Continued Customer Service Problems

[wbhart125]

Hello,

I have been for months now having serious problems with Vodafone refusing to provide customer service, providing inadequate customer service or taking incorrect actions after contacting their customer service (I have tried in English, my native tongue and in German, with assistance from a German native colleague with exquisite command of the language).

The issues are now so numerous and serious that I do not know where to even begin.

After sending yet another letter to Customer Service by post I received a reply that I should get customer service on this forum. (By the way, for the record, I object to this on the grounds that Vodaphone is an international company with employees in English speaking countries.)

Let me start with the following:

1) Do Vodafone Customer Service representatives provide account specific customer service in English on this forum? Or are they only allowed to advise customers on what actions they should take?

2) Are my communications protected, i.e. private and not public?

3) The issues I wish to address relate to cancelling a switch to another provider and terminating my contract with Vodafone for multiple reasons, including appalling Customer Service over a period of months, locking me into a new two year contract after I notified in writing in German that I was leaving Germany later this year after my existing contract was paid out, after discussing the matter with Customer Service on the Phone (with a translator) and after I had been subsequenty notified in writing that there was a zero month termination, failing to terminate a switch to an alternative provider (as is my right under law) after requesting this by post in German resulting in issues with that provider which are still not resolved. Are these issues that can be resolved on this forum.

William.

[Grit]

Hello wbhart125,

we cannot offer the requested service at this point. In addition, the communication here is nciht üprivat. Therefore, I recommend you to contact the customer service on Facebook or Twitter via a private message. There you can also tell the employees your request in English.

Regards

Grit

[wbhart125]

For the record, that does not work.

The Facebook Group is administered by a Bot which does not speak English, just like the Vodafone website.

[Gelöschter User]

Do you have a german speaking support in Amerika or England? No? Why not?

[MasterScorpion]

"By the way, for the record, I object to this on the grounds that Vodaphone is an international company with employees in English speaking countries"

For the record: The contractual language in Germany is german.

When you leave the country you need to use the relocation service.

"failing to terminate a switch to an alternative provider (as is my right under law)"

There are restrictions for that - ask an lawyer.

" after my existing contract was paid out,"

What does this mean?

BTW: not working for VF.

[wbhart125]

Thanks for the response.

Regarding German vs English: I tried twice to sort this out in German, with the assistance of a colleague. The first time by post my request was essentially ignored. The second time by phone I ended up in a new contract after Customer Service told me I was just reverting back to my old contract. I had a right to terminate with one month notice on my old contract but the new contract which I did not authorise has a 2 year run time! So the issue here is not the language.

Yes, the contract language in Germany is German, but this does not prevent a company from providing customer service in English. The contract should be in German, but customer service from a company that claims to be an international company should be available in English. Even some of Vodafone's German competitors provide perfect English support even though they are not international companies, proving that there is no obstacle to doing so.

It's difficult to imagine how it would be difficult for Vodafone to offer customer service by mail in English. A large percentage of German people speak good English and it is not at all difficult to imagine my letter being transferred to a colleague at Vodafone Customer Service who speaks English. I don't even mind if the reply by post is in German.

Please note that instead of doing this, Vodafone themselves told me by post to get English customer service on this forum!

As for cancelling the switch to the alternative provider, the other provider confirmed I have the right to cancel the switch in my particular case. I was also advised that I had a right to cancel the switch by a Vodafone employee in a Vodafone cable shop who spoke perfect English but told me she was not allowed to provide customer service!!

I notified Vodafone months ago in writing that I wanted to cancel the switch. According to the other provider, Vodafone had not notified them of this. The other provider tried to install the service right up to the last minute believing that I had not cancelled the switch.

Finally, regarding "paying out" my old contract. I mean that it was initially a two year contract and the two years had passed. There is a new law in Germany that one can cancel with one month notice if you are in this situation (there are some conditions of course, it doesn't apply for all types of services). Vodafone already sent me in writing a confirmation that I could cancel with zero months notice. But later, they locked me into a new contract that I did not sign, "as a thank you", even though I had told them I was going overseas later and wanted to stop using Vodafone! I made myself clear at every point, but they took this action anyway.

[wbhart125]

@Gelöschter User In the US, you will find Spanish support lines everywhere, as a significant number of Americans speak Spanish.

If you were in Thailand, even as a German you would probably expect to be able to get support in English.

I understand what you are saying, but English is a trade language and virtually all Germans learn it in school. And just to reiterate, I tried at each step to do everything in German (with assistance from my boss who speaks both languages perfectly) and this did not help.

[wbhart125]

To follow up on what happened: I contacted Customer Service on Facebook. Despite the German bot an employee who speaks English does eventually answer.

They told me that there is now nothing they can do to help and that I can make a complaint, but not to them.

Apparently the whole problem arose when I called on the telephone to cancel the switch to the alternate provider, Vodafone sent me by email a "Service Order" which showed that the contract runtime was 0 months and that I could cancel after 0 months.

But then Vodafone sent me an "Order Confirmation" by post which has different details. They claim that I did not object to this in time and so the contract cannot be cancelled. I didn't even know about it until I finally managed to log in to my account (another series of problems made this impossible) whilst I was overseas on leave and discovered that I was locked into another two year contract that I didn't order.

This is astonishing. You can ring Vodafone to ask for one thing, check very carefully that they understand what you are requesting. They then send you a "Service Order" confirming what you ordered. But then they confirm a completely different thing that you did not order and explicitly did not want, by post, and somehow they claim this is legally binding!

And Vodafone think they are "thanking" me by helping themselves to my bank account for another two years without me taking any action whatsoever.

My understanding is that recent legislation prohibits this. If the contract is not ordered by the customer, I thought that there was automatically a one month cancellation! I fail to see how this new law is protecting anyone. Surely this is *precisely* the situation this is meant to prevent!

I will be making a complaint about this. I'm honestly utterly astonished that any company thinks this is the way they should treat customers.

[Gelöschter User]

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@wbhart125  schrieb:

@Gelöschter UserIn the US, you will find Spanish support lines everywhere, as a significant number of Americans speak Spanish.

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But I speak german, not spanish, so where is the german support? Do you think a spanish-speaking hotline would be helpful for me?