Vodafone: Price Hikes

This month, Vodafone increased my weekly mobile cost from £9 per month to £15. I duly contacted them and explained I would take my custom elsewhere. I received a number of texts saying how sorry they were that I was leaving: had they done something wrong? Is there anything they could do to put things right? Finally, they sent another text saying I could have the same package for £7 per month, because I was a ‘loyal customer’ (even though I’d declared my intention to shop elsewhere).

I pointed out to the nice lady on the phone that had they not increased the cost, I would still have been paying nine pounds monthly, and we might have saved ourselves the trouble of this conversation. She rather primly replied that the company was not making any profit on my new contract; it was offered as a token of their gratitude for my custom. As this point, I ought to have felt fuzzy within and dewy-eyed without: that Vodafone should love me, me, so much! Last week I was betraying them, but out of their unadulterated love for me, they would sooner see a drop in their profits than have me go elsewhere.

I suggested to the lady that this was nonsense; if they couldn’t get a profit out of the deal they wouldn’t have offered it. Indeed, the company’s profits for 2017 have been £6.297 billion so far. Something tells me that the Vodafone Board aren’t daft. They are making plenty of money out of me, and I need not feel sorry for them.

In Luke 18:8, Jesus remarks: ‘And the Lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.’

Would that our churches were as eager to keep hold of people as our greedy phone companies. 

Image by FunkyFocus from Pixabay