Vodafone fined for missing PAYG top-ups, mishandling complaints

[HEXUS]

Will pay £4.6 million "for serious and sustained breaches of consumer protection rules".

Read more.

[excalibur1814]

" the sum will then be passed on to HM Treasury."

That is THEFT. The company should be fined what they didn't pay out or refund the customer. Why, WHY, should the Treasury get the cash? Oh, yes, that would be because the country is run by crooks that goes from the Royal Family, through the BBC and beyond.

Tin foil hat time? Possibly.

[peterb]

" the sum will then be passed on to HM Treasury."

That is THEFT. The company should be fined what they didn't pay out or refund the customer. Why, WHY, should the Treasury get the cash? Oh, yes, that would be because the country is run by crooks that goes from the Royal Family, through the BBC and beyond.

Tin foil hat time? Possibly.

Vodafone are refunding the money to customers in addition to the fine. A fine is a penalty levied by the State for failing to comply with legislation - which is one of the functions of Government.

(And where they haven't been able to trace a few number of customers, they are donating an equivalent sum to charity)

[aniilv]

" the sum will then be passed on to HM Treasury."

That is THEFT. The company should be fined what they didn't pay out or refund the customer. Why, WHY, should the Treasury get the cash? Oh, yes, that would be because the country is run by crooks that goes from the Royal Family, through the BBC and beyond.

Tin foil hat time? Possibly.

going by your logic, they can scam as long as customer does not complain?

[The Hand]

Remember this is only the tip of the iceberg so to speak. Vodafone is the most complained about telecoms company in the UK. No word on contract/pay monthly customer's complaints yet.

I think the most telling point is that Vodafone only moved to solve problems on the "Pay as you go" side after OfCom contacted them over them, showing an indifference to a large number of customer's complaints and dysfunctional processes, systems, and customer service.

[Ttaskmaster]

I suspect this will be another "Volkswagen Are Evil" thing, where numerous other companies in the industry are found to be doing the exact same thing.... but only VW get slammed for it.

Why, WHY, should the Treasury get the cash? Oh, yes, that would be because the country is run by crooks that goes from the Royal Family, through the BBC and beyond.

Yes, indeed... Let's privatise it all and instead have it run by foreign crooks posing as investors, yes?

Jeez, you complain when a company never pays corporate tax, then complain when it is forced to pay money into the same fund...!!!

[chinf]

I suspect this will be another "Volkswagen Are Evil" thing, where numerous other companies in the industry are found to be doing the exact same thing.... but only VW get slammed for it.

I agree - this is not the first time a business's customer service has suffered as a side effect of major process & systems changes, and it won't be the last. IT is anything but easy, especially when it's always seen as a cost centre and driven to tight timescales and even tighter budgets.

Jeez, you complain when a company never pays corporate tax, then complain when it is forced to pay money into the same fund...!!!

Of course, it's easy to hurl criticism as a random internet punter - you don't need to be consistent or accurate, just able to aim roughly in the direction of your keyboard!

[jimborae]

Well this is the 4th month in a row that Vodafone have billed me incorrectly (contract customer not PAYG) and not rembursed me for the previous months overcharging. Maybe it's time I started threatening to go to Ofcom about it and see if that changes anything.

[Macman]

I'm going to check it out but I believe I can get friends and family 20% off the monthly bill (Upto 5 people). All are free if it is the case.

Secondly, I highly recommend you use the Vodafone Live Chat and complain about your bill. I've had my bill fully credited twice and I am now on a 35% discount for my troubles.

[jimborae]

I'm going to check it out but I believe I can get friends and family 20% off the monthly bill (Upto 5 people). All are free if it is the case.

Secondly, I highly recommend you use the Vodafone Live Chat and complain about your bill. I've had my bill fully credited twice and I am now on a 35% discount for my troubles.

If you're an employee that staff discount ended a few months ago There is a replacement scheme but its alot different.

[The Hand]

Well this is the 4th month in a row that Vodafone have billed me incorrectly (contract customer not PAYG) and not rembursed me for the previous months overcharging. Maybe it's time I started threatening to go to Ofcom about it and see if that changes anything.

After 8 weeks from an unresolved issue, you can request a deadlock letter and then proceed to lodge a complaint with OfCom:

http://ask.ofcom.org.uk/help/service...lling/deadlock

Maybe you should threaten Vodafone with going to OfCom! It might be necessary to get it reoslved.

[Ttaskmaster]

Well this is the 4th month in a row that Vodafone have billed me incorrectly (contract customer not PAYG) and not rembursed me for the previous months overcharging.

Worth going on Live Chat and questioning the overcharges, as there are some weird hidden costs.

For example, I got hit for sending smileys in text messages, because I was clicking on the yellow emoticon button and selecting one. That counts as an image and so is sent as an MMS, apparently, whereas typing it using ": - )" will make Android show the smiley as a green image in the messaging app and costs nothing extra.

[jimborae]

Yeah I know about that but that is not the case in this instance.

[Syphadeus]

I suspect this will be another "Volkswagen Are Evil" thing, where numerous other companies in the industry are found to be doing the exact same thing.... but only VW get slammed for it.


Yes, indeed... Let's privatise it all and instead have it run by foreign crooks posing as investors, yes?

Jeez, you complain when a company never pays corporate tax, then complain when it is forced to pay money into the same fund...!!!

What's funny is that £4.6 Million is breadcrumbs compared to the amount of corportation tax that Vodafonies has dodged over the years. It was estimated at billions. Their customer service is widely regarded as rubbish in an industry where most organisation's service is rubbish. Following Brexit they're shedding 10K jobs or something like that. Still, economically trivial in comparison to the tax they've dodged.

The sooner they bugger off the better. Disgraceful company by all accounts. The bigger muppets are HMRC though, because this country is well on it's way to going to the dogs thanks all the fat cats being allowed to get fatter while the rest of us swivel and bemoan £10 PAYG top ups not going through correctly. Happy times!

[whatif]

Remember this is only the tip of the iceberg so to speak. Vodafone is the most complained about telecoms company in the UK. No word on contract/pay monthly customer's complaints yet.

I think the most telling point is that Vodafone only moved to solve problems on the "Pay as you go" side after OfCom contacted them over them, showing an indifference to a large number of customer's complaints and dysfunctional processes, systems, and customer service.

I will add to that not only in the UK is vodaphone complained about, but it also is just as bad in Australia with a huge number of dissatisfied customers left in it's wake.
I am surprised that is is still in business.
Several years ago, my provider at the time (3) was bought by vodaphone and closed down. So my 3 account was passed onto them. I had never had a problem in all the time I had been with 3.
Yet within 2 months I started having payment issues and I was incorrectly penalised each time. They kept claiming that I payed late even though it was set up as direct debit. The first payment was taken out correctly, but after that I was panalised for late payments.
Yet there was over $10,000 dollars in the account and the Visa card details were all correct.
The bank told me that vodaphone had not tried to access my money until after the due date.
So it was vodaphones fault for not getting the money on time and they were scamming me for extra money.
We have a telecommunications Ombudsman here in Australia who deal with these issues, and they sorted this out within 3 weeks of contacting them. But it took vodaphone 2 months to reimberse me.
Then they started doing it again about 6 months later.
So I again complained to the ombudsmen and found out they had been doing this to many of their customers.
I canceled my contract and at first they tried to charge me a early closure fee even though they had breached the terms of the contract with excessive illegal fees and refused to repay the other fees. And they would pass me around to various people, leaving me on hold for ages in between (I think in a attempt to get me to give up and hang up) whenever I tried to talk to them about this issue.
About 3 months later, I finally received a payment - included all the incorrect fees I had payed, my early leaving fee they automatically removed from my account (surprisingly that was taken out immediately I cancelled, so they could access my account without any problems), plus full reimbersment of my last 3 months bills.
I also heard from the Ombudsmen that they had been fined.
vodaphone is the worst of the worst telecommunications provider offender I am aware of.
In contrast, I am now with Amasym and have had no problems in years.

[Ttaskmaster]

What's funny is that £4.6 Million is breadcrumbs compared to the amount of corportation tax that Vodafonies has dodged over the years.

Not really... just about every company will dodge taxes wherever it can.
My own employer has drained our pension funds, because up to a few months ago it was perfectly legal to do so, as long as the company can demonstrate that it *intended* to pay it back along with the tax on the lending... of course, there are a hundred different reasons why it never will, all perfectly legal, justifiable and reasonable in court, but equally foreseeable and without them actually needing to care.

The only jokes here are the UK laws that allow them to do this and us people who let it happen.

Their customer service is widely regarded as rubbish in an industry where most organisation's service is rubbish.

But their coverage is one of the best and so long as people are getting service, that's all they care about.
Round where I live, you won't ever get any signal at all unless you're on Voda.