multinationals stink? who says so? well..vodafone DEFINATELY SUCKS..

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL_rI_khCo4
The theme tune for this angry post is..well click on the above link and you will (should)get the very splendid and very angry Captain Moonlight singing about the Irish government. The same applies to the shadowy and sinister top executives of vodafone..but, though government personel have to tell us their names it just impossible to find out what the vodafone bosses call themselves. So we just have to imagine names..
If, for any reason, the link doesn`t work, go to YouTube and find Captain Moonlight singing Dirty C***s .)

Well,its like this, see -
I thought it`d be good to have a computer with internet access with me on the ride.. then I could blog and so on. Not that easy because most of the companies offering mobile internet want you do do a years contract, which doesnt suit me. But Vodafone offers by the month. So, even though vodafone has signal in less places than anyone else, I thought I could make do. They specifically told me that the mobile internet would work wherever the phone did. Within seconds of leaving Pylos I was in trouble.
I couldn`t connect with the internet, or if I could it would suddenly cut, after having refused to save my work, and five attempts to post were LOST. Of course by that time my computer batteries were used up.(see KIT page to see why THAT was). After a found a cafe to recharge my batteries I tried again. NO signal at all. Then a message from vodaphone telling my SIM needed to be confirmed. Oh what? my SIM had already be confirmed because I checked EVERYTHING was OK before I set off from Thessaloniki, even though this meant paying an extra months subscription that I didnt need, having a computer at home..
So I phoned vodaphone`s help number. (I had a phone signal, you see, so assumed I had also internet) WRONG. After an hour or so`s faffing I eventually go the truth. My sim was fine.Its just that sometimes vodafone sends that message when there is no signal.It was explained to me that when we are far from Athens (near kiparrisia for eg,) sometimes, unfortunately, there is a problem. If a lot of people make demands at the same time, if there is a problem with a centre..
As you can imagine I was really glad to learn that NOW.
But, they said, don`t worry if you get the SIM unacknowledged message, its not that really..
Of course by then I had used up most of my phone battery trying to get the chance to use my computer. At this stage I wasn`t angry, just bemused.
A couple of weeks later I started to get really pissed off though.
I got no signal and the SIM message for 4 days. Then I couldn`t stand it any more. This was a Friday afternoon. I phoned vodafone.
"You`ve got no signal because we`ve cut you off for not paying your bill" they said
Good of them to tell me.
"You must go to a vodafone shop and pay" they said
And how the fuck was I supposed to do that being Friday evening, near to Erythres where the shops were shut, and also, even if I managed to pay, they wouldnt reconnect me til Monday, because the person who pushes the reconnect button is away until Monday.
WAAAAAAAAAAAGH.
So I phoned my dear friend Virginia and asked her to pay vodaphone at the vodaphone shop in Thessaloniki. I asked her to pay TWO months so I`d be free of problems til the end of the ride. So she went to Vodafone, with the money in her hand, and vodafone said
"We can`t accept the money, because the bank has already paid"
So Virginia phoned me and told me that.
"Hurray!" I thought. "The computer will work!"
Alas no. It didn`t work.
So I phoned Vodafone.
"They were quite right to refuse to take the money, because if they did, then we would have to give money back" they said. Er??? "BUT we haven`t yet received the money from the bank, so we can`t restore the service"
Well, readers I started to lose it. I may even have sworn a bit.
So that lady from vodafone said she was restoring the service in the expectation that the bank would pay. er? How could she do that, when on Friday she had told me that the person whose job that was was away, and so nothing could be done??
Telling porkies, vodafone?
Anyway, I said a few things including that, if for ANY reason, vodafone was contemplating cutting off my internet again they were to warn me..NOT on the computer, because if I couldn`t get internet I wouldn`t get the warning. And not a spoken phone call as (it being a vodafone connection)I often don`t have a signal, and anyway my phone is usually turned off to conserve battery. Particularly important now that I had used most of it up phoning vodafone. They were to TEXT me a message. This was agreed. A few days later I got a message on my computer, addressing me as a "valued customer" and thanking me because the money had been deposited by my bank.

And NO text mentioning that they intended to cut off my internet access. So IMAGINE my surprise when, after I had stopped in Amphissa, and had to stop for a few days because I had an infection in my leg, I couldn`t work because NO SIGNAL.
Naturally I wasn`t expecting this. That very morning I had worked online fine. Then I had gone to the vodafone shop in Amphissa to pay my phone card, blissfully unaware that I was about to be cut off from the computer again.
When I found that this had happened I just assumed it was a local signal problem, but I phoned vodafone anyway.
"You`ve been cut off for not paying your bill" they said. I threw a REAL wobbler.
Then I rushed to the vodafone shop to pay. It had closed. I phoned vodafone and told them what I thought of them again.
They promised to re connect me with the internet.
They did this, and thats how I am writing this now, the following morning, before I go to the vodafone shop to pay.
If the shop refuses to take my money, as they did when Virginia tried to pay, I think I will probably kill someone.