A little shock

This morning we went into Norwich to check out the mobile connect, which you may remember suddenly stopped working in Switzerland. We’d been a bit concerned at the time that maybe it was chewing through the costs, and that we’d get a large bill, so I was also rather screwing up my courage in terms of how much it was going to cost. I hadn’t been able to get Vodafone to respond by cellphone or email to my request for assistance in this area while we were in Europe.

The guy in Vodafone Norwich looked up the number on the screen and said, There’s nothing wrong with it. A credit bar has come up because there was concern that someone was using it illegally. Because there was so much owing on it.

Like how much?

£969.

Yup, you read that right. That’s $2618.29 in NZ dollars at today’s exchange rates. Yet we’d been using the Internet in Barcelona for a euro an hour!

I got shivers up and down my spine and spoke to the customer service people at Vodafone on the assistant’s cellphone. It didn’t help. That was the bill, the girl said.

The assistant asked if I knew about an alternative way of using the mobile connect on the Continent. In that case you paid £111 and could download 200 megs. That would have been better, although we’d managed to get through 200 plus megs in the times I’d been using the thing.

We went home in a state of shock. Literally. Celia was in tears, as you might expect, and I didn’t know what to say at all. The only thing that the assistant had recommended was to ring Vodafone back again and get hold of a Team Leader, as they were sometimes able to do something about such unexpected bills.

I had some lunch, though had some difficulty downing it, and finally rang Vodafone and asked for a Team Leader. They told me one would be available to ring me back in about an hour, so I thanked them, and hoped I wouldn’t be waiting too long.

Tried to do other things, without much success. And then the phone rang. Before I could say anything much the guy announced who he was and that he was putting a credit through for the £969 and he was charging out each 24 hours at $8.50 a time and that the bill would come to $59 or thereabouts, plus the usual monthly charge.

I was almost too stunned to thank him. Not only having the gift of such a large amount rescinded but to have it done without me even asking for it was extraordinary.

There was sudden rejoicing amongst the Crowls. And on top of that, a short while after Celia unexpectedly found the connection to one of the innumerable electronic toys she plays with which a long search yesterday had convinced us was lost. We’d gone to Norwich this morning to get a replacement for it, but had forgotten all about it in the stress of the moment…

Meanwhile

Meanwhile, the computer’s mobile connect continues to play up, so that we can’t use it to go online. This had become quite an issue, as we hadn’t booked places in Florence or Rome, and we are due to go to the first of those tomorrow. The reason for delaying on this had been that the YHA had advertised a special deal in both cities in hostels, and we were waiting for a response from them. For some reason they’ve been very slack, and still haven’t replied - and we couldn’t get them on the phone either.
We finally found a Vodafone shop here in Milan today, and got a definite No from them in terms of help. They’re a different company, and don’t help UK customers. Finalmente! We found an Internet shop where we could use the computer for an hour for one euro. Very cheap! Found that my daughter had managed to cancel both the NZ cards, and had also found the address for sorting out my NZ driver’s licence. Later in the day we found a second Internet place where we surprisingly quickly booked hotels in Florence, Rome and Barcelona. Think they go from the sublime to the ridiculous, but at least they’re booked.

Travel writing in abeyance

Sadly, I can't get online to upload my notes about the trip at the moment. As I've explained in an email to some people, the mobile connect has gone AWOL - we've tried all sorts of things, like uninstalling it and so forth, but it's just not wanting to work. This means I'm having to rely on Internet cafes\shops, and though they're not expensive, it's not so easy to get things uploaded.
We went to the Vodafone shop in Corso Buenos Aires yesterday, but the young man in there refused point blank to help us. He belongs to Vodafone Europe - we belong to Vodafone UK. And trying to ring Vodafone UK from here doesn't work at all. We get a lovely Italian lady telling us something at great length, and then the usual English woman saying we appear to have dialled a number that doesn't exist.
Anyway, I've written up lots of notes and have them on my computer. If we have time I'll come in and put them on here. If not, know that we are still doing things! (In Florence, at present.)
PS Everything on Google is in Italian. Makes a change from German.

Mobile Connect

Oh, the joy of technology! Not.
After continually having to find The Cloud places, and then pay seven pounds for every three hours we use (three hours gets used very quickly), and then pay for drinks every time we want to use the pub or café’s wireless, the money’s starting to mount up. Plus the sheer nuisance of trailing around finding The Cloud places.
In the end we decided to go for it and buy a mobile connect, something we’d talked about in NZ before we left, but had decided wasn’t worth the cost. With the UK Vodafone system we can get one free - that’s the upside. The downside is you’re committed to a year’s payments of twenty-five pounds a month (can’t find the symbol for the pound), and have to pay one hundred pounds up front (which is refunded after six months). Because we’re leaving in December we have to decide how we can use up the months we won’t be here for. No doubt there’ll be a relative who could make us of it!
Anyway, that was all okay. We brought the mc home and bunged it in the computer. It installed itself and everything seemed hunky-dorey, until I discovered that the internet speed was about the level of dial-up. Turns out that this particular area isn’t one of the high level spots for Vodafone’s mcs. I thought that the cellphone network supplied the mcs but it doesn’t; it’s a different system, which seems rather daft.
That wasn’t the worst: today, when we tried to use the mc, nothing would happen. Vodafone might as well have not existed as far as our little machine was concerned. Great distress amongst the Crowls, particularly since we’d had to drive into Norwich to get the mc yesterday, and it looked as though we might be up for another trip today. It’s about half an hour to Norwich - but then another number of long minutes before you can get through all the traffic.
In the end after trying the mc all over the place, and not getting any results, we went back to Norwich. While Celia parked the car, I went into the Vodafone shop and discussed the issue with a young guy called Adam (I think!) He was very helpful, and in the end was going to swap our mc for another - until he discovered they’d sold out of them. So we finished up having to go to the other Vodafone shop (this isn’t an ad for them by the way) in Castlemall. They were even more helpful, and spent a good half hour sorting out the problem. It appears it may have been a faulty mc, though I don’t think anyone was quite clear at the end. Anyway, we have a new one, and it’s working. PTL!