Worse than a call centre?

lacroupade

Veteran
Is it possible? Oh yes....via the wonders of "Chat With a Live Representative!". :headbang:

Contacted Vodafone today via said medium to ask about charging for Blackberry services. I now know its going to be easier to just check the bill, but I was suspicious because they already insist on charging me for services accessed over my own internet connection via their SureSignal box (theres no mobile signal at my house otherwise!) which at least gives me a signal (I had to pay £50 for the hardware though) but does so over MY bandwidth.

Both my wife and I are in France a lot of the time, and have a satellite broadband wifi service at our house there. I know from experimentation that if you turn mobile services OFF but leave data ON, you can use BB Messenger, Whatsapp and email services, although obviously not voice or text services. But its not 100% clear whether they still whack you £2 a day for this pleasure....I can't see how they could justify it but that never stopped them doing such things before.

Anyway, the turkey on the other end kept saying "you can't do this, it doesn't work"...despite me telling him that I was emailing myself happily and talking to my wife in Toulouse via BBM, all with my mobile services switched off - the phone went straight to voicemail if you called it, as I did.

He went away and after ten minutes, came back with the same old b/s line so I eventually gave up and will have to get my wife to check her online bill after operating in that manner for a day or so.

But makes you wonder what else they try to hide. Not to mention the frustration of someone telling you that something you are sat doing, can't be done?! :cry:

Bring back telex.....
 
Ah vodafone - ther pain of my life. I hate them for just the sort of stuff you mention.

Just spent a week hopping around Europe and get the cheery vodafone messages to tell me I have my free data allowance of 25mb valid to midnight and they'll inform me when i get close to it.

Guess what wake up the following day and get a string of messages in one go late morning.
You're close to you allowance
You've exceeded it and now charged £xx per MB
You 've exceeded the 5mb and now will be charged £xx per mb
followed by you have a free 25md allowance today.....

Seems then can tell me instantly when it's free, but 12 hours later as I approach or use chargeable services - how convenient for them
 
cj10jeeper said:
Ah vodafone - ther pain of my life. I hate them for just the sort of stuff you mention.

Just spent a week hopping around Europe and get the cheery vodafone messages to tell me I have my free data allowance of 25mb valid to midnight and they'll inform me when i get close to it.

Guess what wake up the following day and get a string of messages in one go late morning.
You're close to you allowance
You've exceeded it and now charged £xx per MB
You 've exceeded the 5mb and now will be charged £xx per mb
followed by you have a free 25md allowance today.....

Seems then can tell me instantly when it's free, but 12 hours later as I approach or use chargeable services - how convenient for them

Exactly the same issue when I sat in bed one night in France, forgetfully watching some Youtube vids. Awoke to a stream of warning messages....(not about the vids obviously!) :(

And when I first enquired, their £10/month "all you can eat" European data tariff - which was still showing on their website as available - had mysteriously been cancelled ten minutes before I called.....in favour of a £2/day jobbie, hence my preference for wifi services where possible.

Its almost as good as when you switch on in Europe and it asks if you want data roaming switched ON. So you say NO, and 30 seconds later you get a text saying "thanks for the two quid sucker...." :headbang:
 
For sure - I always use free local wi-fi services when I can get it, but at times you need to use the phone's 3g and then they have you.
 
T-Mobile tried something similar with my tethered connection (via which I'm posting now).

I rang them to ask if it was chargeable, "no" they said, "but let me just do something to make the connection faster as it won't work well at the moment"... I was suspicious straight away and sure enough, 30 seconds later my tethering stopped working and I got a message on the laptop asking me to pay. :headbang:

Rang them back and apparently "Mobile Broadband" had just been added to my package which is chargeable when you use it. I demanded they take it off, and is if by magic, 2 minutes later my broadband tether started working again, for free :)
 
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