Hello everyone,

I'm hoping that you can help me with a problem that my daughter now has with Vodaphone.

In August 2012, she opened a new contract with Vodaphone, via their local store.

This contract was then closed (in store) 2 days later as the sim card didn't work

she was told by the staff, that there was an issue with that particular sim card and that they would have to close the account and open a new one with a new sim card and new phone number.

She was never given a new contract paperwork with the new sim card.

Her first bill arrived and it was £80.00 instead of £39.00.

she went back to the local store and the staff had no clue what to do,

they rang someone whilst she was in the store, and the person on the other end of the phone had no clue either. Some excuse was made, but nothing was made clear.

She also told them that she couldn't access her online account, as she wanted to check why her first bill was so high, and they told her that she would have to wait a couple of days for all her information to be transferred from that first (cancelled) contract to this new one. An easy transfer they said!!

She was never able to access her online account, however the phone was working and she was billed erratically for the next 18 months. The bills were always more than they should have been and she was never billed on the same day each month. All the bills were paid by DD.

In May 2014, having had enough of the poor (non existant) coverage, she went into the store and asked to cancel her contract. only to be told that she had no contract with Vodoaphone and they had no record of her ever having had a Vodaphone account.

(the person who opened the account in 2012 no longer worked there either)

The last bill was sent in May 2014, which was paid, and after that the phone no longer worked. The contract ran out in August 2014.

Nothing was heard until the end of 2016 when a letter arrived from Vodaphone demanding £400.00. There was no account number or phone number on this letter that applied to my daughter, so we could not track this on their website.

They tried to take money from a new bank account (which was not connected ever to the Vodaphone account).

now they have passed the account to PASTDUE who are demanding £753.66 or they MAY go to court (blah blah blah).

today we found out from my ex husband of 15 years (her dad), that he has been receiving texts from this debt collector on his mobile, asking for my daughter to contact them.

He has not lived with his daughter for 15 years, his phone number has changed numerous times in this time, he has never had any kind of joint contract or account with her, and these texts started on 22 Feb this year. So far they haven't rung his number and he hasn't replied to any texts.

Sorry for the long explanation, but I hope someone can help me with this ridulous mess.

Thank you

I think you need to start off by sending an SAR to Vodafone. Do this straightaway because it takes 40 days to return the disclosure.

Keep a note of everything that happens and keep a note of all of the text that are being sent to anybody including your ex-husband.

Check your credit file and see if there are any entries placed on it in relation to this problem.

Frankly it would be extremely helpful if they did take you to court because that will be a cheap way to get Vodafone into court and to bring a counterclaim at the same time for all the aggravation that they are causing you.

Frankly it is unlikely they will take the court – and generally speaking Vodafone never bother. They just get things wrong, wreck your credit file, harass you, bully you – you get the picture.

Vodafone are the worst of them all. They are the most complained about mobile phone operator and I have no idea why anybody bothers to risk their peace of mind in credit history with Vodafone.

For the moment, I'm not sure if there is anything else you should do until either the DCA really escalate things or you get the SAR from Vodafone. Getting the SAR is extremely important because then you can start to get an idea of what they have got on you and the whole story. Also the credit file entries.

Come back here when you get more information. If you have any telephone contact with them then don't do it without having read our customer services guide and implementing the advice there. You've been here since 2007 so you should know that anyway.

Thank you for your quick response.

I did think we might need to SAR them, but as we have no account numbers or phone number for this account I wasn't sure how to go about it. There is a customer ID on the debt coll letter, can I use that for their reference??

There has been no phone contact whatsoever, from eith Vodaphone or the debt coll, just the texts to my ex, which seems really odd.

I will get onto the SAR immediately and let you know what happens.

Thanks again

I wouldn't use the customer ID and anyway it probably is not a Vodafone reference number. Giving them a particular ID is likely simply to limit their search for details relating to your account.

Best thing to do is simply give them your name, the address at which you were at when the account was entered into and the name of the branch where you set up the account. Accompany the SAR by a cheque in preference to a postal order as it will be easier to keep tabs on the progress of your SAR. After a few days you can check with your bank to see if it has been cashed.

Ok, Thanks very much

Just to call your attention to the history of Vodafone on this forum, for a few years we used to have a Vodafone company rep on this forum. Eventually we realised that all he was doing was leading people away from the forum and we would eventually get no idea as to whether some kind of solution had been achieved or on what terms. One thing you can be certain of is that Vodafone would have limited themselves to pretty derisory gestures of goodwill – in the event that they had actually found that they were in the wrong.

We also eventually realised that the Vodafone rep was disappearing for long periods of time so that people would come onto the forum expecting to have some contact with the Vodafone customer service desk only to find that they were hanging around wasting their time and nothing was being done.

We challenge Vodafone on this and we said to them that we wanted better feedback as to what was happening. Vodafone seem to be saying that it was simply a matter of their resources. We are talking here about a huge international company with enormous resources for this kind of thing and also with an extremely poor reputation for its customer service and its level of complaints. In fact as you may know, Vodafone has been heavily fined by the communications regulator and also features regularly on BBC consumer programmes which investigate regular complaints against it for the way that it treats its customers.

Eventually we pointed out to Vodafone that we make no money here and that we were fed up with offering Vodafone a free customer helpdesk when in fact we were getting nothing in return – not even feedback. We proposed that they would pay a fee for using this forum and that this fee might even be returned depending on their performance. Vodafone walked away from us.

Vodafone is a serial customer abuser. People should be extremely careful about dealing with this company and certainly on this forum, we see only confirmation of the regular BBC reports and communication ombudsman criticisms.

Poor customer service and wrecked credit files seems to be fairly standard for many Vodafone customers. Of course, I suppose that there are lots of Vodafone customers that managed to get through their contracts without any difficulty and in fact go back to Vodafone for a second helping. However, they have been singled out by the BBC and the ombudsman as being the worst of the bunch and frankly when things go wrong Vodafone seem unable to deal with it and that is our experience here.

We think that it is important to keep disputes with Vodafone – and any other company – in the public gaze so that people understand what is really going on and also onlookers can understand what the way forward is when they find themselves in the same boat.

Hi. Sorry to BF for jumping in here but I have a bit to add to his excellent advice.

Vodafone do not have their own debt collection arm so they farm them out to a debt collection company. The DCA are usually acting on behalf of VF and haven't purchased the debt. This can be ascertained by looking at the letter from PastDue and see whether it says 'our client'

When VF sell the account it normally goes to Lowells who try to issue court claims and from the ones I have seen, they back out nearer the court date due to a lack of paperwork.

Basically what this means is that you deal with VF and not PastDue except maybe to tell them that the account is in dispute and not to bother you until the dispute is concluded.

As well as sending the SAR as BF recommended, I would be starting a separate complaint. I suggest sending them individually and by Signed For delivery.

VF may ask you to fill in their dedicated form. This is not required. You can use a template (modified by you) to ask for ALL data they hold.

The address for the SAR is:

Privacy Team (Data Protection)

Vodafone Limited

Level 2, Vodafone House

The Connection

Newbury

Berkshire

RG14 2FN

For complaints just write to the Customer Relations Manager at the same address.

Vodafone Limited

The Connection

Newbury

Berkshire

RG14 2FN

Hope that helps

Good Afternoon all...

After your good advice a SAR was sent to Vodaphone

Today we recieved a letter from them......

Basically, they have told us that they cannot supply my daughter with the information that she requested as they say that she has not sent them proof of her identity, and that they cannot ensure that the information is being disclosed to the correct individual! They have returned the £10 payment and have assured her that they will respond with the information as soon as she sentds proof of her ID..

Odd that they had no problem passing her information on to Past Due who have still been contacting her and her father via text and email, (an email address that Vodaphone have never been contacted on!)

So, my question is, what are the next steps? Do we send them proof of ID?

Thanks in advance for your help.

I'm afraid this is standard practice for VF. They hope by discouraging her she won't bother getting the data. They did this with me even though I supplied two forms of ID (driving licence and passport) which should have been plenty.

You will have to send them more proof than already sent. Photocopies of important items. Driving Licence, Passport, Bills in her name (council tax is a good one)

While companies have to be very careful of disclosing data to the wrong person, Vodafone go into overkill mode. They have already communicated with her at the address she lives at so why need more proof. Delaying tactic?

Looks like Vodafone applying the data protection game. Quite happy to abuse data protection obligations when it suits them – but all of a sudden very interested in becoming superefficient when they think that otherwise it will put them at some kind of disadvantage.

You can play it two ways. You can challenge them and think about bringing an action into the courts or you can provide them with some proof.

If you challenge them in the courts, it would delay everything and of course you will end up paying a court fee and you will probably six months down the line before they start to be sensible.

If you supply them with the proof of identity then at least you can move on to the next step. You can then store this up as an extra piece of anger when you get the information you want and hopefully it will add to your sense of vengeance and ambition to get a proper settlement out of them.

Once again, this is another reason to avoid Vodafone. Vodafone are a poisonous company and basically run by pretty stupid people who seem to think that as long as they carry out the company's wishes then everything is all right.

They have lost sight of customer care.

Thanks to you both....

Right, they've sent a very nice form for her to fill out, asking for her name, address, Vodafone account number etc. So, we'll fill this out and send them the ID they are asking for. I'm quite happy to drag this out if they want to play silly games.

As it took them nearly a month to respond, it seems like delaying tactics to me.

I suggest that you include a letter with the form pointing out that you are doing this only in the interest of expediency that you consider that their request is unlawful and that there is no provision for it under the Data Protection Act. Tell them that you will be making this part of your general complaint once the data you need has been received.

Thank you so much, Letter has been posted today.

Will post an update on here as soon as I hear anything xx