Text and Web freebee

[woodstockthree]

Hi - can someone answer my question below? The staff on Facebook keep trying to refer me to live chat and I have "experienced" that before. I don't need anyone to refer to my account - it has been corrected, compensated and a fault raised (allegedly). But I think the person I spoke to has given me incorrect information and so I am trying to get clarification. Copied and pasted post shown below:

Hello. I have a question. I have the text and Web freebee with 500mb data and so many texts as long as I top up at least £10 within that 30 days. I have had occasions where the bundle has not rolled over although I have complied by topping up the required amount and each time I have phoned and got the bundle reactivated and a promise that it will be investigated and it won't happen again.

It has happened again this month and I have had to wait up after a 12 hour night shift to wait for you to open at 0800 to phone and sort it out. The gentleman I spoke to has refunded the credit I wouldn't have used if it had been in place as well as extra data and texts - thanks for this. He has also raised it as a fault to find out why it keeps happening and apparently it won't happen again - we will see.

However he said that I have to top up when I get the text that the bundle is about to expire and that credit added during the month does not count. I do not feel this is correct as I know some months I have topped up £10 during the month and it has rolled over, also some months I have topped up £10 for two or more weeks and this has resulted in the additional texts for topping up an increased amount. In fact when the last bundle expired, I actually did what he said, ie i got the text saying the bundle would expire, I topped up the day before it expired, but it didn't roll over. A subsequent top up of £10 I made the following week did not reactivate it either. It was only during my night shift at about 0300 today that I checked my balance and realised the total was lower than it should be and that there were no data/texts remaining.

It is not always convenient for me to top up on a specific day due to my shifts and as I said, this has never been the case before, and credit added during the month has counted towards ensuring the bundle rolls over as it should do.

Please don't suggest a contract - I had one with you many years ago and it was a nightmare and reading the posts here, things have not improved. However I would be grateful if someone could clarify the conditions regarding when to top up and by how much as I don't think I have been given the correct advice. I have used this bundle for many years and have always been able to top up when I need to and have the bundle roll over as planned (except for a few occasions every so often where it appears to fail and I have to ring you).

I look forward to your reply. Thanks.

[woodstockthree]

Hopefully all being well, I will do the transfer next week.  He didn't take on board anything I said about them not following their own T&C's and said because I hadn't topped up then the autorenew had lapsed, and even when I challenged him he still said it - but I've always topped up at least 10 00 and some months even more.   I gave up in the end but he definitely said that as it is a legacy product they are not autorenewing the allowances.  But if it is a programming issue and noone wants to or can't fix the problem, I just don't see why they don't pull the product and make people choose- they've certainly lost a long standing customer through all this.   I've been shouted at, talked down to and I feel generally have been treated so badly through this and they could have solved things a lot earlier by saying they can't or don't want to offer this any more and move onto something else - without putting people through phoning every month or having to remember to top up on a specific day.   

[Alex]

@woodstockthree I'm sorry to hear about this. If you'd like to discuss your experience with us further, please contact us using the steps in the private message I've sent. 

[woodstockthree]

I've asked for help on here before - the tech team said they would look into it but nothing ever happened, and according to the live chat last night, it seems that you have no plan to fix the issue.  I emailed via the route on private messaging before and got put in touch with the social media team, who were the ones who talked down to me, one shouted at me.  So I don't really want to go through that again.   Why contact me now - didn't you think I would follow through with my promise to go if it wasn't resolved?   I even emailed the chief executive because he gave an interview to the daily mail and published his email address for people to contact him directly - so I emailed to tell him what had happened, as well as further emails giving details of the responses I was getting from the social media team - but no response from him either.   Annie_n has been the most helpful and as far as I can tell, she is a customer same as myself as well as being very active and helpful on this forum.   The social media team and the person on live chat last night all have consistently ignored your own terms and conditions which state that a top up of 10.00 during the 30 days will ensure the text and Web freebee is applied the following month.   I should not have to top up on a specific day just because you can't or won't  put your your IT systems right.   I work 12 hour shifts for an emergency service, which together due to no car due to a severe visual impairment means I cannot top up on a specific day.  

I think I have been with you for 7 or 8 years this time and apart from a brief foray with t-mobile (a disaster so I came back), I think I have been with you since about 1994.  I had a contract for a while but then went onto the text and Web freebee because I could never get you to tell me how many minutes I had left (before the app) and this has worked well until recently.  Occasionally I would find it hasn't rolled over but I could just phone and get it done.  But recently it has been every month and when I have phoned I was told it wold be logged as a fault - but nothing was ever done - and then I was told in the Iive chat last night that you know about it and there is no plan to restore it.  We are all your customers, even those without contracts and those on "legacy" products.   So are you going to resolve the issue now?  

[Jenny]

@woodstockthree - I’m disappointed to hear this.

Please reply to the last email we sent, so we can look into everything further.

[woodstockthree]

Hi Jenny, I'm not sure which you want me to reply to.  I have some emails from the social media team, and I was sent a private message asking me to fill in my details with a code - which just put me in touch with the social media team.  I don't know if this is where you are but my experience is of young men who felt they could talk down to me and were of no help whatsoever - the new phenomenon of "mansplaning".  I really don't want to go that route again and think this needs to go higher.  Unfortunately your chief executive didn't see fit to reply!  

If you have a look through this thread, I was trying to report it via the private message route for a while and filled the form in, the website said I had submitted the details, but no email ever came.   It was only when Annie_n asked if I had a Yahoo address as there are problems getting the acknowledgement emails with the reference number to these addresses, and so used my gmail account instead.  I can supply the reference number if that helps but i don't want to speak to the same people again.  The call centre kept saying they would report it but nothing happened.  Prior to that I had tried Facebook - to be told they can't deal with account specific queries (it's not account specific if no one's text and Web is renewing!) - and Twitter - no reply at all.  Presumably they can only answer questions about new business, which I am taking elsewhere this week.  

I do feel very messed around and not listened to, and as I have said many times before, if I failed to meet the T&C's then you would hold me to them. However vodafone seem to choose which ones they want to follow.   According to the app my current month runs out in 4 days, and it will expire as I have not topped up as I have been running the credit down.   However if you can supply me with direct contact details of someone who is willing to take this on and resolve it - not tell me I need to top up on the day when I can, under your T&C document, top up during the month for it to renew - then I would be interested to hear from you.  However as things stand I am off to the new provider on Thursday with my pac code with a view of taking out a sim only contract.  My job is stressful enough without a mobile phone company giving me more stress and expecting me to jump through hoops that don't need to be there because you can't or won't fix the issue.