Cheated by Vodafone. Review on Vodafone EDGE Data Card

I have a 'wired' MTNL broadband connection which was giving problems off late with the wiring. To get rid of all wiring related issues, I planned to go in for a wireless connection. Out of the various options available in the market, Vodafone's data card offer appeared quite lucrative.

I visited the Vodafone store in Mira Road on the 7th of May 2011 and was directed to one of their sales personnel who gave me two options for data cards (one with internal storage and other without it). Of the various data plans displayed, I opted for the monthly Rs. 599 plan (for unlimited usage, initial one month being free). 3G plans were also available, unfortunately, Vodafone 3G services are yet to be fully functional in Mira Road.

I was told that a copy of my driving license and a photograph are the only documents required for activation the connection. The store even took a snap of me in the store itself (since I was not carrying any photographs with me). The formality of application form filling was completed and I congratulated for being a proud owner of Vodafone Edge data card. I was told that the data card would be active in about 4 hours and I can start using it then. This entire activity was carried out around noon so ideally the connection should have been activated by evening.

Towards 7 PM, I checked the data card connectivity and was disappointed to find it non-functional. I immediately visited the same Vodafone store and reported the issue. After being kept waiting for around 30 minutes, finally I was told that the documents were not logged in hence the delay and the services would be started in the next 2 hours. That night and the subsequent day, I did not bother to check the functionality. On 9th May, toward evening, I rechecked for the functionality and was upset that the situation remained unaltered. On checking with the helpdesk, I was informed that my documents were still not received hence the connection is not activated.

Next two days were spent in making innumerable calls to Vodafone with no success. Finally on the 12th of May, I revisited the Vodafone store and politely reported the issue once again to a different set of people. After making me wait for nearly 2 hours without any progress, I asked the officer to take their own sweet time to ensure functionality of the data card and to let me know when to collect the same and left the store.

On 14th May, not able to control my anxiety (I did not receive any call from Vodafone), I revisited the Vodafone store and this time, after waiting for another hour or so, met another different person who tried his best and somehow managed to get the card working. I checked for the functionality, it was not great, just OK (this being in a Vodafone store). I tried opening a couple of Youtube videos but it kept on 'buffering' forever. Satisfied that atleast it is functional, I collected the card and let the store.

I connected the data card to my home PC and was horrified to see the message 'SIM card registration failed'. I called up Vodafone helpdesk and was told that my services were suspended. After much pursuation, the agent told me that the SIM would be activated in 2 hours. Luckily for me, this time, it actually started working in 2 hours but the speed was pathetic. Inspite of getting a full signal, the speed was around 25 Kbps (I was promised a minimum of 384Kbps speed). It somehow managed to display pages only if one page was accessed at a time. Even basic HTML pages failed to load. I tried downloading some files and the estimated time to download was a minimum of 12 hours !!!

Suspecting it to be a temporary 'load' on the network, I retired for the day. Next day, I tried accessing and was in for a shock !! Again 'SIM card registration failed'.

Finally, to get rid of all issues, I visited the Vodafone store on 17th May (10 days after purchase) and requested them that I am no longer interested in using this data card and to cancel my subsciption immediately. The officers on duty tried their utmost to convince me not to cancel and promised me better services. I had made up my mind, no matter what happened, I am not using this data card any more.

Finally, I was told that the issue of SIM registration failure was because my address verification was not carried out (gave me some lame excuse for it) even after 10 days of purchase !!!

I was further told that the SIM was anyway in deactivated state and no further action needs to be taken. Only thing is that there would be no refunds since the data card cannot be taken back !!!

The most decent way of replying back to Vodafone is that Rs. 1699 that was paid toward this data card (Rs. 1500 for the dongle and Rs. 199 toward advance rental), though a significant amount, would be considered as given towards charity.

I have made a promise to myself, never to use any services of Vodafone (I and my family are Vodafone users). They are the biggest cheats out there !!!