Home broadband not working after house move

[tochry]

We moved house on 24th November and informed Vodafone about this well in advance on 6 October (!).

It is now the 5th day with no working broadband connection.

We have contacted Vodafone every day about this. The chat and phone service are absolutely unreliable - our connection was terminated on multiple occasions.

When we did manage to get through on the first day we were told it might take up to midnight for the connection to be activated. 

Following that we were were told on every consecutive day that the problem lies with openreach who need to activate it, and were ensured that it would happen by midnight off said day. 

Today we are told that it will only happen on 2nd December!

We are working from home and rely on a working broadband connection. On top of that we spend hours every day trying to get through to someone.

How the hell are we supposed to trust anything we are told?!  What are we paying for?

The service is just appalling.

[Tash]

@tochry I'm sorry to see this has happened with your activation and for any inconvenience caused by the delay. As our service is provided by Openreach, any dates we advise are subject to their availability and ensuring the line is ready to use. 

Have you received any emails from us to your registered email address advising of your new activation date? Please also check any spam/junk folders if this isn't found in your inbox.

[tochry]

Hi Tash, thanks for your message. We did receive an email and text message with the 24th as our activation date. We booked it several weeks in advance to make sure things are sorted.  After our move, everytime we talked to someone on the phone or in the chat, this date got pushed back by sometimes 1 day, sometimes 3 days. We never received any form of confirmation of an updated activation date which increases our frustration. What you get is a promise of a random date by a random customer support person that gets pushed back with every interaction. Unacceptable.

[tochry]

After another 2.5 hours in various calls and being on hold, there is news on our connection. The order to move our account got cancelled! Brilliant. Vodafone blames it on the previous provider of our new house, who knows. I don't believe anything anymore.

Why did the 5 or so agents I talked to before just keep pushing back an imaginary activation date that was never going to happen? If any of the information I got today is accurate, our account will now go live on December 15th. I believe it once the red light on the router stopped flashing.

Oh, I got offered a free SIM with unlimited data but needed to stay in the line for another 45 minutes to get that sorted. I needed to go through a credit check. Emphasizing that I am not going to pay anything for this did not have the desired effect. Things will get sorted once it has arrived. I got a reference number that I need to quote once the SIM arrives to actually get a free month of data. So another call ahead of me! Waiving a bill worth one month will not even remotely cover the time and nerves spent on this car crash of customer support. Vent over, back sucking empty to my Giffgaff data package. At least that is working.

[Clarite]

Hi Tochry

I have had a similar experience to yours, I told Vodafone of my move 2 weeks before the moving date ... 3 months later my internet finally got connected!  But I'm been charged for two lines!

This is what I learned and hopefully it might help you too.

The dos & don't: 

Dos:

+ Have your landline number, account number, password to hand when you call or chat to Vodafone.

+ Check your account online on a regular basis, mine got an extra two landlines and one more broadband added without my knowledge which resulted in me paying for two lots of monthly bills as two contracts ...?!  The end date of one of the contracts was also later than the original and the charges dearer.  If that happens to you, cancel the second line direct debit directly from your bank then tell Vodafone to look into it.

+ Use the chat online rather than calls and before ending the chat click on the envelope logo so to keep a record of what was said.

+ Ask for compensation for all the hours and stress incurred.  It won't be much but at least it might make you feel better. 

+ Call the complaints department if things are not resolved in chat: 03330 3040441.

Donts:

- Chatting on Messenger was useless, they could not do anything without authorisation from above which was not available on this platform.

- Calling 080800 34515 as advised by chat, usually gets to a message asking us to chat online?!

Good luck, it's now mid November and hopefully by next week, my account will have been sorted out, 5 months after moving house!