Bizarre Vodafone Pricing and Support

[davidpriddle]

Took out a new SIM only contract with Vodafone on 8th May 2017 at a rate of £10.50 per-month. Not incredible value for money, but not bad and I was relatively happy with Vodafone at the time. 

On 15th May 2017 received a text telling me my monthly rate was going up by £2 per-month in June.

I phoned Vodafone's support to query this. After wrestling my way past the automated voice system that couldn't understand what I was asking I finally reached an agent. 

The agent told me it was due to an RPI increase for the year up to April. I unfortunately was unable to get the agent to understand that this made no sense, as I'd only had the contract for one week. (And of course RPI in the UK is running at roughly 2.7% rather than the near 20% that a £2 increase implied.) 

Unfortunately the managers were all at lunch. Someone was due to phone me back yesterday afternoon, but so far no news. 

[Rs101]

The 2016 onward contract does allow for a single price rise every 12 months. However it also states the customer will be notified in advance of any increase - something EE and o2 do by text. Vodafone should presumably also do the same?

[jeffkinn]

Yes they certainly should  - I was notified of my increase by text on March 22nd

[Rs101]

Interesting. What is your billing date please? 

I joined on 20th April and the RPI increase appeared on my May bill without any warning. 

I foolishly assumed that the April bill was the adjusted one (as the contract says the adjustment will be applied from the April bill onward). 

[jeffkinn]

My billing date is the 16th of the month. The May bill that I've just had was the first time I've seen the increase applied.

I think it's very poor to apply an increase to a contract that was taken out in April even if it was before the date that the increase applied from.

My contract will be upgraded at the end of July so I'll only pay 3 lots of the RPI increase.