This is regarding false commitment and how vodafone customer care is cheating consumers and harassing them.

Vodafone had a form on their website for 3G service in the month of December 2010. I contacted via that form and one of their customer care representative contacted me. After our discussion, Vodafone committed that their 3G service would be active by the end of December 2010. In fact I was told that by 26th Dec, this service would be active. I was also told that my billing would start immediately and I will have to pay for first 15-20 days for their normal data service until 3G service starts. I confirmed for this. After 2 days, the delivery boy delivered the data card to me (not sure about exact date but it was somewhere around Dec 10 - Dec 12, 2010) and I was given 9873974041 number along with that data card.

Problem 1: I filled the form and correctly mentioned my email address on the form. However, the account was not linked with my email address and it took 10 days for Vodafone just to link my email with the new number I purchased. This problem should not have taken more than 1 day (although the linking an email address takes few clicks only). I felt that customer care is illiterate. They can't read an email neither they can resolve any problem on phone. First they will keep on hold for 10-15 minutes if they are not able to resolve any problem and after that customer will be so frustrated that he will hang up the phone.

Problem 2: Why should anyone pay for no service?
3G service was not launched in December 2010. I contacted Vodafone customer care in first week of January 2011 and they simply denied about it. They said that there is no firm date for launch of 3G service yet. I was shocked to know this as the whole purpose of getting the data card was to avail 3G service. I have airtel connection at home and it works fine. The connectivity I was getting with vodafone card was so poor that even my 6 years old kid was not ready to use that! I even asked to deactivate the service but they did not. Customer care as well as Nodal office did not provide any support and they kept on adding bills. In Feb, someone from their end spoke to me and my services were finally deactivated. However, by that time, I had two outstanding bills in my name for no service. Great policy to get money from consumers! Get the customer by making false commitment, do not provide the committed service and then charge them by hooks or crooks. Today only (March 21, 2011), I visited Vodafone store and they simply said that I will have to pay the outstanding. I asked to provide me details of the sales person who sold the data card to me and they failed to provide me that too. They only provided me the agency who deals in Gurgaon (DSA Super C.C. Gurgaon), not even the agency phone number. I am helpless as neither customer care or nodal officer or vodafone store is ready to accept the fault. This is ridiculous. The only mistake I did was that I did not ask for in written what that sales person committed me and now these cheaters are taking undue advantage of that.

Now they want payment for these two bills anyhow and their legal department has sent a notice for this.

I posted the same compliant on consumercomplaints.in/complaints/vodafone-c542692.html and I received a response from vodafone that they were trying to contact me but could not get through. It should not take more than a minute to get a customer's detail for a customer care executive. I don't think vodafone is happy to help anyone!

Thanks,
Manish