing-to-install

Fill out the complaint form: https://n.vodafone.ie/forms/consumer/customer-complaints/fixed-broadband-and-landline-complaints.html

Request a Complaint Reference Number - you have to specifically state this in the "Customer's Description of Query".

If they don't come back to you with a resolution after 10 working days then you can then escalate the matter to ComReg.