Vodafone won’t take SMS Text News reader’s cash for international calls

By on November 6, 2007 in News

Got this in from an SMS Text News reader. He’s an influential chap doing great things in the mobile industry and actually just swapped from T-Mobile to Vodafone recently.

Have a read of his experience this evening. I can feel a chat to Vodafone’s blog relations team coming on.

Oh. my. God.

I’m absolutely fuming! I just tried to make a call to South Africa using my new Vodafone CONTRACT account (£45 / month tariff with ‘unlimited’ data). It duly said that i couldn’t make the call and that I should call customer services… aarrghh – hadn’t realised these days that you still needed to call to turn on the ability to make international calls (I’d assumed that in this ‘global village’ it was normal to be able to call abroad).

Anyway, my call was picked up by a customer service guy called Leighton who works for Garlands the outsourced customer service centre. It took 3 rings before he picked up – not bad and i started to feel slightly cheerier about the experience. I mentioned I’d tried to call South Africa and had been asked to call customer services…

‘ah, yes, you’ve been with us for less than 3 months so you can’t call internationally’ said Leighton

‘er, what’ (hands beginning to shake a little)

‘it’s for your own protection and so we can see money having gone out of your account to establish a credit rating’ Leighton could tell this wasn’t going to be his night.

‘you. are. joking.’ I said, ‘I’ve worked for Vodafone in the past, I know that at 45 + 7.50 for unlimited data i fall into your high value customer bracket, you carried a credit check out on me when i joined up. Plus I’m on CONTRACT where you, can, bill me for it, not PAYT’.

‘there’s nothing i can do sir’ said Leighton

‘you’re blocking me from making calls, what kind of service is that? Ok, ok, let’s see, what about if i take out the Vodafone Passport, will that trigger international calling?’ I said

‘no sir, you’re barred from making international calls for 3 months and there’s nothing else i can do about it,’ forced out Leighton, trying to stay polite.

*Huge grinding of teeth, blood boiling, veins popping*

‘ok, well, I’ll be blogging this to let everyone else know about Vodafone barring calls and my freedom to call whom i choose, thank you for your service this evening…’ >click<

God I'm so angry, I hate it when bureaucracy and front line customer care students with no authority or power get in the way of my otherwise decision filled, proactive day.

You’d think that, perhaps, Vodafone would ask for a deposit — maybe even £500 or the like, up front, to reduce their risk? Flatly refusing revenues from this SMS Text News reader wasn’t a good business decision. It’s a fine policy, I think, if you’re on their system as a home maker with no declared income and absolutely ZERO need to EVER call abroad. Waiting a few months isn’t an issue. But when you join Vodafone and expect to be able to spend hundreds of pounds with them right away, I can see just how annoying that could be.

Perhaps the reader — who asked to be anonymous — should get a MaxRoam sim card? ;-) Or revert back to his T-Mobile account temporarily. Deary me!

I wonder what the policies are on other UK networks? Are they the same?

About Ewan

Ewan is Founder and Editor of Mobile Industry Review. He writes about a wide variety of industry issues and is usually active on Twitter most days. You can read more about him or reach him with these details.
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  • http://blog.roam4free.ie pat phelan

    Thanks for the mention Ewan
    I suggest Rebtel, create local numbers for your local contacts in South Africa and give the useless robbing Bah-stads as little as possible,
    Vodafone are beyond useless in general-try using Vodafone’s Irish site and you will see what I mean.

  • http://whatleydude.vox.com/ James Whatley

    _>

    *looks around for Amy Rose*

  • http://www.symbian-guru.com Ricky

    It’s fascinating that the US market is so much closer in terms of policies. I know that AT&T has the same policy with international calling. Typically the line has to be active for 3 months before they’ll allow international calling, though that can be pushed through if needed.

    I can most certainly see the reasoning behind this, as they don’t want people setting up accounts, charging up huge international bills, and then returning the service within the return period and not paying. However, that only accounts for the first 30 days (in the US), so I don’t completely understand a three month window.

  • cyclist

    Interesting. Years ago I had a new O2 contract, and when I called up to try to get international calls enabled there was some time to wait normally. But when I explained I needed it sooner because I was going to another country they had a backup plan – make an immediate direct debit for the balance on my account as it was at the time, enable international then allow charges to build up to a similar amount at which point they phoned me again, debited again and took the limit off. Seemed like a reasonable compromise to me – O2 got the money quicker and limited their exposure, I got to make my calls and couldn’t unexpectedly run up a huge bill. Of course things may have changed since then.

  • Hopefullyuseful

    If you paid a deposti of around £200.00 you should then be able to have international and premium rate call barring lifted. It’s just a security measure to protect against high usage and fraud. It’s there to protect customers and to enusre that a customer has a good payment history prior to being allowed to call internationally and premium rates.

    If you agreed to pay a deposit, the bar could be lifted. After 3 months clear payment history you could have it lifted without the need for a deposit. The rule has always been there as a security measure for all new customers. The deposit is just a work around for customers with your kind of circumstances to ensure costs are covered.

  • Darth

    As my colleague Hopefullyuseful has mentioned the standard time to lift this type of bar without payment required is after 3 months of clear payments. To do it before the clear payments have been made a deposit would be required.

    I’d also like to add that we can arrange this for your reader Ewan – To do this he can use the contact page on the main website (www.vodafone.co.uk) and select the contact us option, followed by the email option.

    On this page your reader will need to write a brief email explaining what they wish to do, answer the security questions and if they include “FIT135″ somewhere in the body of the email and this will come directly to our team.

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