Vodafone sux. Really sux. Before I went to New Zealand in Nov/Dec last year (2007) I asked for International Roaming to be enabled and was assured it had been turned on. Then I left my phone in the car, so couldn't check this when in NZ, but it was no biggie as I had already sorted out a hire SIM.
Now that I'm in the USA, International Roaming would be handy. So I called to confirm it was enabled the week before I left. They assured me it was enabled and would be working. Excellent. Then I arrived in LAX and got no signal (and yes, it is a quad-band phone so should work fine). I asked Laz to confirm that international roaming was enabled, and when he finally got through to them, they said they were having some temporary partnering issues (I'd guess this means that they wanted to partner for a cheaper price and their partners said no). So I waited a day or two and still had the same issues. So I bought a T-Mobile pre-paid phone for US$30 with $10 credit. That worked fine.
And then I checked on the website whilst I was forwarding my Australian number to my US number and found out that International Roaming was not enabled. So Vodafone lied to both me and also to Laz. Color me impressed! :(
Now, the credit on the T-Mobile pre-paid ran out so I needed to top it up and rang the number to have $25 added and of course they can't accept Australian credit cards like almost every other company on the planet will. So I went back to Fry's to buy a refill card and guess what - Fry's don't sell refill cards for thre T-Mobile pre-paid phones they sell, but the helpful assistant said that there was a Sprint store out in front of Fry's. Of course, he said, they don't sell T-Mobile cards. I wonder why he didn't tell me about *all* of the irrelevant things nearby!
So, I eventually found a store who sold refills and I'm back with phone access. Why should this be so hard?
And yes, I'll be sending Vodafone an Invoice for the phone and the refill, and I'd be happy to send them the handset once they agree to pay for it. :)
Regards,
The Outspoken Wookie
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