The first problem with Vodafone: No extra text bundles for me

I am absolutely loving the fact that I can talk to people … on the phone… on the go… it really is just brilliant.

Obviously you can do this with any mobile phone account, just not consistently in my experience. My 3UK account is generally reliable, but my two T-Mobile accounts are nothing short of disastrous when it comes to audio. So much so that I have spent — on reflection — years waiting until I got ‘home’ or ‘back to work’ to make phone calls that I could ordinarily have made on-the-go, were it not for the ridiculous audio quality.

I really abhor people telling me ‘sorry, this is, er, a very bad line’ when I’m phoning their office landline from my T-Mobile account. It is such a pleasant change to be able to transact business continually and without issue via my Vodafone handset.

I’m delighted too with the unlimited landline calls option on my price plan. That is pretty neat indeed. Hugely neat. I call a lot of landlines, particularly when it comes to public relations professionals who very much operate from their desks. I haven’t looked to see what the terms and conditions are relating to this. There’s probably a fair use policy of a few thousand minutes.

As for text messages, I signed up with a paltry 250 text messages.

I always do rough mental arithmetic when faced with a text bundle to work out how ‘good’ it is. I try and divide by 30 to see how many texts are available daily. So in the case of 250, that works out to about 8 text messages per day.

Shit.

The arse with text messaging is that when you text someone, they usually text back — and it’s often only polite (or required) for you to text a reply. To which you might get another reply. That needs a reply. So one ‘Are we on for today’ interaction could actually ‘cost’ 10 text messages. No problem when you’re on a T-Mobile Flext 75 price plan that let’s you use as many texts, MMS or minutes as you wish. Serious issue when you’re using Big Red and you’re about to get whacked for 12 pence per text.

Vodafone continually tell me that this isn’t a problem. They paint an idyllic picture of text message usage and always immediately counter with ‘Ahhhh yes, but Ewan, listen Ewan, old-chap, that’s the OUT OF BUNDLE price… No one ever pays that, no one ever goes over their bundle, you see… it’s fiiiiiiiine.’

Bollocks, is it.

The first thing I thought I’d do when I got my new handset was text everyone in my address book with my new number. That’s at least 800 people. Not only would that wipe out my 250 ‘bundle allowance’ but it would actually cost 550 x 12p (66 pounds). Ridiculous.

Firstly why does Vodafone not do a ‘move in tell-your-friends-your-number’ text service?

Secondly, why don’t I just increase my text bundle and stop whining? Good idea.

I popped into a Vodafone store, back, actually, to the place where I originally purchased the account. Saj remembered me. Good man. “No problem,” he said, when I asked for a text bundle, “You can buy them in 500 or 1,000 chunks,” (I think it’s about 6 or 7 quid for 500, and roughly double for 1,000 texts).

I asked Saj to hit me for 500 extra. That’d give me 750 a month. Good enough, right?

I waited a few minutes.

Saj began to look more and more pained as he operated the Vodafone terminal showing my account details.

Eventually Saj phoned the call centre and found out that, since I’ve got ‘unlimited landline calls’ on my account, I cannot purchase more text messages in a bundle.

Both Saj and I were a little confused.

“Would you like to swap to unlimited texts?” came the question from the call centre.

“No,” Saj explained, “The customer wants unlimited landlines and wants to add extra texts,”

We both waited. I rolled my eyes. I could already see what was coming.

Welcome to Vodafone, land of the binary. It’s one or zero. One or the other. You can’t have both. You’re either screwed for 35p/minute calls (after your bundle) or you’re nailed for 12p texts (after your bundle).

So came confirmation.

“Sorry,” said Saj, shaking his head.

Ridiculous.

I phoned up the call centre at the weekend and upgraded to pay the highest possible monthly tariff, which, unbelievably is sixty odd quid (excluding VAT). That gets me unlimited landline calls, 3,000 cross network minutes and … 500 texts.

Can’t upgrade my text bundle any more. I’d have to swap to unlimited texts and give up my landline calls. Gah.

I am going to absolutely 100% NUTS if I am charged twelve pence per text message by Vodafone. Absolute NUTS.