Vodafone presents punter with £500k phone bill

Resolved within 24 hours. Where do I sign up?

1. Someone actually answered the phone

2. No-one said 'Of course it is correct 'cos the computer sez so'

3. The operator was able to pass the problem to managers

4. Managers were available after 5.00pm

5. A promised callback actually happened

6. By the following morning the problem was resolved.

7. There was an immediate offer to cancel that month's bill.

Considering the number of times I have had phone calls that go unanswered for over 1/2 hour (and then get cut off), totally impossible bills which will not be corrected because the numpty on the help desk cannot do simple maths, promised callbacks that never happen and an offer of £10 after failing to resolve mistake afer mistake over a 9 month period, this is a shining beacon of customer service. Vodaphone here I come.

@Jacob Lipman

Thanks. I don't often make it back to a story's comments. 411 is the number for information in the US. 911 is the emergency number and 311 is the almost-emergency number, 911 for short-tempered people (the neighbors are loud, my cat's stuck in a tree, ...).

@Peter

I think you're forgetting that the significant difference between this and any other customer service situation is that the bill is of such a magnitude, that it warrants being dealt with as a priority. Try obtaining the same level of service over an everyday discrepancy instead.

Get real?

Given the gazillions of subscribers to VF, plus the complex routing and managing of call data records (CDR's) and billing etc, things will go wrong now and again.... Hat's off to VF for managing the customer so well and compensating. To the punter - oh how the brits just looove to have something to winge about....

Paris - One Night In Paris could land you with an unexpected large bill ;-)

Per minute charging.......

Based on a £35 tariff, a £500k bill would work out (on a 30 day month) at £11.19 per minute. If the bill was before VAT then the charges would be £13.16.

Data charges would be different.......

Mobile broadband 3Gb tariff (which is £15 according to their website) would equal approx 33335 Gb of data (which is a hell of a lot of iPlayer usage) working out on a 30 day month at approx 750Mb per minute (or about 12Mb per second). To get to the 300GB of data to run this bill up, this would only be possible outside of the UK, as 300GB in the UK would result in a bill of about £4500 (considerably less, and easier to swallow) unless data was being charged at £1666 per Gb (again assuming in these calculations that they are allready including VAT)

If you know any provider in the UK you can get that kind of speed with, please let me know.

Mines the one with Live Fast, Die Broke on the back

@Spanky McG

I just let the money come out of my account.

Well Lord/Lady McG all I can say is I can see the word mug stamped on your head from here.

Companies will try and take as much money as they can from you if they think they can get away with it so goodness knows how much you have lost over the years.

I go over bills with a fine tooth comb even if it paid by DD (I keep DD payments to a minimum because its a licence to rob you blind)

Might I suggest you ask your butler (Jeeves/Hobson/Smyth) to check your bill every so often as Voda could be robbing you without you knowing it and surely you'd prefer your income from your directorships/trust funds/stocks and shares to be earning interest in your Coutts account wouldn't you?

Mine's the one with the Kugerrands in the pockets.