Will Robbo's Blog

Before we start, here’s the a summary:

DON’T BUY AN IPHONE 4S FROM VODAFONE. In fact, don’t buy anything from Vodafone.

I am seriously angry at Vodafone. Something as simple as an upgrade has turned into me waiting on the phone for ages and speaking to people who just don’t give a toss about customers. As a sad iPhone geek I want the latest iPhone and I want it now.

I’ve just fired off the angriest E-Mail I’ve ever sent anyone and at one point, went a little bit head-mental and copied the chief exec in because I have no confidence in anyone at that company being able to understand or deal with my complaint.

The complete E-Mail is below.

UPDATE: Vodafone’s contracts aren’t the cheapest – click here for comparisons

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Dear Vodafone people

Please treat this as a formal complaint. No, really, please do. As soon as this E-Mail has finished, I’m going to blog it and copy every single one of my friends and family in on that blog post. Then I’m going to give Consumer Direct a call and give them the full story. Then I’m going to slam this E-Mail on Facebook and Twitter. Then I’m going for a smoke and maybe a cup of coffee.

First off, you have some lovely people in your organisation. You also have some people who I would describe otherwise. As this is a formal(ish) E-Mail, I won’t use the words that I have in mind to describe them.

I’ve been trying to do an upgrade for a while. I kept phoning your upgrades line and being put through to a team in India who said that they weren’t upgrades, there was no launch date for the iPhone 4S and that they couldn’t help me. Yes, they were utterly clueless and to be honest, I think putting a headset on a cat and sticking it in your upgrades contact centre would probably be more effective and give customers more information. Please find a picture of this attached below.

One of the ladies in Web Relations phoned me last week and said that she could do me a free upgrade and that she would call me back after launch. I still haven’t had that callback.

iPhone 4S launch came and went with no word, so I phoned yesterday and spoke to Sarah on the sales line. She said that a free upgrade wouldn’t be a problem after she had looked at my account. I asked her how I could do this and she said that I could either do it online or visit a Vodafone store. I opted for the store.

I went into your Vodafone store in Liverpool One and spoke to a nice bloke called Nathan. He had an iPhone 4S in stock and placed it on the counter in front of me. He took all of my details, ID, etc. and then told me that I had been misinformed by the sales people and that they couldn’t process the upgrade in store as apperently, even though it’s the same company, you’re two different companies! It was a good job he was such a nice bloke because this made me angry.

I stormed home and called your sales team again. This time I spoke to a nice bloke called Chris. Chris said that I had been lied to all day and that the only way that he could process an upgrade would be to pay a £50 upgrade fee and then for him to reimburse it on my next bill. He also told me that the stock wouldn’t be in for around a week.

So I’ve gone from having a free upgrade where I could have had the phone straight away to an upgrade that’s costing me fifty quid but you’ll give me it back at some point. Also, apparently I won’t have it for a month.

I phoned ten minutes ago and spoke to a bloke called Chris. Chris sounds like the sort of bloke who always told his mum and dad that he wanted to be an astronaut or train driver when he left school but ended up working in a call centre and now he hates the world. I asked him if he could give me a delivery update on the phone that I ordered yesterday. He told me (in a rather rude and snappy way) that I could expect to wait up to 2-4 weeks. So now I’m paying fifty quid extra and waiting an extra month.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON AT VODAFONE? Seriously, it’s run like a tramp’s tea-party (again, photo below)

It’s got to the stage now where I’m not even sure if I want the upgrade after all the piddling about that you’ve put me through. How do you keep customers?

Here’s the best part — someone has just asked me (just as I started typing this E-Mail to you) if they should stick with O2 or move to Vodafone for the iPhone 4S. Here’s my response:

As you can see, you’ve lost one customer already. So bloody angry with this. In fact, I’m so angry, let’s copy the chief exec in. Mr Laurence, sorry to drag you into this but your organisation’s customer service is on the rocks.

Seriously, sort it out. Vodafone is run like a tuck shop at a dodgy school at the moment and I really don’t want to give you any more of my money.

Will Robinson