I am British, I do not complain

From an early age I have been trained not to complain and to disguise true feelings so as not to offend others….

From time to time, after 30 years in business, I stumble across what "we Brits" would refer to as "an unfortunate series of events", shorthand if you like for a sequence of ineptitudes of magnitude sufficient to reach the entry standards of the Darwin Awards.

So in the spirit of making light of what has been an outstanding debacle of the first order I have decided to share my apocryphal story in the hope it might invite comment... perish the thought action and at very least to offer guidance to others who may follow.

So here goes…I have been a mobile customer of Big Red for many years, my entire family now gurns from dawn until dusk into their black mirrors and I part company with a sensible amount for their personal and my business accounts.

Imagine my delight when in March this year when I received a call, I had been a good dog, so an agent from the north west offered me a bundle of goodies impossible to resist to thank me for my loyalty. More junk to "pop in my trunk" and a reduction in my payments...

"Ooh what a thrill", clapping hands with delight, I agreed to accept these gifts, overlooking the agents parting wish to have a good weekend ahead, on a Tuesday.

What ho, not more than an hour elapsed from his call, when my mobile signal and 4G evaporated from my phone. I thought about the advice IT would give...and turned off the handset and on again. A number of times in fact, but no cheery symbols of connectivity returned.

Now as a business relying on connection, I felt pain, not dull and aching, but sharp immediate and real. I dashed to the Big Red store in Covent Garden and waited an hour to explain my plight.

A thoughtful retail exec suggested I phone to register the problem – I pointed out that disconnection had prohibited such a sensible line of action, so he kindly took on my case...

I kid you not. A week later his frustration was apparent as even within his own organisation he had struggled to gain insight. Local Managers and regional managers were alerted and it was established an enormous error on the part of big red had deleted my account as part of my loyalty upgrade.

The week turned to 3, I bought stamps to post my emails, I lost business and so I sought help by using this platform to track down the UK MD of Big Red.

Now he clearly doesn't follow the Branson code of customer excellence and was firm in his explanation that his profile here was private and not related to his role – there stands me corrected. 

I did however receive a pretty speedy reply by email and in week 4 a new handset arrived and flickered into life along with a bundle of gestures of goodwill, reductions and new payment plans to make up for my month of lost business.

All seemed well – I swallowed the bitter pill and resumed life, spending a number of weeks on business in Dubai. 

Enjoying tea and toast one morning I logged on to find a surprise gift waiting for me from Big Red they hadn't quite finished this nose dive in customer service – it was a direct debit in excess of twelve hundred quid for April, seemingly the global roaming deal I had opted for excluded the UAE. 

I am a fool but decided that I should be a fool elsewhere, so requested details of how to terminate my account, after a standard three weeks delay and not a hint of a reply. I asked for escalation and this is what I received, verbatim, unchanged and word for word…

“Hi Mark

I would advise that you raise an official complaint https://www.vodafone.co.uk/vodafone-uk/complaints/form/ The infoarmtion provided by myself is correct as per the agreed renewal, perosnlly I have no legal entity to dispute or agree anything in realtion to the billing of what yo are chargred.

Kindest Regards

 Steph

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