New Fibre order cancelled... three times

[heavywater]

Hi all,

I've been trying to get a fibre order put through since the start of this year, but the order has continuously been cancelled with no reason provided. After two orders in January were cancelled ( I received a phone call to say there was an issue with an initial order and had to spend an hour placing a second order... which was also cancelled), I placed another order in February. After spending more time chasing it up today to try to work out why I hadn't heard anything regarding activation, I found out that this had also been cancelled, with no communications to me.

I spoke to someone on live chat today who said there was an issue with the email address on my account, but could offer no further information. They confirmed my email address was correct and that it was linked to my account, and I also received the contract confirmation and PDF to that email address when the order was submitted, so I really can't see what the issue was there.

The only thing I can think of is this... https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Pay-monthly/Link-a-new-pay-monthly-sim-contract-to-existing-Vodafone...

...when I requested someone from support move a pay monthly phone account onto my existing broadband account, they deleted my broadband account and I had to spend hours getting a new account set up with my mobile number as a login. Why exactly that would prevent a new contract is beyond me though.

Could someone from Vodafone please contact me about this? Cusatomer services are unable to help or explain what's going on. I can provide the order numbers for the three orders.

Thanks.

[Effie]

Thanks for updating us on what has been happening @heavywater I'm really sorry to hear the latest news. This is certainly very disappointing and frustrating. The Social Media team can speak to the Broadband team that is dealing with your connection request to see what escalation avenues we have for you with this case. 

[heavywater]

Thanks Steph, just waiting to hear.

If there's no possible way to reinstate the existing line, a 4g router and a sim with unlimited data would probably be the next best thing; I can at least put that somewhere in the house with a reasonable signal while I'm waiting for all this to get sorted.

I swear I'm cursed by the broadband genie...

[heavywater]

Social Media team have told me they can't talk to the broadband team and that I just need to keep contacting the same team to get it escalated.

Been on Live Chat for an hour and a half, so far been particularly unhelpful, I'm still currently just being told again to use my phone as a hotspot.

[Effie]

I am sorry @heavywater for this whole experience. Do you know if you have an open ticket with the Broadband Technical team at all or are they just placing you a new connection order? 

[heavywater]

Hi Steph, I've no idea, all I've been told is that the new service is supposed to be installed at the end of May and that I'll have no internet until then.

I also asked if a 4g router could be provided and was told this isn't possible and that I will need to use my phone to hotspot, which isn't much good if I'm not at home and my partner needs to actually use the internet.

Currently working my way through the stages of grief while trying to work out who to try talking to next.

[heavywater]

@Effie 4 hours of customer service through every channel and no luck unfortunately...

Any idea how I can get this escalated?

[Effie]

I've just been looking into this for you @heavywater and the only way for this to be escalated would be for you to have a complaint raised to the Broadband Relations team. They can work with the team dealing with your new connection to see if there is any way to get this done faster. The Relations team are also the only ones with the authority to look into sending out data SIMs and dongles, though I can't even guarantee they will still be offering this service to anyone as I am not part of their team. Do you already have an open complaint at all? 

[heavywater]

Hi @Effie , yes I've reopened my existing complaint about the delivery of this order and updated it with the new details, not that I expect anything to come of it.

After going through around 10 different people, I've had to pay £86 upfront for a 4g router with a 30 day unlimited data SIM because I've been told that Vodafone do not issue 4g routers for service issues. The guy I spoke to was sympathetic and has added a note to the account to request additional compensation to cover this when I get the ~£180 Ofcom compensation, but who knows whether that will actually materialise; I haven't received anything at all for the 25+ hours of calls and chases I've had to do over the 4 months I've been waiting for this, and previous complaints were just closed with a 'Sorry this has happened, looks like this is ok now'.

Everyone I've spoken to has been very friendly, but nothing ever seems to actually work and there seem to be no actual meaningful escalation channels.

[Effie]

That's good then @heavywater as an active complaint means that we have the Complaints team able to look at this whole experience and see a record of this entire timeline of events so we can make sure that you are fully and appropriately compensated for what has happened. I am genuinely sorry about everything and I can't apologise enough. With your complaint being re-opened, you should be contacted by your case handler, usually within 72 hours, and you can request that this case be escalated to the Relations team if your handler is unable to get the new connection expedited or even send out some way for you to keep connected until the broadband is up and running. 

I have also fed back the kind of journey you have had with trying to get this all resolved so that we can look into better ways of working and resolving issues like this so that problems and complaints are sorted much faster, and in a much smoother way. I think it is really important that we get everything resolved for you and that we also take this as a learning experience to help us improve our services and processes.