By James Simons
Vodaphone have been found guilty of negligence by the Ombudsman.
The giant phone company fined £4.6m by ofcom in 2016, have been found guilty of failing to address a complaint of one of our members. After 9 phone calls were made over a 6 month period complaining about overcharges, Vodaphone did not respond.
The Ombudsman said Vodaphone had failed to refer the complainant to the ombudsman . It added that there was no evidence the company had made any efforts to address his complaint.
This was a “shortfall” in the company’s operations, The Ombudsman said. However, the punishment was weak, in that Vodaphone was asked to send an apology and credit the customers phone with £50.
The customer who doesn’t want to identified over the complaint because they think it is “relatively trivial ” told the eye of media.com that Vodaphone is probably ” the most irresponsible ” giant phone company out there .
After complaining of overcharges to calls made to America, the customer made 9 calls over a 6 months period to Vodaphone, complaining of the overcharges.
REPRESENTATIVES
Representatives of Vodaphone who answered the phone had promised they would get back to him, but never did. After months of frustration, he complained to the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman said they could not begin investigation until evidence of all the staff he had spoken to were provided.
Vodaphone stubbornly refused to provide the requested evidence, claiming it was the Ombudsman responsibility to provide it. However , the Ombudsman themselves said they didn’t operate that way.
After the eye of media.com applied pressure on one of Vodaphone’s staff, the names of the 9 staff were released. The investigation began and has been concluded.
APOLOGISE
Vodaphone will apparently take 14 days to apologise , an apology whose sincerity will never be known since they never came clean themselves.
USELESS
The customer has said the £50 credit to the phone is not any form of compensation, but a ” useless” gesture not worthy of “anything meaningful”. Meanwhile, the eye of media.com is closely assessing the Ombudsman’s operations and will be making recommendations to ofcom.
TamerRamadan from Vodaphone admitted to the eye of media.com that the amount awarded by the Ombudsman was ridiculous. ”The customer has mounted a bill up 0ver £700, and a credit of £50 isn’t even 5% of the bill.