Vodafone landline fault means some people may be unaware they can't receive calls

Wednesday, 19 June 2019

Vodafone has fixed the fault for some, but is still looking into whether there may be other people affected.

If you are a Vodafone customer and you haven't received a call on your landline for a while, it may be worth checking to see that it works.

Vodafone says some customers have experienced a fault with their home phones which means they are able to make outbound phone calls, but their phones don't ring when dialled.

Two Vodafone customers in Wellington have reported the fault to Stuff in recent weeks. Several other customers said on Wednesday that they had experienced the same or similar issues.

One of the impacted customers, Michael Budden, said he had been unable to receive incoming calls for more than a month before the issue was fixed in the past week.

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Another, Keith Davis of Lower Hutt, said his son lodged a complaint about not being able to call him in May, and getting the issue fixed had been frustrating.

Because of the nature of the fault, neither were aware they were unable to receive calls until they were alerted by concerned family and friends.

Vodafone spokeswoman Kathy Gieck said on Thursday that a number of other people had been affected by the fault which stemmed from an upgrade of Vodafone's customer service platform.

'In these customers' cases, some steps were taken in the incorrect order as we moved them from the old to the new platform.

'This resulted in the temporary loss of incoming landline calls.'

Vodafone had identified customers who were impacted by the issue and restored their services and was 'in the process of identifying whether there were any others affected', she said.

'We have also ensured that correct processes are followed internally to prevent a recurrence.

'We are committed to making big improvements to our customer experience, and this temporary issue was a hiccup on our journey towards that,' she said.

Stuff is aware of one case which Vodafone said was due to an unrelated fault at a roadside cabinet.