A Phone tale

So finally, yesterday I received my phone from Vodafone. It was supposed to have happened around last summer. I have never liked phone companies very much (having had enough problems before) but Vodafone has outdone all previous attempts on bad service.

This is really a story of how difficult it can be to get a phone as a foreigner. It all started after summer of 2005. I had gotten tired of paying a lot of money for prepaid phone calls. So I decided to get a phone subscription.

I talked with different people, went online to compare prices etc and then I went to downtown Utrecht to check out the offering of the different phone companies.

I wanted to get a Sony Ericsson P910i because I had gotten tired of dragging both my palm and phone around. Having it all in one seemed like a good idea and my brother was very satisfied with his P900. Since one got big discounts when signing a subscription I thought now was a good time to get one, since they are quite expensive.

So finally I found out that I could get the phone for around 200 euros at a mobile phone company called Telefort.

Getting a phone in Holland is a little more tedious than in Norway. You have to show a print out of last months bank statement and a government issued ID. So I got all that information and was ready to go. When the first problems of this tale started.

Some background information first. Norway is member of EEA (the European Economic Association) which is kind of like EU membership light. We don't have any political influence in EU, but for all practical purposes (there are a few exceptions) Norwegian citizens get treated like EU citizens. E.g. we can work and move freely around in EU countries, get health benefits in EU countries like other EU citizens, EU tuition fees at Universities. We don't need a residence permit to stay in an EU country etc. Now this is in theory. In practice it is different. The problem is that very few people know about the EEA. Owing much to the fact that the EEA countries consists of Norway, Iceland and Licentstein. Telefort it appeared was one of those companies that didn't know about EEA it appeared.

The Telefort salesman was going to register me in his computer system. He put in my name, address, subscription type etc. Then he asked if Norway was EU member. I said no. Then he said "I need your residence permit then". I said "I don't have one". He seemed puzzled by this reply. Not understanding how I could be in the country without a residence permit. So I explained to him, that Norway is a member of the EEA and we don't need residence permits, in fact we are supposed to be treated as EU citizens in practical matters.

The problem was that in the Telefort computer system. There was only two types of subscribers. Those that needed to show a residence permit and those than didn't need to show residence permit. And those that didn't need to where by definition EU citizens, which excluded Norway. So he had no way of registering me. He made a lot of phone calls to try and figure it out. Meanwhile I went to the municipality to ask them what to do. They said this was a common problem and that I was in fact supposed to be treated as EU citizens in this case. They printed out a document in dutch that explained the situation in dutch and put mark in my passport that normally only EU and EEA citizens get (and the ones with residence permits I believe).

Finally back in the phone store I showed the paper. The salesman made new phone calls. Eventually he said there was nothing he could do, unless I had a residence permit. So I gave up and looked for another phone company.

I ended up at Vodafone. I asked them first if there would be any problem because of my Norwegian citizenship, to avoid going through the Telefort deal again. They said no. They didn't have the Sony Ericsson in at the moment, so I would have to come back the next day. I did, however it was still not in so they said I had to come back in an hour. I did and then they started registering me in the computer system.

When done, the salesman said to me: "Sorry, but you can't have a subscription with us". I waited a few seconds expecting him to say why. But he didn't say anything so I asked "Why?". "I don't know", he said. "What do you mean you don't know?" I said. "The computer system said subscription declined". "Well, aren't there anybody you can call and find out why?" I asked. "No..". "Anybody you can email then", I continued. "No". I was starting to get a little annoyed by this salesman's attitude. "Is there anybody I can phone or email to find out then?" I finally asked. "No" was his simple reply. I stood there for a while not knowing what to do.

Then I said "Are you seriously telling me that there is no way for me to find out??" "Well you could send a written letter to this address" he said, and printed out a paper with the address for me.

I went home. I didn't want to wait a long time for an answer on mail, so I tried to call Vodafone instead. I asked them if they could find out why I couldn't get a subscription. When I gave them my personal information, it took about five seconds before they said, there is no problem, of course you can have a subscription.

They said they were going to send the contract right away. A few days later I got the contract to sign. Only it said two year contract instead of one which I had ordered. So I called them again. They said that their system said one year contract so a mistake must have been done when they sent the contract. They sent it again. A few days later I got the same contract. Still the wrong contract. I called them again. They sent my a new contract which was still wrong. I got very upset. So I called them and demanded to speak with a manager. I asked why it was so difficult to send a little piece of paper.

The manager suggested I just scratch out the two years and write one year, sign it and send it to them. I asked "Is that even legal?" "No problem she said, it already says one year here in our system". So eventually I did as told. A week later I got my SIM card. I waited for a couple of more weeks without seeing any of my phone. I called them and asked where it was. They said it was not in stock, they had to order it from Sony Ericsson but I would probably have it next week. A month passed and still no phone. I called again. I heard the same story. It would get it next week. I waited another month. No phone. Then I called again. They told me the same story again. I said "But you told me this same story the last two months. I want to find out what is going on". "We will call Ericsson" and find out the support guy said. Then we will call you back. A day passed nobody called me back. I went through same procedure one more time. Nobody called me back.

Some days passed without me getting any information no matter how much I called. I got frustrated and sent and email instead, hoping they would answer email. I got a reply back that, they didn't give that sort of information out on email and that it was best that I called them instead.

I got sick of the whole deal and I had a lot to do on my project so I forgot pushed the whole deal to the back of my head for a couple of weeks. I thought maybe something would happen if I waited. So a couple of weeks passed and then suddely a guy called from Vodafone. He informed me that I could not get the P910i phone, because Sony Ericsson was no longer making it. "Gee", I thought, "thanks for telling me right away". Then he said that as a compensation he would offer me a HP 6515 phone for the same price as the Sony Ericsson. It had similar features so it would be a good compensation. The Sony Ericsson had originally been offered to me for 300 euros. I said that I didn't know the phone so I would have to think about it. I asked him to send some information about it. He did. I got an email with information about the HP and some other phones. I read about it, went to the store and tested it, out and decided it was okay to get. I would have prefered the P910i though. I sent an email saying that I wanted the phone and I asked them to confirm that I would get if for the same price as the Sony Ericsson. Since he had just told me this orally I just wanted to be sure.

Now the same thing as with the P910i happened. Time passed and little or nothing happened. I called Vodafone a couple of times asking what was going on. Usually I got to somebody who didn't know anything but they told me that when the right person was available they were going to call me back. Again nobody called me back. Once again getting sick of the whole deal I just let some weeks pass. Eventually a contract popped up in my mail box. It did in fact have the right phone on it: HP 6515. Except it said that the price was 400 euro. 100 euro more than my Sony Ericsson P910i offer which I had already thought was too much.

So again it was time to call Vodafone. Each time I got to somebody who knew nothing about it, or I eneded up in the wrong department and when they put me over the the "right" department the phone just went dead and I had to call again. This happened several times, so eventuallly I called and asked to get the direct number because the phone always went dead. The guy said that I had indeed called the right number but that I had to be put over. There was no other way. This time I was lucky though and through. I asked him to confirm what my original offer for the p910i was. He said it was 300 euro. Then I said that I was offered the HP for the same amount as the P910i but on the contract it said 400. The guy went on to talk about how extremely expensive the HP phone was. That it was much more expensive than the P910i and that 400 euro was a very generous offer.

I said "I don't care how much it really cost. When I accepted the deal I specifically asked you to confirm that the price was the same as I was first offered. Instead of confirming it, you send me this contract" Which in my mind seemed like some sort of confirmation that that was the deal. Why would they otherwise send me the contract? But the salesman just kept going on about how expensive the phone was and how it was totally impossible for him to sell it to me for anything less than 400. Until then I had always been very polite when dealing with them, but then I flipped. I said that it didn't matter to me what it really cost, what mattered, and what I was upset about was that Vodafone seemed to always screw up. Why could they not have told me 400 at the start? Why did they send the contract in the first place, when I specifically asked for confirmation, why did they never call me back etc.

When I finished saying what I thought was wrong with the company. I said that "Obviously there is no point for me to try to convince you to give me the phone for 300. So why don't you give me another phone instead" I ended up selecting a BlackBerry 7290. To not make this story any longer than it needs to. Let's just say that several weeks passed again and yesterday I eventually got the phone. Amazing!! I had almost given up on ever seeing it.

Just to round of, there are a few things I would like to mention that I never understood about Vodafone. Each time I called them there was a automatic voice that asked me for my cell phone number, so they could process my request faster. If I was not quick about entering this number a voice would say "sorry we didn't register a phone number" and they would hang up. However, every time I got through to Vodafone the support guy would always ask for my mobile number. Not only that but whenever they emailed me they would ask for my email address, although I had filled that out several times on their contract sheet. Which makes me wonder what the point of filling out all this information in the first place is.