Absolute shambles of a company

[DeafParrot]

Long story short, but in September I had my phone stolen 2 months into a new contract, a Samsung S21 5G. From the outset, all I've wanted is to get the same phone as a replacement for the one that was stolen, but I was blocked at virtually every turn by Vodafone and their stupid systems. Originally told I couldn't get another phone as it wasn't 3 months into the contract, then told it would be July next year at the earliest I could switch. 

I didn't want a PAYG phone whilst I was paying off the contract for a phone I didn't have, so I took the option of paying off the handset that was stolen for the chance of getting another S21 5G on the same contract. Again, problems arose, and it took about a month of wrangling on the phone and online before people actually seemed to get what I was after. However, its all gone wrong, and I have now been missold an extra contract that I didn't want. 

I have a new handset, paid £750 to pay off the stolen handset, and was told by November the 14th the original contract would be transferred to PAYG so I could then port my old number across to the new phone. November 14th came and went and the old number never transferred, and the old contract never closed down. Now I'm being told I need to pay another £900 odd for the airtime on the original contract too, something which if I was told 3 months ago I never would have gone down this route. 

It should be so simple to get a replacement handset for the one that was stolen, on the same contract, for a fee. I thought I had done this but now have ended up in a complete quagmire with two contracts and another hefty bill if I want to go down to one. Is there anything I can do to get this fixed?

[AnnS]

Hi @DeafParrot 

That certainly doesn't sound correct, if you paid off the device part of the plan, you would have had the options of cancelling or moving the airtime on a 30 day contract.

This is going to need account access to find out what has happened, get this solved for you and address the additional problems.  The Social Team would be best for this and they can be contacted here: Contact Us 

edited to add:  @DeafParrot The Social Team are part of Customer Relations and will be able to handle a complaint and take it through to escalation and deadlock, by contacting the Social Team you will be speaking to the same team as you would be going the complaints route.

[BandOfBrothers]

I think if I was in this situation and didn't have any form of insurance to have the phone replaced then I would have purchased the phone from Samsung and just use my Vodafone sim card in that.

I appreciate disposable income maybe a factor for some.

I would suggest to persevere with customer service and raise a complaint so this becomes official and then Vodafone have 8 weeks to come to a resolution to this.

Although the Vodafone Social Media Team's are part of the Customer Escalation Team it's still advisable in my opinion to raise a complaint to create a paper trail as it were @DeafParrot 

complaints/code-of-practice. 

I wish you all the best with this. 

[DeafParrot]

Thank you to both who replied.

I raised a ticket with the complaints line and have finally been sorted out. The original contract has been cancelled with no extra charges and the phone number is scheduled to transfer over in a couple of days. Incredible what happens when you talk to people who know what they're doing, something sadly lacking when going the usual customer service routes. 

Staff both in shop and on the complaints team have been excellent though, thanks to them.