Jan 8th, 2019

Author: donich_admin

Totally useless EE, almost useless Vodafone

Well, I didn’t think any organization could conceivably be more useless than Vodafone, but to their credit, EE have managed it. I moved to them the year before last, simply because they had a 4G signal on (some) of the hills and around our house. No signal inside the house though, but because I was on an iPhone I could get Wi-Fi calling. This only worked about 30% of the time but at least I could get SMS messages which I need for my business.

So then, for reasons I have explained in an earlier post, I decided to get rid of the iPhone and bought a Moto One. Then I ran into big problems which occupied both myself and R for all of yesterday afternoon. EE have a signal booster box, but there is no way to actually buy this. You need to raise a support call with them, explain the problem and then in theory they would send you the box – but for some reason only if they deem you are morally worthy of receiving one. Note that we were perfectly prepared to pay for one but for some reason this is not an option. So R spent an hour and a half with them on the phone, and due to the utter crapness of their systems they could not escalate the support call from level one to level two because….. Wait for this one…… Drum roll please….. The phone model was not listed on their database…..

So I rang them and after protracted going backwards and forwards due to their utterly useless software and security systems (another apology to the call centre agent who I was rather rude to – not his fault) I managed to induce them to send me a PAC code to move back to Vodafone. Not I will say that I want to be with Vodafone because they have entirely unsatisfactory coverage and they are also a deeply useless company, but apart from EE, they are the only game in town in this area and I absolutely need phone coverage more than I need data.

The story does not finish here. I then rang Vodafone to re-establish the (expensive) contract I had with them the year before last. Of course their badly written software doesn’t allow for this scenario so I call them. After another hour on the phone they tell me that I have failed a credit check. The bank account I was trying to process the transaction on is entirely reliable and we have no problems with our credit rating. I would also point out for Vodafone’s benefit that as all I was doing was buying a 1p SIM and a monthly contract that they could pre-charge for that they were not putting themselves to major financial risk. After I absolutely insisted and threatened all kinds of escalation and also after another half an hour on the phone, it turned out that the whole problem was due to the fact that I was paying for my Mum’s contract on the same bank account. Apparently this caused a problem – to use an American phrase “go figure”.

You just couldn’t make this up if you tried. Anyway – I am back with Vodafone now (probably because I have committed some hideous sin in a previous life) and I will buy a sure signal (the booster box which at least they sell to anyone who asks for it) as soon as I get my new SIM. If this doesn’t work properly I will take every phone I have and drop them all in the Donich.