Vodafone Wallet Support.

[Rs101]

Seems like another great idea from Vodafone has been let down by utterly inadequate support.

I've been using the app for a couple of months and it suddenly decided to block my card without any warning. 

I called support in Thursday who couldn't see why it was blocked and couldn't reset it. He had to escalate it to the technical team who would get back to me within 24-48 hours.

Today's Saturday and I'd not heard anything so called again. No update and the technical team don't work weekends at all, so I now have to wait until at least Monday to find out why my card doesn't work, or whether there's been any security problems with it.

There aren't any supervisors available nor do they have a complaints procedure at all 

This concerns me on a few levels...

1. No technical support at weekends, when usage will be high.

2. No info available on potential fraudulent use at all.

3. The person couldn't understand my point that if I'm told on a Thursday that I'd be updated within 48 hours, then waiting until Monday would miss that target...

And one final moan - I have no problem with overseas call centres, but please insist they use a decent VOIP connection so it's actually possible to communicate easily!!!

[Rs101]

So complaints team managed to put me through to a random technical team instead of putting me on hold.

That team then transferred me back to complaints team, but it was a completely different one who couldn't see any details of the original enquiry..

I think it's going to be easier to move to a bank who support Android Pay/Samsung Pay than it is to get this Wallet problem fixed...

[Rs101]

Just had another follow-up call from the social media team... Who hadn't understood the problem at all.

He was insistent the card wasn't blocked and I just needed a new SIM to fix it...

I've come to the conclusion the offshore social media team don't have sufficient awareness of the product to be able to support it. 

[Rs101]

And now Customer Relations call me to offer.... A Sim swap! ARGH!!! All because they thought the app wasn't working, despite me including the error message word for word which makes it clear that it's blocked in the backend system.  There seems to be a fundamental lack of understanding as to how the app works from much of the team. 

Another worrying issue -the team texted to confirm they'd call from an 0330 number, then called me from an 0808 one... Just another sign of the abysmal customer service processes.

[Rs101]

Thought I'd try and experiment, so added my PayPal account to the wallet, which works perfectly. So the wallet support supervisor who told me it definitely wouldn't work was wrong..

Oh and during the PayPal link process,the wallet app has the bank's name (Raphael & Sons) spelt wrongly! Quality testing there...

[Rs101]

Another call to customer relations and it turns out all they did yesterday was a wallet pin reset!!!!!!

It was only when I persuaded them to conference in wallet support, rather than putting me on hold while they spoke to them, that customer relations finally understood the difference between a blocked card and a blocked wallet...

Now she's going to email wallet support to escalate it (again) , not that I think it'll make the slightest difference.

All the customer relations/support team members I've spoken to so far (including social media support) have been offshore teams who admit they've never seen, let alone used the app.  That's a fundamental flaw if they're supposed to be supporting it as they don't seem to have adequate understanding of how it should work.

[Rs101]

Had a voicemail & text from Customer Relations at 7:15pm on a Sunday with an update for me..

Called back today for the update and..... there isn't one. He was just calling to let me know what the agent had done while they were on the phone to me on Saturday. What a wonderful use of resources.

Does anyone know if there's any way of contacting a UK based complaints team? The offshore ones don't have any real understanding of the problem or how the app works.

[hrym]

If PayPal is working, it almost doesn't sound like an app issue, but one with the card.   Some cards won't work contactless until you've made one "normal" transaction.  Could that be it?  My wife recently had this problem and the bank never mentioned it - it just occurred to me randomly - we tried it and it's fine now.   Also, does the card work normally on its own - chip and PIN and contactless (subject to what I said before)?   I'm wondering whether your bank has blocked something which isn't showing up to the frontline customer service people - I've known that happen myself.

[Rs101]

Card works perfectly contactless (and had done for several months before adding to the wallet). It also worked in the wallet for about 6 weeks, then was blocked for reasons unknown to everyone.

The issue is the card is blocked by the wallet backend system and only their technical team can investigate/fix it. Sadly, they haven't been able to give any update at all in nearly 3 weeks other than "we're working on it" . Complicated by the fact that wallet support can only email them - can't escalate or call at all.

[Alex]

I'm sorry to hear that @Rs101. 

If you haven't already, you're more than welcome to respond to the most recent email you've received from our team. 

[Rs101]

Thanks, but Nirav completely misunderstood the complaint.. just like virtually all the others I've spoken to.

Couldn't understand the difference between a card being blocked and a wallet blocked.