I’ve been banging my head against the brick wall of Vodafone’s customer services and need your help. Back in March I took out a two-year contract, and asked for my mobile number to be ported over from my previous supplier, Orange. It started off badly, in that it took two weeks even to do this, and so I had to keep on running (and paying for) my old phone alongside my new one. Then, when Vodafone finally did get its act together, it only partially ported my number so that I could make and receive calls and texts, but had no internet access. This situation continues to this day.
Ever since, I’ve been going backwards and forwards by phone and letter. Vodafone confirmed that the job to sort it out was raised in April, but we’re still no further on in terms of it being resolved. I have been told nine times that it will be resolved in 24-48 hours, but it never is.
My number appears to be in limbo – it’s not registered on the phone and it isn’t recognised by Vodafone’s system. NP, Portsmouth
Something appears to be going on at Vodafone, as it is fast becoming our most complained about mobile provider. The company says it has been introducing a new system to deal with the issue of porting numbers, and this has suffered a few teething problems. It claims the issue is now resolved.
“Our advisers wrongly assumed this was related to the original porting issue. Unfortunately, we failed to complete the transfer from a temporary number to the permanent number.
“We are in touch with NP to explain what went wrong and to apologise. We will also refund the two months’ line rental (£50) and add a £50 credit by way of apology for our failure,” a spokeswoman says.
Last week, BBC’s Watchdog programme reported similar tales, even featuring people who had been given other customers’ numbers. There are other similar complaints online.
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