Vodafone has seemingly disconnected my family from the modern world. In June, after months of emails encouraging me to upgrade my copper-cable broadband service to “full fibre”, I accepted. An installation was arranged. However, the engineer declared he needed authorisation from the network provider Openreach to use local utility poles. A second visit was planned then cancelled on the day for the same reason. A third attempt was scheduled at the end of July. At midnight on that day, Vodafone terminated my existing broadband connection without warning.
An Openreach engineer duly attended and ascertained that a trench would need to be dug and a new appointment would have to be made. I therefore asked Vodafone to restore my copper-based service. Vodafone informed me this couldn’t be done and that if I wanted a full fibre service I would have to pay £3,000 for the connection. My wife and I both work from home and this is causing us significant stress.
CR, Devon
The marketing literature promised you a special deal on “the UK’s most reliable broadband technology”. Instead, you’ve had to fork out £198 for temporary, inferior internet access from another supplier while you’ve battled it out with Vodafone.
The blunders are threefold: Vodafone appears to have booked the installation without ensuring the required permissions were in place. It terminated your service without checking you were up and running and it erroneously informed you that you were liable for the £3,000 connection fee. It did subsequently provide 4G routers to get you back online, but two of them failed.
Vodafone told me the disconnection of your old broadband was an automated process and that it’s now reviewing the process. It said that the £3,000 was an internal cost which was mistakenly disclosed by a customer service agent. It assures me you will not be billed for this.
You are now awaiting an installation date this week and have been paid £1,200 for the six weeks you’ll have spent without a reliable service. A spokesperson said: “We have been in close contact with the customer and they have accepted compensation, which includes a temporary free-of-charge connection while we work to fully resolve the issue.”
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