1 March 2009 Letter to: Alpa Panchal, Vodafone Customer Services, PO Box 549, Banbury OX17 3ZJ
Dear Alpa
RE: Your reference C3768074. My Vodafone account
I am in receipt of your letter dated 23rd February but must admit to being somewhat confused as to your response. You open by saying you tried to call me several times but could not get through. I am sorry to hear this, my Vodafone has in the past been quite reliable, I have experienced good coverage and all missed calls have been recorded as such. In this instance I have experienced no missed calls or been out of a coverage area for some weeks and yet you say you have tried to call me several times. This is indeed puzzling.
I have also checked my new O2 phone which is with me at all times, there have been no missed calls on that phone either.
Perhaps there is a problem at your end. Please try again at your leisure to call me on my new mobile number 075 XXXX XXXX or on my home phone XXXXXXXXX or at work on XXXXXXXXX. Of course my old Vodafone services will no longer work as I have enclosed the two SIMs with this letter and previously asked you to cancel the service (see my letters of 28th December and 17th February).
You then go on to try to clarify some details for me. However the opening paragraph of this “clarification” is written in a sort of pseudo English, to wit:
“Furthermore, I realise that although giving the details your Direct Debit was cancelled. Let me clarify the details for you.”
I am not sure what this means so it is hard to refute or comment on and I will say no more on this. Of more concern is the next paragraph which says:
“I have checked your account and can see that on 10th November 2008, the new Direct Debit details were updated however, due to non-payment your account was transferred to Collections on 12th December 2008 and the Direct Debit details were cancelled.”
Alpa, I can assure you that at no time have there been insufficient funds in my account to pay a telephone bill from Vodafone and that if a Direct Debit was exercised by Vodafone it would have been paid.
I must say to you I feel insulted that you are inferring that I have not paid a bill or that I have not been able to pay a bill that I have been requested to pay.
In the next but one paragraph you state that I contacted you on 28th December 2008 to lower my price plan. I did not. I contacted you on 28th December to ask why my phone had been cut off without warning and why the access to my online account which I could have used to check for problems was also removed without warning. I also requested information as to why I had received no phone call from Vodafone to try to clear the matter up, and why Vodafone had not emailed me (you have had my email address for several years) to try to clear the matter up.
During this conversation and after the service person from Vodafone told me that it was normal practice to cut customer services off without warning and that they did not consider it necessary to try to follow up first with a customer I informed the operator that I wished to reduce the service and to cancel the account. At this point the call was dropped. I then wrote to you asking you to cancel the service forthwith.
I called again on the 29th December to pay the outstanding charge on the phone so that at least I could use it until you actioned the cancellation. I also requested at that time to reduce the service level until the cancellation was auctioned and was told that this was not possible.
Your next paragraph requests me to let you know if I wish to switch to paper billing. Alpa I am no longer a Vodafone customer, I will not be attempting again to use your on-line services or your mobile phone services. I want, as I requested, a full and final bill. Whether you wish to send it to my email address or to my home address is irrelevant. But do not post it on your computer system.
I am willing to concede that your early cancellation fee effective 23 February 2009 applies and will be happy to pay that fee and any service charges up to that date. I will not be liable for any service charges after that date as you were clearly informed in writing that I wish to cancel the service. I feel that I am being very reasonable here given that I asked for the service to be cancelled at the end of December 2008. Please send the full and final bill to me at your convenience by email (xxxx@gmail.com) or by paper mail to my home address.
I note your final paragraph:
“I have checked the address on the account is different from the address that is mentioned on your letter. If you have updated your address please let me know so that I can update it on your account and all the future correspondences can be sent at the new address”
Alpa, Vodafone was notified in writing in July 2008 of our new address (as shown on this letter). There has been no change to this address since that time.
A final thought.
The mobile phone business is a competitive one and the service offerings vary little from one supplier to another. It is indeed a privilege for a company to be chosen to supply this service to an individual. As a customer of Vodafone I expected to be treated with some respect and as an individual. Not as a number and not as beholden to you or Vodafone.
Your customer service is of very poor quality. Your electronic services are disjointed and irritating for consumers. You repeatedly ask for PIN numbers and logins as call handling is transferred from electronic to human-based systems, you cannot even get simple things like address changes right, your company is very difficult to communicate with, you do not present a human face to your customers (preferring electronic means), your web site is slow, inconsistent and difficult to use, and your staff take every opportunity to up-sell when one does come in contact with them.
Encs. 2
4 March 2009 Email from: Vodafone Customer Services
I m sorry to learn about the level of service you have received from us and I sincerely apologise for all the inconvenience caused, as this is absolutely not the way Vodafone believes in serving its customers.
I have checked the details and confirm that your account was not cancelled in month of December, as the commitment period for both the number XXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXXX would not have been completed until April and May 2009 and if you would have cancelled them before the commitment completion date you would have been charged early cancellation fee.
As you have returned the SIM cards, I have cancelled both the numbers without any early cancellation fee immediately and you need to pay the outstanding balance of 113.09.
The final bill will be sent to you about three weeks from the date of cancellation and will include the line rental and usage charge until cancellation date. The address on your account is updated and I have sent copy of bills towrads the
outstanding balance. I trust the above information is helpful.
Shrikant Londhe Vodafone Customer Services
4 March 2009 Email to Vodafone Customer Services.
Thanks Shrikant.
