This is just explaining how awful my repair experience has been with vodafone and I strongly suggest no one bothers paying insurance and just puts that money every month into a seperate account and just buys a replacmeent phone if anything goes wrong.
The story is that I broke the screen on my phone, so I made a claim through my insurance. I was told by the operator that I have to take the phone into a Vodafone store with my reference number to have it sent off for the repairs to be carried out. It took me over a month to take it into a store as I work 2 jobs and study part time at university. I was then informed by the store that the handset could have just been sent off and that a lot of time was wasted with me having to arrange some time to take it in.
So anyway, the phone gets sent off, I was told 7-10 days turnaround time which I read is average. I checked the online tracker and it hadn't moved, so after 2 weeks (14 days) I decided enough is enough and decided to phone vodafone. After around 3/4 hours of different calls and being passed around I was told "you will just have to wait" which for me is not good enough when you have already waited 14 days using a temporary old phone which luckily I could use as my brother was on holiday.
I decided I would lodge a complaint, so I phoned up your complaints department which the gentleman I spoke to was extremely helpful. He was the only person who gave me a good answer and tried to help the situation rather than just pass it over to someone else. The gentleman I spoke to said they couldnt fix the phone and supposedly placed an order for a new handset that day, bit of a coincidence isnt it? The day I chase them a new handset is ordered, which I was told wouldnt be with the repair center till next tuesday, so another 7 days to wait. This phone would then have to be sent out to the vodafone store, so it wouldnt have been with them till thursday/friday the following week. So I have already waited 2 weeks, and it would have been another 2 weeks till I would have a chance to collect the new handset. I have to ask how is this an acceptable time frame in this day and age, especially when youve paid for a service.
So anyway I still wanted to take my complaint further but accepted the time frame, I was told vodafones customer relations team would call me back in 48 hours, I did ask how they would do that as I dont have a phone or access to a phone whilst at work. At this point my brother was back off holiday so he required his handset back. So I gave them my landline number which I did say I wouldnt be at, I would only be able to answer in the evenings after 6pm. But I was informed if they couldnt get hold of me they would send an email or details over. 4 days later I havent heard one thing from them.
I phoned up the next day anyway as I had a think and realised it was not acceptable to have to wait another 48 hours for them to get back to me. So I phoned up again and couldnt get through to complaints after being on hold for 37 minutes, so I went through to the insurance department. The gentleman I spoke to there couldnt understand why they hadnt ordered a phone from the warehouse as it was showing in stock. So after a brief chat i was asked what my phone was and I said it was a Samsung S6 Edge in Emerald Green. He said thats fine and I would have a new handset with me on thursday.
Thursday rolls around, but I was at university so it was sent to my workplace. I have come in this morning and the wrong colour phone has been sent to me. So obviously I am fuming by this point. Im without a phone, no phone to contact them. The online chat vodafone offers isnt helpful one bit as they just tell you to call the relevant department. So the operator on the live chat said I can open the new phone (which is a waste of opening a new phone) to call them. So I called the insurance who after 10 minutes passed me onto repairs saying they have to sort it out. So after being on hold again, repairs tell me they cant sort it out its the Insurance department as they ordered the new handset. So back to insurance I went, who after being on the phone for over an hour decided that the gentleman that I spoke to on Tuesday had ordered the wrong phone and had not informed me that the Green S6 Edge was not available. If I had known this I would have just waited for the repairs company and asked the insurance company to loan me a handset whilst I wait another 2 weeks.
So I am informed by insurance that they cant order the new handset in the correct colour so I have to just accept what I have got, yet the repairs company can order me the correct phone (which the original order had now been cancelled).The lady I spoke to at the insurance was very understanding and helpful, and she passed me onto her manager who was no help at all. All he has informed me about is I have to phone the insurance complaints department or they will call me back within 1-5 days. I was obviously not happy to have to wait up to 5 days for the complaint to even be assessed let alone resolved. I asked him, as a manager if he can resolve this and phone me back by the end of the day which he refused to do, just pass on my details to them. So once again, the paying customer is having to go out of their way to resolve an issue Vodafone has created. This is point blank wrong. So after 18 days of taking my phone into store, I am told I have to wait 1-5 days to even talk to the complaints department, which will probably take another week on top of that. So it will basically be at over a months time before this is even semi resolved.
What I dont uderstand is how can vodafone offer a service, charge someone for it and not actually carry out this service within a reasonable time frame?
Has anyone else experienced how bad vodafones insurance/repairs service is or just me? Its made me 99% certain im leaving vodafone within the next couple of days and cancelling my contract.
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