open letter to voderphone About two years ago I and my sister shared a flat, and we realised we could get money off our phone bills by having a joint account with Vodafone - who I have been with for over a decade. Since then I got married and moved away and with our contract up for renewal, we have been trying to split our accounts. The first stumbling block was that my sister wasn’t allowed to do anything with the account nor have any information about the account. So I called them and Vodafone told me that if we split the account, my sister would not be able to upgrade for 3 months and so they advised upgrading the account - then splitting it. I authorised this and my sister received a new phone … but Vodafone failed to split the account. So I called again. Vodafone said they would do it, but again didn’t. In the mean time my sister again tried to sort it out - both over the phone and in a store. Neither time was she allowed even to know her own account details, let alone to do anything. By this time my sister was so fed up she wanted to leave Vodafone, so I called wanting to request a PAC code for her number and a bag to return the phone in. Apparently this can only be dealt with by the returns department. So when I called the person answering the phone would verify who I was, ask why I was calling and then put me on hold saying they would transfer me to the returns department. About 2 minutes later I would hear some computerised voice say something along the lines of “Press one for Crystal, press two for Symbol” there was no warning, and a second later before I could respond properly (Which was tricky because I have no idea what Crystal or Symbol are) the phone would start ringing and someone from an apparently random Vodafone department would pick up the phone, and have no idea why I was calling. I would tell them, and they would reply that this needed to be dealt with by the returns department, and that they would put me on hold while they transferred me… This happened approximately six times. I eventually begged the person to get the returns department to call me instead of having this happen a seventh time. She agreed, and I ended the call. Were upon my phone’s battery promptly died. I was in the middle of a conference and wouldn’t get back to my hotel until late evening. So I got my laptop out and started a live chat. The live chat person took some convincing that I couldn’t answer the phone right now (they wanted to start the merry go around again, for the seventh time), and eventually said they would get the returns department to call me back in 24 hours. They eventually did just as I arrived in a station, returning from the conference. It was very noisy, but I couldn’t leave the platform without going underground. I had no means of writing down the PAC code they tried to tell me over the phone and so asked them to text it to my sister - and to send her a returns bag. They said they would, but neither of these things happened. Since then I have tried to contact Vodafone numerous times, but never managed to get through. I understand that this is due to the high volume of calls they are receiving at the moment - I’m guessing that this is people wanting iPhone 6s. But because of this my sister has already gone past her 7 day return policy Vodafone has, and it most certainly isn’t our fault. We are both tired and angered by this situation and would greatly appreciate it if Vodafone would pull their fingers out of their collective arses and actually do what they have said they would do several times and send her a PAC code and a bag to return her phone in - and without charging her for it. I already have my PAC code, and I will be leaving as soon as I am sure her phone situation is sorted out. (I don’t want to pull the plug and leave her suddenly without a phone she depends on for work).