26 Mar 2012 - Update Highest Rated Pain Stories Highest Rated Gain Stories Vodafail Local Facebook Page
Dear visitor,

Since its inception Vodafail.com has made a significant contribution towards raising awareness of the problems and issues faced by Vodafone customers.

Vodafone Australia customers have had the opportunity to voice their concerns, their fears and their troubles from every corner of Australia and beyond our borders. You have gathered the courage to stand up for your rights as consumers and to make your voice heard.

Each and every person who shared their story should have a sense of pride in this achievement and the changes that have occurred since the start of Vodafail.com.

More recently, traffic to Vodafail.com has declined significantly. Having achieved the goal of raising awareness and promoting concrete action in early 2011, we have now reached the point of closing Vodafail to new complaints. The site will remain online for as long as possible as a reminder and an example of what is possible when we share our experiences.

It has been a privilege to run this initiative and I'm am forever grateful for the help and support I've received. In particular I would like to thank Melissa, David and Travis for their continued efforts over the past 15 months. I'm also thankful and humbled by the support of ACCAN, Choice magazine and a wide range of media outlets, blogs and websites.

You can still browse existing stories and find out how to file a complaint if you are experiencing problems.

Until next time,

Adam Brimo

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20122 Someone from SA thinks vodafone is Lying to Customers for sales at 28 Nov 2011 04:22:08 PM
I recently damaged my iPhone so I needed to do an insurance claim. The insurance claim was fine and I got my phone within a week (very happy about this). When I picked up my phone from the store I asked them when my contract was up and they said in 3 months and that I could upgrade for free. I was a tad annoyed about this as the insurance claim cost me $250 and I would have upgraded and avoided that cost. Anyway I thought I would give the new phone that I got from insurance to my sister as she was in need of a phone and I upgraded my phone over the phone. AS I was giving the insurance phone to my sister I needed something to tide me over until I get my phone from upgrades in the next 2 weeks. I went into the store in Rundle Mall in Adelaide to grab a cheapie phone. I was served by a young girl and she ran out the back and got me the $20 cheapie phone that I asked for and when she came back she asked for my drivers licence. I asked what she needed it for and she said that she needed to activate the pre-paid sim card that came with the phone. I looked at the board that the phone was on and said that there were other phones that said that tehy came in packs but this one didn't and there was no disclaimer saying that I needed to activate a free sim card that came with the phone let alone hand over my drivers licence to activate it. I said that I had no need for the sim card and seeing as it didn't state that I had to take it I didn't want it. She started talking about how it was by law that they had to activate a sim card with every pre paid phone sold and so on and so forth. I said I would like the literature that states that I need to activate a pre paid number when I just want to buy a pre paid phone. She printed out a form (the one I had to sign) and said that it stated it on there. I informed her that the form talked about activating a pre-paid mobile number, not purchasing a pre paid phone. A young man came to help serve and he got agitated when I pointed out that the form had nothing to do with purchasing a pre paid mobile phone and I would like the literature which said I had to activate a sim card when purchasing a pre paid mobile phone. He said he could not find it and I asked politely if he could dig it up and I would be back in the store in an hour once I had finished work. His response absolutely horrified me. His exact word were, "I would rather be serving customers that have to do this." Now I have 3 post paid accounts with vodafone. One for me, one for my mother and one for my father as they are a bit older and it is getting a bit much for them to deal with bills so I consider myself a customer of vodafone no matter how small my issue is. Before I lost my temper I politely told him that if he could be so kind as to try and find the paperwork regarding activating a pre paid sim card before I returned I would be more than happy to take it.

I returned to the store an hour later as I said that I would. The girls who served me the first time was there and she asked me to wait. She then went to the front of the store, spoke to another girl and the second girl served me. The second girl said that I could have the phone with no sim card but there would be no warranty on the phone. I found that strange and said so. She then changed her story a little and said it was because there was no way of tracking the phone if they sold it to me without a phone number that they activated. I informed her the the first girl told me that I could throw away the activated sim card if I didn't need it and if this was the case if I came back needing the phone repaired without that phone number how would they find it? She then said it would be because they would find me by name.

Now I am not up-to-date with all technology but I do know this from buying other phones outright (without a damn pre paid sim card), to find a phone that a store has sold they always record the imei number. This is what happened why I needed to get my receipt for insurance and I know for a fact my name was not on that receipt because I have just checked it against the pre paid one that I bought.

I decided to test this theory. I called up the Tea Tree Plaza store and told them that I had bought a pre paid phone from a store in another state and I wanted to know if I could get a copy of the receipt from her store. The girl on the phone said, "yes, all we need is the IMEI number in the back of the phone."

I actually then went into the Tea Tree Plaza store and pretended that I wanted to buy a pre paid phone and the same thing happened. A boy said that he needed to activate a pre-paid sim card with my pre paid phone. I went through a similar spiel with what happened at the Rundle Mall store and he refused to sell me the phone and that it was for warranty purposes that he needed to activate the sim card with the pre paid phone.

Strange.....considering that the girl from the Tea Tree Plaza store said earlier that all I needed was the IMEI number for a receipt.

I believe that the girl in the Rundle Mall store along with the boy at the Tea Tree Plaza store were just trying to bump up their quota of pre paid numbers for the month and I am absolutely disgusted.

I have since gone through the Vodafone website thoroughly and cannot find ANYTHING saying that all pre-paid phones have to have a pre-paid sim card activated with them. Vodafone, I am withdrawing my upgrade and am transferring all 3 of my numbers to another carrier as soon as my parents phones come out of contract!

......and all of this because one of your staff members demanded my personal details to sell something that she didn't need
28 Nov 2011 04:33:15 PM: I also said that if I needed to take the sim card I didn't want to activate it as I would activate it when one of my relatives came out from overseas at some stage and I didn't want it to be expired and she still said that she had to activate it. Completely absurd
29 Nov 2011 08:28:15 AM: I think you find that any phone u buy u have to provide id for. Would have something to do with the telecommunication act & terrorism. Any sim card u buy u have to provide id for
29 Nov 2011 07:04:42 PM: Hi as a previous Vodafone employee I can give you the correct information. The sim card does not have to be activated in the store, you can take it and chuck it out or give it to a random person. Your ID was requested as all Mobile phones sold outright require a govenrnment based legal form to be filled out. Yes you are correct with saying they are trying to up their prepaid activation quota. Either way you still give over I'd for the form but don't have the sim activated
29 Nov 2011 07:37:50 PM: Thanks for the feedback guys. I just don't get it, when I have bought an $800 phone outright which I have had to do a couple of times I never get given a sim card but when I buy a $20 phone I get given hell. I have checked the AMTA website and it says nothing about a phone needing to be purchased with a sim card. I have since gone into Optus, Telstra and other dealers and they do not have this policy. I jsut find it bizarre.
29 Nov 2011 10:16:16 PM: As I said ex Vodafone employee, I can't stand them. So in answer to the eight hundred dollar prone vs twenty. Only pre paid phones need the forms .. Outright more expansive no Id vs prepaid cheaper id required! Hope this helps
30 Nov 2011 01:32:48 PM: I recommend checking the AMTA website a little closer. The handset you were going to buy was a prepaid phone and was packaged with a prepaid sim card. Even if you had no intention of using the sim card it is still a requirement that ID is taken for all sales of prepaid services - whether they are activated in store or not. Try buying a phone from the grocery store - they have the same policies. You may find it frustrating but as a mobile retailer filling out a form for a $20 phone is doubly frustrating, esp considering the small mark up on such devices. That said the fine if your audited and the forms arent filled out correctly is very expensive. Also the system used for warranty purposes only works when the imei of the phone is attached to a phone number. So even if you want to buy a phone without a sim they still need a phone number so they can put it in the system, so then the imei can be looked up at a later stage. Unfortunately nothing is that easy anymore.
2 Dec 2011 08:01:46 PM: Sorry, like I said, this one was not in a package, they were separate. I am aware pf the packaged ones in the stores and this was not packaged
2 Dec 2011 08:04:47 PM: Also to the person who posted on the 30th of Nov that I need to check the ATMA wbesite a bit closer, (I am assuming you work in a store) please post the link where it says when I buy a prepaid phone I need to have a sim card. That is all I asked for in a store and it could not be provided. I understand it is 'not easy" but if staff are asking for ID and it is advertised nowhere that the phone comes with a sim card this information needs to be readily available. It is not good enough.
22 Dec 2011 06:39:09 AM: The girl was lying when she said that she needed to activate a sim card with the phone. I believe the store recieves commision every time they activate a prepaid simcard instore. The amta form is always neccessary to fill out and sign by law. I believe this would be the same for other telecommunication stores. It is not the system or policies that is making your life hard, it would be the stores misleading staff at the time. As for insurance as long as you keep a receipt with or without your name, they can send it off for a warranty repair. All prepaid phones come with one year warranty, but seeing as yours was unpackaged (which seems very dodgy) it may not. In order to purchase a prepaid phone the store MUST fill out an amta form by law whereas not for an outright phone normally for postpaid stock, you must understand this. No matter what the price and a stupid as it sounds, they have to stick to the law. The staff there have obviously mislead you, and other staff have tried to back up what the wrongful staff has first said to avoid complaint like how most other retailers work.
13 Jan 2012 12:23:36 PM: The stores to not get commission for any pre-paid card activations. Don't get me wrong I am having major issues with vodafone atm which is why I am on this website but I think you need to put ur issue into perspective. All the retail stores (I used to work at Dick Smith) which sell phones are told do NOT sell a pre-paid phone without photo ID its company policy. They do not take a uni degree on terms and conditions so its no surprise that the employees couldn't find this policy. They wldve jst been told that this is company policy and that they will be in trouble if they do not follow this. I know it has something to do with anti-terrirism laws and all that. That is, australian laws not the store company laws.
As for activating the sim card i dunno where they got it from that they have to activate it but all pre-paid phones come with sim cards. If it was unpackages then it's probably a display phone or something but just because the sim card is physically out of the open package doesn't mean it is not included in the sale. I still think you should leave vodafone coz they are crap but i think ur making a mountain out of a mole