Vodafone cut off our broadband

Vodafone mistakenly gave Openreach our details rather than those of the new tenant for the flat above us. We were unaware what was happening, and then we lost our broadband connection. We contacted our broadband supplier, which said the fault must be with our hardware or in the connection. A company that charged £90 for the visit confirmed that there was no fault with the hardware.

This went on for more than a week. When we found out what had really happened we complained to Vodafone, which had no interest. We took it to the ombudsman, which ruled that because we are not Vodafone’s customer we cannot complain about it.

We run a business that depends on having phones and broadband. NICK PILKINGTON, GLOS

Vodafone’s actions led to your broadband being cut off and you having to resort to buying an £80 mobile device that gave only partial cover for one of your business’s four computers. Meanwhile the neighbour concerned was most helpful. Vodafone called you the day after I contacted it and offered a gift, which you presumed was along the lines of a hamper with chocolates and so forth. You declined this.

During this conversation Vodafone twice said that it had no means of paying you money as you were not a customer. This it claimed was to do with internal money laundering rules.

Following this being escalated by my Vodafone contact and in view of the fact that you were absolutely blameless, Vodafone after all paid you £400. I then also asked for separate reimbursement for the engineer and the mobile device and this £170 has now been paid too.

Vodafone apologised for not accurately specifying that the broadband request applied only to the residential part of the property. It added: “In normal circumstances we do not offer goodwill payments to anyone who is not our customer. However, we recognise that we should have immediately escalated this to gain special clearance for the goodwill payment.” the Post Office to appreciate the seriousness of what it has done. JF, WEST SUSSEX

The Post Office counter staff where you had paid in the money admitted they had been at fault and told you the area manager agreed. Eventually HMRC did locate both payments, which had not been identified by the Post Office in the usual way.

You complained to the Post Office seeking compensation for the considerable stress and for your time, which included making 13 phone calls to HMRC, paying two visits to the Post Office, plus phone calls to it, attending two meetings with your bank and preparing paperwork for all concerned.

The Post Office had told you it could not compensate for time and stress as these could not be quantified in terms of monetary value. It said: “We put our customers at the heart of everything we do. We work very hard to offer our customers the highest levels of service and sincerely apologise to Mr F for his experience on this occasion.

“We would like to reassure customers that our branches are fully trained to handle these transactions and have ensured that the branch concerned is aware of the correct processes to be followed.”

It said it had offered you a gesture of goodwill to apologise for the inconvenience this has caused. However, I discovered from you that this sum was only £30. I asked for £250 and it agreed to pay this.

You say most importantly you now feel relieved that the Post Office at last seems aware of the inconvenience it put you through, although it still rankles that it offered so little redress initially.