Vodafone’s free summer roaming con
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
Denmark is one of Vodafone's passport countries
Vodafone’s free summer roaming promotion doesn’t work in Denmark and/or for pay as you talk users, despite the website and shop assistants saying it does.
I switched from Orange to Vodafone at the beginning of July, hoping to avoid the £90 I spent on roaming charges last summer. But when I arrived in Denmark, both my unlocked mobile phones wouldn’t call out, although they would receive calls and send/receive text messages. As a frequent traveller, I immediately knew there was something wrong with Vodafone’s service, especially since I had international calls unbarred and Vodafone passport enabled.
Vodafone customer service had this to say to me:
“Emil, I’m sorry to let you know that you’ll not be able to make calls on the Denmark network using the Pay As You Talk service, as we do not have an international roaming agreement for this service with any Denmark networks.
We always advise our customers to contact us before going abroad to make sure they have all the necessary information about the usage of their phone and charges.
You can check the details online just by clicking here .”
Vodafone's website confirms Danish coverage for Pay As You Talk customers
So I went to the link and it told me calls in Denmark are enabled for Pay As You Talk customers – contrary to what Vodafone’s costumer service told me. So I complained some more and got this response:
“I’m sorry to know that you’re not able to use your phone Denmark.
I apologize for all the mis-information provided by one of my colleague.
Emil, what I’ve done for you is I’ve credited yoru account with £10 which you’ve spent on freedom pack.”
My experience leads me to suspect Vodafone is playing dirty tricks with its summer roaming promotion. Vodafone has to pay phone operators in other countries to connect customers like me via their networks, so its summer roaming promotion is probably a money-losing campaign. But, perhaps, it just blocks some users to reduce its losses.
I hope Ofcom investigates Vodafone’s practises… if it has any balls at all.