Thanks - I've put a copy of the content of my letter below for your information. As I am sure you can appreciate I am a little fed up with trying to reoslve this matter with Vodafone. It shouldn't matter which media I use (phone/forum/Facebook/email) to this I wasn't aware one was better than the other!
I am writing to complain about the deduction of £150 from my bank account on 8 September 2014 which was made without my consent.
I sent two letters of which one was sent with my phone when it was sent to the repair office to ascertain whether the fault was a manufacturer fault, both explicitly saying that I did not want Vodafone to fix my phone if it was going to be at a cost to myself. In addition when my phone was returned I received a letter advising that “…the manufacturer’s fault had been fixed at the price agreed”. Since I had not agreed to pay any monies for the repair of my phone I reasonably assumed that there was no charge for fixing the phone and thought nothing further of it.
I then realised that my September bill was exceptionally high and upon investigation discovered that on my bill under “other” (there was no additional description) there was an amount of £150. I first reported this matter to Vodafone by telephone on 18 September 2014 and was advised that the £150 related to the fixing of my phone. I expressed my dismay that Vodafone had deducted these monies when my letters had made it very clear I was not prepared to pay for the phone to be fixed. I was advised that the matter would need to be investigated. I appreciated that Vodafone would need to complete an internal investigation as to why this error occurred but did not understand why Vodafone should keep £150 of my money which had been taken without my authorisation in the meantime. I was promised a phone call within 48 hours which I did not receive.
I then rang on 25 September 2014 to follow this matter up. Having waited over 20 minutes to speak to someone in customer services I advised that as I was now home and Vodafone have very poor signal in the area where I live that the lady should ring me straight back on my landline. No one phoned back. I then rang again and waited yet another 20 minutes to speak to someone who advised that the offices where the staff that were able to help me was now shut. I asked why there was not just a message to advise me of this on the phone rather than having to wait 20 minutes to speak to someone, spend a further 20 minutes explaining the situation to be advised that no one was actually able to assist me. The lady again advised that someone would get back to me but could not confirm when this would be.
In my frustration I looked up Vodafone on Facebook and complained. I was advised to send my complaint in writing to a special email address which I duly did and have had no response to date.
I spoke to customer services yet again on 18 October 2014 via chat to spend over half an hour explaining the situation to “Seth” for him to advise that he too could not help me. I asked that he arrange for me to be put in touch with someone who was able to assist me. He rang my landline and transferred my call to a lady who knew nothing about my situation (despite “Seth” advising that he would explain the situation to the person he put me through to), put me on hold and then proceeded to hang up. As I was still on chat I advised Seth of this and he tried again for the second person to do exactly the same thing. Except this time Seth had asked that I close my chat window before transferring the call therefore I had no way of letting him not the line had gone dead and yet again wasted over an hour of my time.
Again I reverted to Vodafone’s Facebook page and received a response advising to send another special email which I have chosen not do since the last one was ignored.
I have now spent over half an hour writing this letter so all in all to get the money back that Vodafone had no authorisation to deduct in the first place has to date taken over three hours of my time. Needless to say this is an extremely frustrating situation.
I will also be sending a copy of this letter to Ofcom as I feel I have given Vodafone ample opportunity to rectify this mistake. I also feel I am due compensation as this matter has caused me a significant amount of distress not to mention negatively affected my finances significantly.
I look forward to your prompt response.
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