Vodafone Australia - I bought a Pre paid starter pack last month. I was with Telstra and my phone was dropping out of network coverage. I was not recieving calls, and, as I rely on my phone for work, this made me enourmously disappointed in Telstra's serv

Vodafone Australia - I bought a Pre paid starter pack last month. I was with Telstra and my phone was dropping out of network coverage. I was not recieving calls, and, as I rely on my phone for work, this made me enourmously disappointed in Telstra's service.

This is my complaint on my personal webhost. I posted it there for easy access. I needed to remove personal information from the document, so, I have pasted my complaint below: ------------------- This complaint is directed towards Vodafone Australia. ------------------- I bought a Pre paid starter pack last month. I was with Telstra and my phone was dropping out of network coverage. I was not recieving calls, and, as I rely on my phone for work, this made me enourmously disappointed in Telstra's service. I put the new sim card into my Ericsson T28 Mobile phone. It immediately stopped working for the first time in the entire period I have owned it. I replaced the battery, but the handset was dead. It took me several days to get a replacement handset. I completed the phone sim card registration and requested that my existing Telstra number (0438 XXX XXX) be ported over to my new Vodafone sim card. I explained that it was from Telstra prepaid. I was told to wait a few hours and I would be able to use my phone. I turned on my handset the next morning and recieved an error. I assumed my replacement, which was a reasonably old phone had died. It took me several more days to get another replacement. My business, is of course already suffering badly by this point due to the fact that I am uncontactable, and hundreds of business cards and other materials with customers and potential clients are worthless. I have to borrow this handset off a friend as I am relocating and completely broke, mainly due to not being contactable by the majority of my clients. This Ericsson handset (one model up from my old one) reports a 'sim error' I go to several friends who are Vodafone customers, and place my sim card into their much newer handsets, and I get a 'registration error' or 'sim card unregistered' By this stage I am reasonably certain that there is no fault with the handsets that I am using, and decide to call Vodafone customer service. I am in a hurry and after 30 minutes on hold, while recieving recorded messages that seemed to be encouraging me to hang up, I hung up. I called back tonight, Thursday OCT 7. and waited for the 30 or 40 minutes it took for a customer service representitave to answer the phone. I really got the impression that Vodafone do not like talking to their customers. I then calmly explained my situation and was put on hold for longer. I mentioned that I was porting from a Telstra prepaid number. I was then told that the 'team manager' had advised that the porting process had been stalled due to an invalid Telstra account number (XXXXXXXXXX) and that I would need to call Telstra to resolve the situation, and get back to Vodafone porting to complete the process. I called Telstra. A customer service representative answered the phone immediately, and advised that the port had gone through without a problem, and Telstra were unable to help any further. She informed me of the fact that Telstra do not use an account number for their prepaid service, and all that was needed was a birthdate. She suggested SIM error. I called back the Vodafone porting department on 1300 130 741. I waited about 20 minutes on hold. I spoke to a helpful person who advised that apart from the fact that it took very slightly longer than usual, it was obvious from my account details that the porting process had gone through without a problem. I explained the troubleshooting procedures I had gone through. She apologised for the fact that I was given bad information from Vodafone, and credited my account with several extra minutes of free talktime. She suggested SIM error, and requested that I go to a Vodafone store and request a new SIM card. This seemed logical to me. I immediately went to a Vodafone store and had my old SIM removed

(8961......442XXXXXX) and replaced with (8961.......468XXXXXX). I was told that my phone would be working within 15 minutes. I was grateful to see the end of my ordeal in sight. It is now 3 hours later. I still have a SIM registration error on my new Vodafone SIM. I have tried this card in multiple handsets. I feel that for the most part Vodafone have not been all to interested in resolving this situation, and that I am being passed around and sent off on little missions in the hope that I will just go away or give in and buy a new handset/SIM card. I am relying on this phone for my income, so I will not go away, and I have been left very poor by this ordeal, so I cannot go and buy a new handset/SIM card pack. At this point I consider a reasonable response period for Vodafone to be within one working day. I expect for a reasonable and thoughtful effort to be made by Vodafone to rectify my situation immedately. If Vodafone are not able to contact me by tomorrow (friday) afternoon, I feel that I would have made all reasonable efforts to rectify the situation with Vodafone, and I will take my detailed complaint to the Telecommunications Industry Ombuddsman. I do not consider a 'standard' or 'generic' email or letter defending Vodafone's position as satisfactory. I will be extremely offended if I recieve one. I intend to do a bulk mail to my corporate customers after the weekend, who by now are probably assuming I have decided to avoid my clients, and may be considering me to be a 'shady operation.' I will attach a copy of this notice. I would be happy to be able to explain the outcome of this situation if it is rectified in time. I can be contacted by email, or postage to -address deleted-. I cannot be contacted by phone.

Isaac S

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