The bad experiences gigathread

Telecoms Chat ☎️
#1

You know what this means… :smile:

Beyond the guidelines, there’s just one rule: no names (mobile networks or otherwise).

“Praise by name, criticize by category.” – Warren Buffet

To kick things off, here’s one of the reasons Zevvle exists: I was going abroad for Christmas and wanted to make sure roaming was turned on. After finding my way through the website labyrinth, no; it was off. So I hit the magical toggle, and… nothing. “We can’t process that request,” or something. So I found their chat portal and sent a message… “No problem, Mr. Goodall,” they said. All good? No.

The next day, nothing. I sent another message to confirm, and there was no record of our chat the day before… So once more, “No problem, Mr. Goodall,” and second time lucky. What took over an hour should have taken <60 seconds on a website or app.

As far as bad experiences go, that’s tame (I have high expectations of technology…). But now it’s your turn – have you had something worse? :thinking:

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#2

image

First ever top up. £0 + £5 = £4.60?

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What was your *best* experience with a mobile network?
#3

Well… not sure I’ve come across that maths before :thinking:

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#4

I’ve seen people on this forum naming the network or company when they have good service so why not name them when the service is sub par? If not then surely the same should apply there as well? :man_shrugging:

#5

Good q. The goal of this thread is to learn, not berate other networks. Other forums exist for that, and by adding names it can easily go off track. I also don’t like what it says about us as a community (the negativity…). If you have a complaint to make, best to get in touch with the network itself or even Ofcom.

Anyone can build the biggest building in town by tearing all the others down, but that’s not Zevvle. I hope that makes sense^^ :slight_smile:

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#6

That’s fair enough. Thanks for getting back to me. :+1:

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#7

The worst experience was probably paying about £30 to have my phone unlocked from their network.

An arbitrary anti-consumer fee which - to add insult to injury - took 3 support phone calls to make happen.

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#8

The main issue is that none of the established carriers like being spoken badly of, especially when it comes from one of their MVNO clients.

So while it sucks it’s perfectly understandable for Zevvle to not want that on their community, at least not until they’re big enough to have good bargaining powers and no longer depend on any other carrier. :smirk:

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#9

As for my bad experiences, there are a lot but I’ll start with a simple one.

Called up one of the major carriers because of issues with WiFi calling (IMS). I’ve already looked around on my side, did some tests and figured out their IPSec server for some reason just wouldn’t accept a connection from my phone.

The monkey that answered tried to find all kinds of excuses to get me off the call or to tell me it’s normal, but the best part was when they told me there was a network issue in my area… quoting the postcode of my previous home address I moved out of like half a year ago. Not to mention local network issues wouldn’t affect WiFi calling but whatever, the point is that they’re happy to lie when nothing else works to get the customer off the phone.

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#10

I bought my most recent plans through a common highstreet 3rd party as the deals were significantly better than going direct.

The day after taking it out I had 3 SIM’s arrive instead of the one I’d ordered. Turned out there had been a glitch in the networks ordering system and 3 contracts had been set up simultaneously.

Rather than manage the error I then had to go through the full cancellation process for 2 of the contracts which took a huge amount of time and resource without an acknowledgement of the inconvenience caused (nobody would even verbally say “sorry” on the phone - no doubt out of fear of admitting some sort of liability)

Due to further mistakes it took about 60 days to get it all sorted, my account squared to where it was and me at the point I should have been at day 1.

My overriding impression coming out of it is a company with customer service staff that are scared of saying anything not on their screen or even trying to talk to me as a person rather than a series of scripts which I didn’t quite fit.

Would much rather speak to a company that treated me as a person, and have me able to treat them in the same way.

Second big peeve I have is something I know Zevvle may not be able to combat early on and that’s as a Business customer I find it impossible to source out the good deals.
As a private individual the GiffGaff website is a joy to use and I wish they offered something I could use for business as well as personal.

Trying to find solid information about the plans that are being purchased shouldn’t be a struggle and so far GiffGaff are the only ones I’ve seen that have got it right.

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#11

There is that, and also the “don’t criticise your neighbours” philosophy. The last thing we want is for this to turn into a typical internet comment section…

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#12

My worst mobile experience was an MVNO switching parent mobile operators, and didn’t have clear instructions, and a check in place to make sure you had put the new SIM into the phone and connected to the mobile network before continuing with the number porting. This meant that my mobile number, that I had used for about a decade, was in limbo for around 4-6 weeks when I had to use a temporary number, and wasn’t totally sure if I’d get my number back or have to tell everyone my new number.

Luckily they did eventually manage to fix the issue and get the number sorted. I wasn’t the only person to have the issue, thousands had the problem, with quite a negative social media situation at the time.

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Two weeks after launch
#13

A few:
Before the days of bundles.
I had a cap “agreed” so my bills wouldn’t be to high when abroad by an agent before I left
My bills were high as a cap “wasn’t possible” confirmed by an agent on my return.
I once had a problem where my a network was blocking a data connection 15 days into my monthly billing cycle.
No one could tell me why, multiple months this went on for. Lots of emails, calls etc.
Various attempts to fix.
Phone resets, network settings resets.
I even was sent a new SIM card 3 times.
Each person would try something different that had been tried before.
I’d get referred to more senior technical people who would try again (once the possible solution was to bar my phone from the network for a few days).
Non of this worked.
Eventually it just started working again I still have no idea why nor does my network (still with them - wouldn’t be if it hadn’t of started working).
I do have a decent number though so my worry is losing it.

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#14

Direct Debit not taken from the account with no explanation as to why it wasn’t able to be taken, thus having to pay by card and loose the 2% cash back reward from the current account.

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#15

That sounds like a royal pain in the rear! Think I would’ve left much sooner…

So the bank only offered the 2% on direct debits and not by card? Or am I misunderstanding…

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#16

Yes, that’s how the Natwest Rewards scheme works. The Santander 123 accounts are similar with the cash back only on the direct debits.

Which brings the question, how about a monthly top up via direct debit to get the rewards with the above type current accounts?

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#17

With the top-up mechanic we need to use something like Stripe, so it wouldn’t make sense to integrate with 2 payment providers to start with. Maybe we can do this down the line :slight_smile:

#18

Agree one for further down the line.

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#19

I wouldn’t recommend wasting time on supporting direct debits. They’re a slow, legacy system (it takes 3 days to request a payment and get a response back with whether it was approved or declined) and the direct debit guarantee is a huge liability for the business as a customer is allowed to claim back any DD without having to provide a reason, and then you’re left holding the bag (at least with chargebacks there has to be a legitimate reason).

Cards are the future and have the avantage of working anywhere and not being limited to UK account holders.

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#20

If you’re going to use DDMs for monthly top-ups, I’d recommend GoCardless.

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