Misleading Information – My Favourite Things

Vodafone has been my mobile phone service provider for almost 13 years. It has not always been a smooth relationship, but I have never felt the need to shift to another service provider. Until recently.

It all began with my recent trip to Uzbekistan. This was a 10-day long trip and while I could have lived without a phone during that period, I knew that I would have to connect with my mother at least once a day by phone. They weren’t to be long chats, but just a quick hello to re-assure her that I was fine, and for me to know that she was fine as well.

I knew from prior research that all the hotels I would be staying in had WiFi and while I could use that to access the internet, they were not supportive of WhatsApp or Viber calls. My mother is not text savvy, so I could only stay in touch with her via phone calls.

Ideally, I should have used a local number for that. But my smartphone has a micro-SIM and it is a pain to remove it and put it on. Just the thought of changing the SIM was enough to make me decide on using my regular number with an international roaming pack provided by Vodafone. My brother, who is also a Vodafone customer, had used their international roaming packs and was quite happy with it.

Unfortunately, my experience turned out to be radically opposite to his. It turned out to be a saga of misleading information, lies and obfuscation from the moment I contacted Vodafone at around 11 am on the eve of my departure to Uzbekistan. The very “Happy To Help” Vodafone extended their customer service support in a way that didn’t do what they promise in the picture below.