Vodafone Customer Service - NOT Options

[JeffG]

I have been a loyal Vodafone user for many years but I am tearing my hair out trying to get some sense out of Customer Services. I am seriously thinking of changing network.

On my last bill (I have a pay monthly account) they suggested I change from paper to online billing, oh, and if I don't they will be happy to charge me £1.50 extra a month to continue with the paper statements. So I tried to register, but there are problems with the online system. The first time it told me there was already an account for my phone number (I must have set one up ages ago), so I asked for an account reminder by entering my mobile phone number and got a code texted to my phone, which I entered. I got as far as entering my email address which was rejected as invalid (it wasn't).

I called 191 and got a nice lady in Swansea who tried everything I had but got the same problem with the email address, so she logged a problem.
I called 191 a couple of days later when it still wasn't working (it wouldn't even accept my mobile phone number this time), and got a nice lady in Egypt. She also tried everything and logged another problem report.

Next step was to email customer support via the web site to ask what was happening. Reply said they were having technical problems with online registration (well I already knew that, but nice to get confirmation).

Today it was still broken, so I tried to send another email and now even that doesn't work.

You would think they would at least post something on the web site to say they were having problems and when they were likely to be resolved. They had better not try and charge me the extra £1.50, that's all.

Has anyone else tried this and had similar problems?