Two weeks ago I ported my mobile phone from Voxi to Spusu. Both are virtual mobile operators using Vodafone and EE network respectively. I switched to Spusu because they had a deal that was 20% cheaper and offered free European roaming. That would be great for my travels. Plus Spusu offered eSim making the whole porting process very easy.
A week later I had to verify myself via SMS to access an app. The verification text never came through. Later on, I had to access another app the same way. The verification text never arrived either. It was odd, two in a row? Then I remembered I received an email from a tradesman last week. I thought it was odd as he always texts me, rarely email. I checked my incoming text messages. The last one I received was a day before Spusu confirmed my number had ported over to them. There was nothing after that.
Monday
I WhatsApp Spusu immediately. I figured it would be much quicker than calling them as usually I end up waiting for hours to speak to a human being. Turns out whatsapp wasn't much better, but I least I could multi task and didn't have to hold onto my phone all the time. The person online asked me to get someone to call and text me to test the problem.
I texted my sister to send me a text and I also called her. She said my call was from an unknown number, not mine, and she had received a text from the same unknown number. I asked her to call me back and send me a text. No text came through. She WhatsApp me to say my number cannot be reached. Wtf!!! I told the Spusu person but their response was very slow, like once every half an hour. Getting a response from them was like squeezing orange juice from a red brick.
By now I was online for nearly two hours and feeling very frustrated. I decided to call them, and got through to a real person immediately. She spoke perfect English, was professional and wasn't reading off a script. Why didn't I do that two hours ago!!! They could see my WhatsApp conversation and suggested I install a new eSim to see if it would work. Funny enough, the person on whatsapp responded at the same time with the same solution. It was 20 minutes since they last responded to me.
I installed the new eSim but that didn't solve the problem. I called Spusu again. They said some error must have happened when my number was ported over, and perhaps Vodafone hadn't sent all the files to EE. They said their technical team would raise this with Vodafone and in the meanwhile there was nothing more they could do. I asked them to escalate it and they said they would.
Wednesday
On Wednesday I called Spusu for an update. They said they were waiting for Vodafone to respond. I pushed for more details, what has happened in these two days, when did they send the message to Vodafone? Turns out it was sent literally 10 minutes before I called. That means nothing was done on my case for 2 whole days. I was fuming.
Friday morning
On Friday morning there was still no progress, I decided to take things into my own hands by contacting Voxi. Voxi had no direct number for callers, they only had an online chat bot that went around in circles, it was useless. I called Vodafone, it was a sales line only, they couldn't and wouldn't help me. Then I called the Vodafone complaints hotline. The automated system asked for my phone number. I entered it and it said I wasn't on their system and they couldn't help me. They disconnected me. Next, I contacted Vodafone on X. The person needed my details to access my account. There was one detail that I couldn't provide so they couldn't help me and suggested I go back to Voxi.
Two hours later I managed to get pass the stupid Voxi bot to another chat screen. I don't know if this was a real person, or just a more intelligent bot. When I asked if they were a bot, Yug said they're a live agent. What does that mean? At one stage I said "I'd like to speak to your technical team please" Yug responded "It's good you like that" 😣😕
Voxi's online chat is absolutely rubbish. They clearly didn't know what to do and it took them ages to reply. If there is no activity, the chat times out and disconnects you. I had to keep on typing rubbish to keep the chat going. But that still didn't stop them from cutting me off. I had been struggling online with them for an hour by now, and then they threw me out to the back of the queue, number 56!!!!! Fuck!!!
I finally got back online, and had to explain everything again to the new live agent. After pulling more of my hair out, he said he would check with their port in team. Progess at last!! I asked how will I know the outcome. You can stay online if you like, or you can contact us again later. And how do I do contact you? The same way as you have contacted us today. Fantastic. I have already wasted 4 hours of my precious time this morning. I logged off.
Friday afternoon
After lunch I had calmed down a little and was ready to try Voxi again. This time I was 8th in the queue and was speaking to Mosin. I made sure I got a transcript of the dialogue. We made a bit more progress this time. Voxi said they've sent everything to EE and was passing the buck back to them.
However, I needed them to respond to the ticket that EE raised as that's the official channel between the two companies. Mosin started to talk rubbish now and did not respond to my question.
It's been over six hours since I started this morning, if I continue I'm pretty sure I will have a stroke. Not a great way to start the weekend. I had one final question before I was ready to let go.
Now they're washing their hands off everything, but not before they confirmed they didn't receive any ticket from EE. This is clearly different from what Spusu told me. Someone is lying. I sent this to Spusu immediately who of course claim this is not the case and they will look into it.
This is stressing me out so much. Honestly, I don't fucking care anymore. I'm going to hide in my zen zone. Don't call or text me.
Oh my God, Pauline. I'm sure that I couldn't bare that type of treatment that you received for so many days and hours... I've never had a issue in the technical "part" of my mobile and internet provider, but I had a "problem" in what concerns to the contract value. One of the biggest Portugal's mobile and TV pay provider suddenly changed the contract by updating the monthly cost of their services. For now I'm locked to them till October, but from then on, I think I'll check for more beneficial operators (like on from Bulgaria that just started to operate in Portugal called Digi). I have to dig it a little bit more to know about their reviews.
The automated call services, and the continuous and endless chats forms that don't direct us to contact a human are so frustrating to me. One of my concerns for the future years that will come :
I hope that you can manage it in your Zen "place"....
Wishing you a calm and relaxed weekend
October is a long time away, nearly a whiole year!! I bet when you tell them you're leaving in November, they're going to offer you a reduction, it's so typical of them.
Luckily I don't use mobile calls and texts much nowadays, but you never know when something urgent comes up, and that's what's annoying.
Have a great weekend yourself
Exactly, they only care about their costumers when the contract renewal date is one the "corner"... Otherwise, the only answer for your contacts is to increase your contract tier with extra s*** that you don't need, but they push it anyway. So annoying. Luckily, other companies are aware of this poor service, and entering in the operators "arena". Let's hope that for the sake of the consumers.
Have a great Sunday, P
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Life is too short for shit like this, corporate call centres, minions who are just wage slaves on a constant treadmill yearning for their days off. Left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, neither hand really giving a flying one.
I feel your pain!
I am on virgin, have been for years, a captive as I can't be arsed with the hassle as you have so eloquently described, with out too much industrial language!
Comms and tech is hubs department at home, he does all the decision making and has been pretty good so far. I have resisted shouting "it's all your fault" at him on Friday when I was really pissed off. Must
have been very apparently as he made me lunch and a cuppa without me asking 😂 But bless him, he wouldn't have known, we ported at the same time and his went thru ok
😁
Well I guess he is part way to redeeming himself LOL
It does sound absolutely infuriating, not just to have wasted time trying to talk to both providers, but to have so little to show for that time. Doesn't give you a great deal of confidence that it will get sorted the next time you try...
I mostly like the chatbox thing on websites as I find I get to talk to a 'person' quicker than phoning, and you can do other things... I contacted british gas a couple of months ago via the chatbox, and as part of the messaging, I was able to talk a photo of my electricity meter and upload it, which I couldn't have done on a phone call.
Its still not without faults though. Last week I had an issue with trying to get a refund as my account is in credit with a significant sum of money. In order to do this, I needed to wait for a newly issued bill, and they can't send me one until I've sent an up to date meter reading. I explained the issue to an agent who said they would help me right away. After 5 minutes they said they couldn't help me as there was no recent meter reading, I explained I knew this, thats what I needed help with. They said they would help me straight away, and then after 5 minutes they disconected. 2 more agents appeared and I had identical conversations with them, and both times they disconected after inactivity on their side. A 4th one appeared and eventually claimed there was an issue with my bill and it was being reviewed, and then immediately disconected from the chat. A 5th Agent appeared and asked how they could help me... and I logged off in disgust. 3 hours wasted!
I've not attempted this since as I'm dreading I'll get the same outcome again
er, so I guess I could use a zen zone too! 🤣
What a nightmare, 5 agents!! Clearly they don't want to give you the money back. Are you on one of those fixed monthly payment plan where it's supposed to balance out at the end of the year? I'm sure they over estimate every one and take the money first, nice pot of free money for investment.
Chatbots are fine for basic simple stuff, and I don't mind if they have an option to speak to a real person if things get complicated. Thing is many don't. It's absolutely disgraceful especially for the big utility companies.
Hope you manage to get your credit back
I'm on a variable rate so the direct debit adjusts as my energy usage changes... I'm sure they are not intentionally holding my money, and that its more a case of incompetence and poor communication, but its still frustrating
I've trawled the website and eventually found an actual, old fashioned phone number, so I'm gonna give that a try this weekend and see if I get any better results.
Have you got any further resolving your transfer issue?
Thanks for asking. No development since Friday. The Ombudsman says I have to wait 8 weeks before they can review my case 😞
I hope you have more luck contacting you provider. 🤞
OMG what a terrible headache with the customer service people who did not solve your problem quickly
They are best at finger pointing which I guess this is what they will do know. We shall see next week 🥴
I was stressed just by reading this! The fact that these help centers/customer support decided to shifht to mainly bots just adds to the frustration, since clearly tech is waaaaaaay behind what we need for proper responses, and takes tons more time. Situation here is the same, even for scheduling something as straightforward as a medical exam. Breathe in, breathe out!
Bots are ok for triage and simple issues , phone banking system have been doing that for years before we had online banking, and there was always a "press * if you wish to speak to a customer service agent" option. That's what's missing with the freaking bots, companies think they can do everything when they cant.
Going back into my zen zone
I've been thinking for a while since yesterday to send you this message, even to vote on your post. I didn't want to take you out of your zen zone.
Do you think that in that place where the bears live it is so complicated to use phones and virtual lines? Maybe we don't even need them...
wait I missed an emoji
😜
That's an awful experience! I hope it will be okay and will have what you paid your money for. Never knew e-sims could go wrong like that.
Two years ago, our locality lost online of the best data provider too, I called and emailed and chatted on their hotline and anywhere I could contact them but it just wouldn't work. Their agents also don't believe we lost connection since there was not report. It continued for over a month and it was frustrating
Oh my goodness! WTF with that kind of response and getting nowhere fast. I think I would have lost my s**t on someone. But, then again, I'm working on my patience. I hope it all works out for you and that you calmed down in your Zen space. Sorry!
Oh no Pauline!
I would have had a hissy fit! Why is it so difficult finding a real person these days! And, one that actually listens to what one is saying.
Sometimes complaining on a public platform helps but not always.
I can imagine how frustrated and angry you must have been, I've been down that road!
I do hope all is sorted and that your number is ported!