Thank you so much. I will do exactly as you have said because it's just not acceptable. Can't believe they can get away with this, i can see how most people would have given up and just bought a new phone. But in their situation this is not possible as they are both out of work, because my dad has recently had a full hip replacement too. I can't wait for this year to be over!

Hi, I really hope someone is able to help me! My mum took out a new contract with Vodafone in November 2011 and a few months into the contract she started having problems with the handset. She followed the normal process and took the handset back to the store and they tried fixing the phone by resetting and updating firmware etc, however she was still getting problems with the handset. The handset was then sent off for repair, but yet again it still didn't fix the problems. Whilst all of this was going on my mum was diagnosed with Cancer and had to have major surgery followed by recovery time and 6 months worth of Chemotherapy. Whilst in hospital and during recovery she still wasn't able to use the phone properly due to it crashing and turning itself off etc. During her treatment me, my mum and other family members kept taking the phone back to the store. My mum has had the phone repaired by the store 3 times and sent away for repair 3 times but it's still not fixed. My mum was getting very stressed out with phone and rather annoyed that she was paying for something that she could not use, therefore Vodafone said that they would exchange it for the same make and model phone. Due to all the problems she had already had with the phone and the reviews that they have since read about the handset she said she would refuse to have the same phone. Myself and my dad contacted Vodafone during my mums treatment and asked if we could be added to the account so that we could deal with this on her behalf, after all she was already very stressed and unwell as it was. They added us to the account and since then i have had several telephone conversations with them. After many hours and days on the telephone, Vodafone eventually offered to exchange the phone to a different make and model but only gave us a selection, all of which weren't suitable due to either small screens of small buttons etc. I looked online and compared other phones with the same price plan my mum was on. I noticed that the iPhone4 had the same price plan but was an extra £1.30 per month with the phone being free. As we knew this was a reliable phone i asked Vodafone if we could exchange it for the iPhone 4 and pay the price increase of £1.30 per month. The telephone assistant said she would have to get it authorised by the manager first, but i then got cut off. Since then i have contacted vodafone several times and spoken to about 3 different people. One said they would need to get approval and check stock availability and for us to call back in 1 week. I called back a week later and another telephone assistant said they they had got manager sign off on the 5th Dec but would need to check stock on the Monday and would call us back. We didn't receive any call on the Monday so i called them back again today. Now they are saying that he has no notes saying an iPhone 4 has been authorised and therefore we could only have one of the ones they had offered us previously!!! I am extremely annoyed and frustrated now. Every time i ask to speak to a manager they are so say in a meeting (convenient) and when i ask to be put on hold and wait for him they say they will get him to call us back within 48 hours. Yet the last time the manager was supposed to call me back he didn't. All i want is to get my mum a suitable/reliable phone so that she can actually use the service she is paying for.......is that too much to ask? I am seriously considering taking Vodafone to a small claims court as this is just disgraceful. There is no way my mum would have been able to spend the amount of time i have going back and forth arguing with Vodafone, it's not only stressing her out, it's stressing me out. We are the customer and we are paying them for a service, we should never have to go through all of this surely? Many Thanks