Can't contact Vodaphone basic broadband for a new connection

[Millennium]

Hi there

I applied for this around 3 weeks ago and got a call back I had to refuse and another I asked to call back in 10 mins. Now they won't call me, no matter how many times I fill in their web based form. I am currently paying £27 for shell bb which is a good speed and latency but out of our price bracket, actually it could be 12£ with Voda as I have mobile with us too.

Anyone know a way to contact Voda VDSL BB for a new concession (UC) connection? Is there a direct line I missed? All I have is the website form and I've filled it in a few times with no call back now.

Thanks HEXUS
Nav

[Rob_B]

Can you use the chatbot 'tobi' and just give random answers until you get put through to a person?

[Millennium]

I got this done by calling up the main line and speaking to someone sitting next to someone on the broadband for those people with benefits team, who called me up shortly afterwards.

I would like to say now that Vodafone do appear to pay attention when you mention faults, I didn't have any real trouble yesterday but it's too early to say if I would recommend them at all...

[MrJim]

Just as a side-note, I've often used https://www.saynoto0870.com/search.php to look up phone numbers for companies which make it difficult to contact them by phone. It also allows you to avoid higher cost phone numbers by using numbers that are often included in your phone 'minutes'.

[Saracen999]

+1 on SayNoTo0870. Long-term 'useful service' award from me.

As for Vodafone, I'm glad it appears to be sorted but I'm just a bit curious, Millenium .... is there a reason for being pretty set on Vodafone? Yeah, I get why they might ignore certain numbers if people are wastng their time. I mean, even 999 gets a (surprisingly high) number of time-asters and prank calls so I'm sure commercal companies (*see note below) do too. BUT .... there's nothing in your account there justfies ignoring you. Sometimes, life intervenes and "callbacks" just arrive at inoportune moments. I had to do a "give me 10 minutes please" when a scheduled GP call arrived (in a 2-hour window) because I was on a different (and unscheduled) phone call with a hospital consultant when the GP rang. Things happen sometimes. The GP rang again about an hour later, no problem.

I think my reaction to being "ignored" by Vodafone would've been "nuts to that" and just gone elsewhere.




NOTE : Somewhat off-topic but .... one of my friends is a (private) medical professional and he found, on going private-only, that a lot of people had zero respect for keeping appointments .... until he implemented a fee for missing apointments without warning. Not a huge fee, something like £20-£25 or so, but enough to sting a bit. His logic, which seems entirely reasonable to me, is if someone simply fails to show up, he (and support staff) are sitting there twiddling their thumbs, until the next appointment shows up but he still has to pay all the usual costs (building costs, power, etc) and of course staff salaries. So .... he charges a fee. Some people refuse to pay it, and he won't pursue it .... but you won't get another appointment while it remains outstanding. You want to see him again, you pay. You won't pay it, find another service provider. It's not like he's short of patients, or doesn't have a waiting list of people wanting to sign up, but for whom he was no available time currently.

People have come up with all sorts of reasons for missng appointments, some of them no doubt genuine, but none could give a reason why their particular emergengy was HIS problem, or fault meaning it should cost him money, or why they couldn't just get on the phone and cancel?

As soon as he implemented that policy, and those patients realised he meant it, 'no-shows' dropped to near zero, with an occasional exception. His conclusion is that lots of people don't value other people's time UNLESS it affects them, and will blithely make appointmentss and not care if they miss them .... unless it costs them. Some of those patients did indeed find an alternate supplier, but many paid up and adjusted their behaviour re: no-show.

As a clarification, I intend no correlation at all, Millenium, between booking time for a professional service, and requesting a sales callback which happens to arrive at an inconvenient moment. They're entirely different situations.

[Millennium]

Saracen and all, I've had Voda Basic BB for months now, thanks for that. The thread can be closed if you like mods. If you like!

As for the broadband, well, it wasn't playing youtube at 9:05pm on a friday without stuttering, I called them (2nd time this week after reprovisioning ) and they didn't actually even give me a fault reference. They claimed they had to go home at end of shift and would call me back Monday.

What about my weekend of crappy crappy internet?

Also the 4G was down to 22Mb/s from a normal 70-90 on 4g so that didn't impress me. I know West London is busy, but they ought to provide a service to paying customers.

If anyone else is on vodafone, if we don't close the thread, for VDSL (and my phone hangs off this connection that keeps not working!!!), I'd be interested in your thoughts. I have a TBB Thread Here.

[Saracen999]

Saracen and all, I've had Voda Basic BB for months now, thanks for that..

Wups.

As for that Voda CS, pretty naff service. I have been known, on a few past occasions, to take exception to that kind of thing and look up the details for and write a brief but pointed letter to the CEO. Surprisingly, I've even sometimes got a direct response from the CEO. More likely is that it gets a few backsides kicked when the CEO finds out what some staff are doing, and any self-respecting CEO would not be impressed by that staff attitude.

When I complained to Dell (UK)'s boss, the result was a buttkicking for several members of staff and a new machine (and marked upgrade) for me. When Amex goofed quite badly, then screwed up fixing the goof, a quick letter to the VP of European operations resulted in the rapid un-goofing of my account, and a $250 bonus as an apology.

i don't mean to say I'm a professional complaint-writer or that that is frequent. I probably hit a beat rate of about once per decade, overall. But it has resulted in some impressive outcomes.

it's also quietly gratifying to hear the tone of voice from someone ringing to apologise, and knowing the CEO-shaped boot print on their rear end is still smarting.

[Millennium]

I'm tempted, honestly, but it would probably be an email since I wouldn't waste the paper it would be printed on!

[MrJim]

I'm tempted, honestly, but it would probably be an email since I wouldn't waste the paper it would be printed on!

I've had to write quite a few letters of complaint recently, and I can certainly understand not wanting to 'waste' paper, time, energy & the cost of postage. But the problem with emails is that they are just too easy to ignore. To an extent the same could be said for a printed letter of course, but the latter does at least indicate to the recipient that you feel strongly enough about the issue in question to actually go to that trouble and expense! In my experience at least, writing a snotty letter of complaint also makes me feel a great deal better!

[Saracen999]

I'd agree with MrJim. My gut tells me an email would be wasted. It'd probably never get near the CEO anyway.

That occasion I moaned at Dell (and IMHO this ONLY works with a genuine complaint over genuinely bad service) was to look up the bosses name, ring Dell and ask for his secretary. I explained to her (very briefly) that I had a complaint i wished to bring to te boss' attention, and can she give me a fax number (yup, that dates it) where she can collect the fax and make sure he gets it. She told me she could do better than that, and gave me a number she assured me was the personal fax machine, sitting right on his desk.

I did have a genuine grievance, and within 30 minutes off sending that fax, people that had been blanking me for several months by that point, were on the phone asking how they could resolve the situation.

My guess is that that 30 minutes consisted of :-

- 5 mins of the boss reading my fax,
- 10 minutes of him checking I was being honest with him, and
- 15 minutes of chewing out various backsides for getting him involved, by not dealing with a genuine issue.

Of course, that timeline is entirely in my imagination, but my own experience with some very senior people at some large companies is that they don't like to be embarrassed by failures within the company, and are happy to light fires under deserving rear ends.

But you have to reach them first!

Hence, "write to", don't email.

in this day and age, it's sufficiently unusual it stands a decent chance of getting to the right pair of eyes .... or his/her PA. I honestly doubt an email would.

[Millennium]

I'm not really well enough at the moment and moving forward but thanks for the suggestion Jim and Saracen. I do enjoy these forums

[Saracen999]

Sorry to hear you're not well, and wish you the best.

There are times, and "been there, done that", when all that really matters is resolving problems that need sorting so things work, and then getting on with tomorrow. Let the rest wash by you, as it doesn't really matter.