I have had a long-term ongoing problem with your service, and none of your support staff have been helpful in fixing it. I am a mobile phone monthly subscriber using an iPhone 13 Pro, with an Unlimited Data account, however approximately 2 months ago all data stopped working on my account. This included surfing the web, all apps, and even texts and calls. At the time, my phone still displayed “4G/5G” in the corner with maximum bars, even though nothing was coming through. It felt almost like something was blocking my account. Data meanwhile worked fine if I connect to wi-fi (and continues to do so).
I spent many hours on the phone and internet with both your customer service and tech support staff since, trying numerous troubleshooting tips with them, such as restarting, resetting network settings, switching providers back and forth, etc, to no avail. Your staff then sent me a replacement SIM, thinking my current one was probably broken, but this didn’t help either.
I then took the phone to my nearest Apple store to make sure the device itself was not broken. Apple ran extensive tests and said the phone was working fine, and to double-check it, they even took the SIM out and tried it in another phone. This other phone didn’t work either, pointing towards the SIM being the issue. My next stop was to try your high street Vodafone store in Covent Garden for advice, but they were very unhelpful, and basically told me to call tech support again. I asked if they could do anything more, or at least talk to tech support on my behalf in order to get it fixed, but they refused. I ended up phoning Vodafone tech support while standing in a Vodafone store, which felt bizarre, and again, the tech support staff weren’t helpful and no one was able to fix it.
I then tried switching the physical SIM to an eSIM, hoping this might refresh something on your end and allow it to work. The transference went fine and quickly, and I’m now on eSIM. But still no data, text or calls.
I contacted tech support yet again yesterday, and was met with the same tips and advice I’ve tried many times before. Resetting, restarting, etc. They also told me my account looked good at your end and there’s no reason for it to be blocking my access or anything like that. They said they would then try a “connection reset” at your end, and to then restart my device again for changes to take effect. Since I did that, the device now no longer lists “4G/5G” on the top, but instead just says “No Signal”. As in, it seemed to have gotten worse by whatever they did. I told the support staff this and they waved it off as unimportant. In fact, they then randomly stated that all these problems I've been havging are just due to “work being done in my area” and that it won’t be completed until sometime in October! And that I will have to go without data, text and calls until then.
Frankly, that’s not very believable. I live in Central London, and I can’t imagine your services being down for that length of time (which will be about 3 months total by the time we reach October). Surely there would be hundreds of thousands of similar complaints and support requests by other Londoners if this was the case. Your forum is meanwhile very quiet and doesn’t reflect that.
I was offered a few months off my bill, but frankly that’s not good enough. To go this long without use of my phone is unacceptable, for work reasons alone, but also just as a regular customer who relies on his device daily. Even simple things like logging into services that send my 2-factor code via text I cannot do as I can't recieve texts. As there is no real e-mail contact address for Vodafone, and customer support is proving to be a dead end, I am posting here hoping somebody can escalate this to the highest level as nobody in your store, on your phones, or manning online services seems able to fix it. If the account is somehow “broken”, can it not be deleted and a new one given to me? If there truly is nothing you can do, then presumably my contract can be reliquinished, as I’m paying for a service you aren’t providing. Again, this is not about refunds and cost...I simply need a working phone, and have gone without it for too long already. I will switch to another provider if this is something you can’t give me.
Please contact me immediately, and/or have the issue resolved within the next few days.
