I returned to live in the UK after almost 15 years working in other countries around the world and upon arrival bought a PAYG mobile phone SIM card from Vodaphone so I would have a local UK number as I began to set up my consulting business and looked for other work. I checked repeatedly on purchase that the mobile would work in the UK Channel Islands and was made aware that I would face roaming fees but that it would work with no issues. I then spent two weeks in London and Oxford networking and providing that number to a large amount of potential clients and employers. My father lives in the Channel Islands so I then went there. Upon arrival in the Channel Islands the mobile stopped being able to receive calls with them all going directly to voice mail. The voice mail system said it would SMS me a code to access those messages but that never arrived. I called Vodaphone and spoke to representatives who tried to be helpful and went through long settings checks. We tried changing the SIM to another phone but the issue remained proving it was not an issue with the phone. From the 15th onwards I called them each day asking to resolve this issue. When none of the front line call center people were able to resolve this they escalated it to management. Then when no manager resolved this they raised it to what they call 'mission control'. I spoke to a number of their technicians and followed an number of procedures all of which did not resolve the issue. On the 20th the phone stopped moving calls to the unaccessable voice mail and just beeped when calls came in. On the 22nd I used their online system to make a complaint simply to receive a mail that their was a Delivery Status Failure Notification. I wrote to their customer service email address as supplied on their website ('[email protected]') and the mail simply bounced back. I used another of their online systems to write to Stefan Langkamp, Customer Operations Director from which I again received no response. On the 24th a technician phoned to say that they were doing a probe and would call me back to let me know the results of that. They called back on the 26th to say that the probe had revealed nothing helpful and that they had no idea what to do next, but would call on the 27th. When I had heard nothing more by the 30th I called again and went through another set of activities that didn't resolve the issue and was then promised they would call back on the 31st (today) I have waited all day and still nothing. My usual consulting charge is 1500 USD per day and my full time salary is approx. 200,000 USD per annum. During this period where this telephone number has not been working it is difficult to gauge how much possible consulting work I may have lost, or offers for full time positions have been phoned in. The money spent alone on networking and in hotels in London and Oxford would be in the range of 2000 USD... All based on giving out that number. Although horribly aggrieved if they simply sent a replacement SIM with the same number, or even simply followed up, responded to any of my mails, or called back when they promised to I would not even think of escalating this... But the service is so terrible and they care not that my business and earnings have been horribly impacted by their lack of service. I would be very interested to know if you think I have a consumer complaint case against them and if so how to proceed. You have my thanks in advance.
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