badoffroader
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Just a bit of an update to my update.I never did receive a reply to my email asking for the details of Vodafones Data Controller AND I've NEVER received any reply or update from the Ombudsman reference the case which was opened against Vodafone by them!.It seems Vodafone are just a bit too big and really WON'T be dictated to - even by the Ombudsman. I'm just glad I escaped their clutches,one things for sure,i will never go back.
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To cut a long story short ,i gave Vodafone 30 day notice as required 1st June 2015 they didn't end my account as requested and continued to send me bills . I began receiving emails and letters from their debt collector ,Ardent, for the next month. It has now been sorted out (hopefully!!) after Ombudsman and CEO involvement. All the time I was trying to sort it out on the telephone I had,after a while,sussed that I should ask each customer services rep to make a note on my account of what we were discussing "just in case". Consequently there are loads of notes which prove my account should have ended on or around 1st July BUT they still tried to chase the non-existing debt via Ardent,their debt collectors. Have I any recourse via the Data Protection Act .Thanks.
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Ha ,i've just commented on your thread saying exactly the same .The current update is that the Ombudsman is currently investigating and I'm going to try to contact Vodafone UK's Data Controller to get an explanation on why my details were released to a debt collection company .I emailed the CEO about a week or so ago and received a letter a couple of days ago from someon "For and behalf of Jeroen Hoencamp) (the CEO)asking me to contact the Customer Relations team. I phone about an hour ago,spoke to someone there and asked that all confirmation of my account being closed and that no money was owing etc to be sent by letter AND that I was looking for compensation and an apology from someone in authority AND the details of the their Data Controller.All,apparently being sent throught to me later.....we'll wait and see.
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Simon1985,your case is almost a mirror image of what happened to me,the only difference being I had their debt collectors hassling me also.All my problems stemmed from giving them 30 days notice back on 1st June this year.I have emailed the CEO of Vodafone UK AND the Ombudsman is currently involved.I was informed by a helpful person on here that I may have reason for complaint to VF UK's Data Controller as they had given my details without a good reason to these debt collectors and I will,if I can,follow this up because no matter how big VF UK are,they can't be allowed to treat customers in this way.Glad to hear you got it sorted eventually,Lee from VF did also help me.
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Just sent an email to the CEO of Vodafone UK.I got a reply from Directors support last time asking for my details and never heard back from them again!. Content is as below: " To Mr Hoencamp . Please supply me with the full name and postal contact details of Vodafone UK's Data controller. I have had an ongoing dispute with yourselves (Vodafone UK) since July 2015 .Short story is : I gave you 30 days notice of my intention to end my contract on 1st June 2015 and to cut a long story short, after many,many hours of conversation on the phone to your customer services representatives in many countrys around the world,and also email contact with your employees (stating I don't owe anything to you and my account is closed!) ,you didn't do it and continued to send me bills ever since. This culminated in me being chased,by letter and email by Ardent Credit Services (employed by Vodafone UK) demanding payment for the last 2 weeks. I have been informed that YOU (Vodafone UK) may have acted unlawfully under the Data Protection Act 1988 by sharing my details with a third party without my permission or reasonable cause to do so. I intend to follow this up AND,if viable,take legal recourse against Vodafone UKs Data Controller" I wonder if i'll get a reply??...Time will tell.
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Thanks for your reply King12345 ,The data protection rules are the bit I really am unsure about and,yes,Vodafone are totally to blame for this situation BUT,technically,I had replied to Ardents very first email by disclosing the amount outstanding (which would have identified me as the correct recipient of their email) which they had never mentioned AND mentioning twice in my reply email that the outstanding amount was disputed AND signing it with my name.Its my understanding that once the word "disputed" is mentioned in relation to a debt being chased,its the chasing company's responsibility to make enquiries with the company who'd instructed them to confirm the debt is actually owed . OK,they may have done that and Vodafone just said I do owe it to them so everything I just said is invalid ......But I just have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about debt collection companies - period! (never had anything personally to do with them but hear and see how destructive their kind of business can be to people). I didn't think of the Data controller route ,thanks for that .I think I will try that and send an email to the Vodafone CEO (again!) tomorrow to find out who it is and an address I can send a recorded letter to,which will,probably,either get ignored or may yield a result.Thanks. PS,the Telecommunications Ombudsman is now involved as well and has accepted my complaint.
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I see where you're coming from Silverfox but I have an idea that the reply to my complaint from Ardent would run along the lines of "I'm sorry ,we can't deal with your problem until you confirm your name,address,date of birth" etc etc. ...and I'm just not prepared to voluntarily confirm anything to them .So I do need to find out from any very clever data protection law boffins on here ,if,Ardent have to,legally,have me confirm all that BEFORE we can communicate further. Also,i'm not sure,though I may be wrong,if I could take any action against Ardent through the County Court for harassment as there has not been any financial loss to me (much as I'd absolutely love to do that and it would fill me with deep joy to be able to do so ). I used to run my own business and I did,several times,have to take other companies to County Court to get paid what I was owed .They were all successful and I ended up getting all my money back plus costs each time,so,County Court action is not something I'd be too worried about getting into. Its all just very irritating,and to be truthful,my partner is actually worried about it and the possible repercussions on my credit rating etc.
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Thanks for the above advice : UNFORTUNATELY ,even though I have received a couple of emails from the VF rep on this site telling me Ardernt credit services HAVE been informed that I DON'T owe VF anything (according to the email) ,Ardent continue to send emails asking me to contact them and todays one.part of the content has "Please call Ardent on 0151 375 9376 as we have not received your payment as promised" .I've promised them bugger all and the only return email I have sent them was after their very first email to me in which I wrote "To Ardent Credit Services.I would imagine you are contacting me reference 2 outstanding payments to Vodafone for £72.44. What Vodafone obviously haven't told you is that I don't owe any money as my Vodafone account was cancelled in June 2015 and paid up to date at that time!!. These outstanding payments are disputed and.Vodafone are totally wrong to instruct yourselves to chase this money. This dispute has been going on with them for over 3 months now.Get back to Vodafone and ask whoever you speak to,to look at the notes on my account and it will be absolutely clear what the position is. Please do not contact me again as I have no contract with you and do not wish to engage with you further!." I have not replied to any of their emails since (4 or 5). They replied by telling me they cannot deal with the matter until I have confirmed my ID,ie full name address,date of birth etc etc - which I refuse to do on the grounds that I don't have any reason to - they contacted me via the information given to them by their "client" Vodafone, so they have all my details already WITHOUT me having to confirm them as the above letter states;the outstanding sum they're chasing is £72.44p which I told them without them mentioning it. What I'd like to know please,from anyone with a lot more legal and Data Protection knowledge is : How do I stand complaining to Ardents governing body about their harassment via email, even though they had been informed at the very start that the outstanding amount is disputed what is the best way to construct a letter to send them via email, AGAIN making clear that I do not owe the money. Unfortunately I can't trust Vodafone to sort this out as they are lax and totally inefficient .Thanks.
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UPDATE. I have received emails from Lee informing me that there appears to be no adverse reports left by them on my credit file another email from Adent credit services thanking me for my email (I had copy and pasted Lees email stating my account was closed and I didn't owe Vodafone any money and sent it to them) but saying that they can't deal with that until I confirm name,address,DOB etc..not going to happen!. Yesterday I received a letter from Ardent credit services telling me it would cost me over £700 to end my contract and that I may also have a marker place on my credit file - I have forwarded this to Lee. I also received a reply asking for more details from the Communications Ombudsman ,so they can investigate my problem .It took me 5 hours collating all the contacts ,phone calls ,emails ,dates etc but I returned that to the Ombudsman last night. At the end of the Ombudsman form there are several questions you have to answer i.e "what resolution would you want at the end of our investigation from the company?! .I resisted the urge to ask for the first born children of the CEO to be sold into slavery for life BUT I did state I request a full apology "from someone in authority! and monetary compensation. I believe that after all the time,trouble and worry they have caused me that I'm not asking for more than I deserve.We'll wait and see. PS the post I put up on Vodafone UK Facebook site (under the "support for victims of Cyber bullying") IS STILL THERE - I would have removed it by now if I were them! ,but I think that either the VF staff who run the FB site agree with me or they're actually not too bothered,either way its shameless.
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Thanks Martin2006. I have always thought that its the way VF cutomer services is structured with so many departments in so many countries that causes problems mainly .I have had to speak to many customer services people over the last 3 months and,generally,most of them sounded like they do actually want to help but when a CS rep has to be put on hold for 10-15 minutes when trying to get through to another dept within their own company and,eventually ,can't get through ,doesn't bode well that everthing will turn out well. Unfortunately most of the interractions i've had with the Indian call centres have always sounded very insincere and have proved fruitless - it really does sound like they are reading from the screen script in front of them!. Silverfox1961 ,i'm going to wait to see if VF get back to me about calling off the "Dogs" and making sure my credit file is clean .I'm reluctant to have any contact at all with this Ardent bunch - they've already told me that I need to confirm all my details via email i'e full name,address,date of birth etc before they'll deal with me,so they may be waiting quite a long time . Just as a matter of interest, if anyones got a bit of time on their hands, go and look at the Vodafone UK Facebook site and click on all the replies to the various subjects on there. They are virtually ALL negative and generally complaining about problems they're having with this horrendous company. I used to run my own business for many years : the Customer was King and Customer relations about the most important part of my role - If I was the CEO of this company,i would be standing on the roof of a very,very tall building somewhere and considering what my next step was!.
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UPDATE!!! Got a phonecall from Lee today around 11.30am ,he went off, came back and told me my account was now definitely closed and I owed VF NO money. I asked that he reiterate this in an email - which he duly did .Received another email from VF dogs, Ardent debt recovery around 5 or 6pm asking that I contact them urgently to discuss my outstanding VF payment ??. On Friday I place quite a damning statement on the VF UK Facebook site,underneath their appeal to support people who are/have been "Cyber bullied"..... ........I have never heard any more hipocrtical drivel from a company that actually DOES bully its customers!! it stayed up the top ALL weekend and vitually ever and I mean every post on that FB site was from a disgruntled customer .Someone from VF had posted underneath my statement that iit was "disappointing" and to get in touch and they'd sort it out. So I sent them my details and complaind that after it being "sorted out" today I still have debt collectors trying to collect a debt that does'nt exist, plus I asked that they check for any marks on my credit file and delete them. So not over yet but (hopefully) getting there .BUT WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO GO THROUGH ALL THIS HASSLE BECAUSE A COMPANY,WHO IS OBVIOUSLY FAILING ITS CUSTOMERS, CAN'T GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER! - THEY'VE NOT CREATED A POSSIBLE RETURNING CUSTOMER IN ME,BUT TOTAL ANTI VODAFONE CAMPAIGNER!!.
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Yes i understand that colin11 but i was just an innocent customer just trying to get vf to rectify their mistake .i did,every time i phoned though,ask the operative to make notes on my account of what was discussed and what action the operative planned take - luckily enough they did do this most of the time (sar request is going in this weekend on THEIR form.) .I will try livechat again,but,as you may or may not know - its not working and is continually busy.
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Thanks silverfox.
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Its now been 4 days since I first posted my problem and asked for the VF rep on this site to contact me and I've still not heard anything,does this rep still work for VF?.
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"You would think something as simple as cancelling a contract would be easy!!!".....You would think so!.Unfortunately there appears to be a culture of treating the customer like dirt,lying to them and,it seems,making things as difficult as possible. I'm still waiting for this VF rep to contact me but to be honest am not holding much hope that things will get sorted out that way. I have discovered that if a complaint go's on for more than 3 months without being concluded satisfactorally, you can ask Otelo to get involved. Apparently if they take up your case there are monetary costs to Vodafone I think this is where I'm going next (unless Otello is the telecoms ombudsman - in which case I've already filled the form in and sent it). It would make sense for everyone else who has a long standing problem caused by Vodafone to actually go that route and it would hurt them in the best place - their pocket!.
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