I picked up Nirave’s post earlier about Vodafone introducing changes to it’s monthly price plans.
“Goodness me,” I thought, “Perhaps this is it?”
With baited breath, I waited as the Vodafone page loaded.
Ah.
Turns out that from the 11th of October, Vodafone will be increasing the costs of out-of-bundle services for all their contract customers.
Now I don’t begrudge Vodafone making money. Not at all. I want them to have buckets of money to pay for the network to keep running and to keep shareholders happy.
I do begrudge paying more for the same sodding service.
Why can’t these companies innovate?
Instead of making a few quid more from the SAME service, why not bring out something entirely new, something exciting, something that inspires me? Something that I’ll happily hand over a lot more cash to receive?
Geez, it’s so depressing.
It’s not limited to Vodafone though. It’s the whole industry.
I think I need some chocolate.
Totally agree as well Ewan mate, when I read the text I was hoping just hoping it was good news. Turns out it’s not.
Spoke to Vodafone today re cancellation, turns out they may be looking to dig their heels in on this one. Orange did it two years ago and found that nearly 1 million customer cancelled their plans, whilst T-Mobile tried it last year and had to go back on their word before customers flocked away!
I am interested in the legality of Vodafone’s claims that it has to increase your bill by 10% in order to get a free-of-charge termination. I think the figure comes from ruling cases previously but would need to check.
Definitely interesting to see how many customers use it as an opportunity to leave Vodafone, who are personally one of my favourite networks by far!
Nirave
Mm. May look into this. Desperate to get out of my Vodafone contract! Worst provider I have every been with for signal. Had to buy one of those sure signal boxes for my house (which is in a very strong 3g signal area) and it was suggested I should buy one for my grandparents house that also had bad signal – 140 miles away – for when I visit.
Invest in infrastructure – not much about with price increases to just tick along in neutral.
I think Vodafone have been a pretty good network for both signal and customer service for me. Their signal is as good as O2’s for me and their data network is fast, but more importantly does not compress all the quality out of images.
This price change is not nice, although I wonder what percentage of Vodafone customers exceed their limits on a regular basis to be affected by this. That Vodafone effectively give themselves latitude to increase customers’ bills by up to 10% during their contracts without any recourse for the customers is not a nice thing though.
On another hand, the prices for 0845/0870 calls has dropped in this price change.
When I received the text I had just done a 12 month renewal for my £10 SIM only deal, am now reconsidering it although I have not managed to find a better deal with another network.
Can you imagine if they made their service worse when they decreased charges though?! 😉 O2 started the call charge increase, then it was Virgin (they take the biscuit with 40p per minute!) Orange followed last month, and now it’s Vodafone’s turn. I wonder if 3 will follow suit or stand their ground? They seem to be the only ones who don’t always follow the rest of the crowd. The key, of course, is to be on the right tariff in the first place so you never need to worry about these charges!
Can you imagine if they made their service worse when they decreased charges though?! 😉 O2 started the call charge increase, then it was Virgin (they take the biscuit with 40p per minute!) Orange followed last month, and now it’s Vodafone’s turn. I wonder if 3 will follow suit or stand their ground? They seem to be the only ones who don’t always follow the rest of the crowd. The key, of course, is to be on the right tariff in the first place so you never need to worry about these charges!