Vodafone’s Black Friday Fiasco

Black Friday don’t you just love it?

For most people in the UK we go to the shops at about midnight and beat each other senseless just to get a heavily discounted tv which was over-priced anyway.

I sold a phone the day before and I had £150 burning a hole in my pocket. I was going to order a Motorola Moto G 2nd gen 5in, that was until I saw the LG G2 on offer from Vodafone for £150 as part of the Black Friday deal. I’ve had my eye that phone for quite a while and it would be rude to pass up on such a great deal. We spotted the deal on Saturday and went into my local Vodafone store to see if we could buy one, guess what? They were right out of stock, they said they had 6 in and they all went an hour before I arrived at the store.

We went home and this is where the fun started. I attempted to order one online and the first attempt didn’t go through because of the heavy traffic on the Vodafone website however I did manage to order one and I got a web order ref number. I duly got a text message saying they will update me on the order, that was over a week ago. Some people got texts messages giving progress reports but I must have ticked no text messages in my marketing preferences as I didn’t want to be hassled every week with offers.

Some people were lucky and got one either online or went to their local Vodafone store. I’ve heard reports that Vodafone were sending out refurbished handsets and passing them off as nearly new with earphones or manuals missing. Somebody even checked the warranty status and it had 6 months to run, so it had obviously been used and sent back. Someone reported that they received a refurbished handset and it was scratched. Vodafone had admitted there was a Quality Control issue (no shit Sherlock) and was told they could return the refurbished handsets.

 

It is now Monday 8th of December 10 whole day since I ordered it and have heard nothing. I’ve rang the Customer Services, emailed them I even mailed the CEO but nothing, they can’t tell anything. When I do get though via the web chat they have to call me back and then dumped in a queue for nearly an hour. They don’t seem capable of dealing with this issue.

 

Vodafone have acknowledged that they are having supply issues but have loads in their high street stores.

 

Why don’t they either issue a voucher to buy it at a Vodafone store or recall stock from stores to send out to waiting customers who have ordered this handset.

 

Am I going to get this handset this side of Christmas?