Me vs. Vodafone (continued)

Miguel_Sanchez

Short version - I text the Jay Ahern show in March and my full name is sent to them with my text. Also my message is received in duplicate with another person's name on the second instance.
2FM don't keep databases and I have never texted them before with my name so Vodafone are in violation of their privacy policy

Ok - I've been talking to people in Vodafone on three seperate occasions and all three times I have been promised that I will be contacted within a few days with a satisfactory explanation. The first two times I heard nothing in reply. I told them this time that if I don't hear back from someone with a full explanation before Friday I will be writing a letter to the Regulator of Telecommunications, the Department of Consumer Affairs and the Data Protection people (whoever they are).

Ok. Well I sent a strongly worded letter to the Director of Customer Operations and the Data Protection Manager (both in Vodafone).
According to their web site the Director of Customer Operations should acknowledge receipt of my letter within 3 working days. I sent the letters on the 28th April and haven't received any word from them as of today (7th May).
At this stage I'm thinking that I should just go ahead and send my complaints to the Regulator of Telecommunications, the Department of Consumer Affairs and the Data Protection Office.

Has anyone else had trouble like this with a phone company?
Am I wasting my time chasing them - are they going to continually ignore me?
Should I go the airwaves and Talk to Joe or ring the Ryanline?

Tusky

whats your problem with them using your real name ? is it that big and a deal and worth all this effort ?

Miguel_Sanchez

My problem is that Vodafone gave out my full name when my text was sent.

It's completely illegal for them to do this.

I've spent enough money on credit with the bastards that the least they can do is honour their self proclaimed 'Privacy Policy'.

I think it's worth at least an explanation and an assurance from them that it will not happen again. If I had got either of these at the start I probably would have dropped the matter. But the fact that they ignored me repeatedly has riled me up enough to keep going with this.

The point is that if they give out my details once they could do it again.

Sketch

i can see why you're mad or whatever but if i was you i wouldnt give a toss

Trojan

Originally posted by Jeff_Lebowski
My problem is that Vodafone gave out my full name when my text was sent.

It's completely illegal for them to do this.

I've spent enough money on credit with the bastards that the least they can do is honour their self proclaimed 'Privacy Policy'.

I think it's worth at least an explanation and an assurance from them that it will not happen again. If I had got either of these at the start I probably would have dropped the matter. But the fact that they ignored me repeatedly has riled me up enough to keep going with this.

The point is that if they give out my details once they could do it again.

I think you're damn right.

Maybe this post is more suited to the security board.

Al.

Spacedog

I believe you should care about this, every company these days have well worded privacy policies, guarenteeing users privacy with the information they handle. These companies will withold the name and address of a customer who may be making abusive calls so you can't hunt them down and kill them. but they are more than happy to sell your details to 2fm and probably any other party with a few quid who doesn't hold your intrests to heart. ever wonder how people keep managing to spam your phone with adverts and ****e? That's bad McCracken. Anyone got any experience fighting the corperate tyrants?

monument

I also think your right to follow this up, contact the Data Protection office first as they should be helpful in letting you know what to do etc…

seamus

Originally posted by Jeff_Lebowski
Ok. Well I sent a strongly worded letter to the Director of Customer Operations and the Data Protection Manager (both in Vodafone).
According to their web site the Director of Customer Operations should acknowledge receipt of my letter within 3 working days. I sent the letters on the 28th April and haven't received any word from them as of today (7th May).
At this stage I'm thinking that I should just go ahead and send my complaints to the Regulator of Telecommunications, the Department of Consumer Affairs and the Data Protection Office.

Yep go ahead and contact them. Department Managers in Vodafone don't even respond to colleagues (I'm beginning to think they're so old that they don't know how to use email).

A little bit of a shakeup is needed to either scare or dislodge the eircell crusties still wasting money and damaging rep. in Vodafone.

Just remember when you contact Vodafone, not to eat the head off the poor customer service peeps, just sound angry. When they tell you that someone should get back to you straight away, they believe it, but if Mr. Dept Manager decides not to get back to you, it's not incompentence on the customer service guy's part

Nietzschean

spoken like a true employee

Miguel_Sanchez

Well I've written letters to Vodafone (ignored) and rang the Data Protection Manager and the Director of Customer Operations and left messages which were ignored.

Rang the Gerry Ryan show about it today and was told that they may include me on their show next Monday.

Rang the Director of Customer Operations again and eventually got talking to someone about this. Was told that it couldn't happen etc. etc. - explained to the girl that it had happened and that my name must have come from their end because 2FM don't have databases for text requests.

They went back through their records and checked out the night in question. There's no record of me texting 2FM at that time that I did. They have records of texts sent from my phone before and after but no record of that text.

This is very very weird so I'm going to push for some more answers and hopefully get this whole thing sorted out.