Blundering Vodafone put my LIFE on hold!
This 26-year-old faces losing her university place after phone giant made a mistake – and then blighted her credit record
VODAFONE is plunging customers into financial limbo by blocking access to loans or mortgages because of alleged unpaid mobile phone bills – even when customers deny owing anything at all.
Holly O’Donnell is one of them. The 26-year-old has been battling with the network for over a year after it mistakenly charged her more than £2,000. She complained to Vodafone but found it ‘impossible’ to resolve the situation, until eventually her account was cancelled without her say-so, and additional ‘termination fees’ saw the bill soar to £3,808.
A conservation biologist by profession, and from Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands, Holly has been working for non-profit organisations in Paraguay and Peru for the past two years since graduation from university – building up the necessary experience to be accepted on to a postgraduate degree.
But a university place she secured is in jeopardy after Vodafone incorrectly claimed that Holly had not paid her bill, devastating her credit rating and preventing her from taking out a vital personal loan to fund her studies. People’s credit files are referred to by banks and other companies before deciding whether to lend to them.
As a result, Holly’s multiple appli- cations to lenders were all rejected. Despite trying to fix the original billing problem directly with Vodafone, she got nowhere. Holly says: ‘I was constantly transferred between advisers who refused to let me speak with a manager. I was promised countless callbacks or email responses from managers and
customer relations, to no avail. I feel like I have exhausted every option available. My life is literally on hold waiting for Vodafone.’
While a postgraduate loan will cover some tuition fees and acceptance is not on the condition of a perfect credit score, additional and necessary funds are out of reach to Holly while her rating is poor. As she is from Scotland, she is not eligible for the new £10,000 Masters loan either. She adds: ‘I need help from a bank to pay for everything else and this is what a default on my credit rating is preventing. I cannot even take out a credit card or a mobile phone contract due to Vodafone’s mistake. One adviser even said my default will clear in six years if I wait. I cannot emphasise enough the stress and fear that I am so close to losing my dream place at university because of this.’ Only after The Mail on Sunday intervened on Holly’s behalf did Vodafone finally admit its blunder. A spokeswoman says: ‘We’re sorry Ms O’Donnell had these problems with her account.
‘We have waived the fees built up and corrected the information on her credit file and asked the credit agencies to update their files as quickly as possible. We have already acknowledged that too many of our customers were affected by the move of our old billing and services platforms into one system last year.
‘Where we have made a mistake, we aim to make sure the customer isn’t out of pocket and correct it with credit agencies.’