Vodafone Mobile Internet: Trouble follows you everywhere you go!

Anyways we are at least 3 years behind the most advanced nations as far as mobile Internet is concerned but inefficient handling of consumer grievances by carriers make the situation even worse.

I was all excited to get my new Android driven Sony XPERIA X10. Now when you talk about android you just cant do without the Internet. Virtually every application is net dependent and therefore the first thing I did after buying the phone was to call the Vodafone customer care to help me out with the settings as I changed from my iPhone to this new one.

“Sir, please send www to 52586” came the reply. I was suddenly nostalgic and remembered how I struggled to configure my iPhone following the same process. It took me three days and at least 15 tech blogs and websites to figure that out,  while 52586 kept on sending sms ridicules to me.

I thought this time it would be different but it wasn’t to be. Still the same old story, the customer care has no idea what Sony xperia is all about. The rationale is that “Sir, it’s a new handset and we don’t have the manual settings” Are you kidding me? You are a multi billion multinational and you cant keep track of the major mobile phone releases. Its plain stupid! May be they can hire me or Vishal to track the same for them?

And, the suffering continues as I am waiting for a technical superstar from Vodafone to call me and liberate me from the shackles of no-connectivity for the last 66 hrs. 48 hours is the deadline by the way! But who cares! The customers have already proved that they are fools. Right Vodafone?

How I wish our bureaucracy was any different and we could have number portability today. You know what I would have done! The only good thing I can salvage out of this extremely irritating experience is the fact that I came across 20 great technology blogs that helps stupids (tech savvy Vodafone user) like me figure things out, but I hope someday I will be able to visit these blogs on my new cell phone.

Waiting for Vodafone to wake up….zzzzzzzz !

Updates from the time of post

11:20 Am, 18th August- I received a programmed call from an automated response system, telling me that my problem which was registered on 15th August has been resolved on 17th August: Now I have no idea about this being resolved. May be this is an assumption! Lets see what happens next, will keep this space updated.

5:15 Pm, August 18: I get a tweet message from Vodafone India mentioning “Hi! We’d like to help you on this. If you could DM us your number, we would get back to you.” I have sent my number to them, looking forward to their call.

3pm 19, August: I got a call from 9884098840, couldn’t take the call. Will call them in a bit!

5 Pm 19, August: I called them back, some customer care rep told me an elaborate set of settings which were again meant for some other phone. But I got the important details. I called them back again and another lady helped me by validating the setting inputs. She told me that I will receive a call by the Tech team at around 9 in the evening.

5:30 Pm19, August, I just checked the time scape option in my phone and hey! It was working. That means I have net access. I quickly tested a few sites and finally am relieved to say that I have my internet working on my phone through Vodafone!

Thanks a lot Vodafone for helping me finally but I am sure you would agree, things can be better!