Sydney Morning Herald | January 24, 2011 | Asher Moses
Vodafone has terminated its dealer agreement with Communications Direct after this website on Friday revealed allegations that staff at the dealer were misusing customer information and forwarding detailed call records outside the company.
Staff at the dealer were called in for a meeting this morning and told they would all be losing their jobs following the action by Vodafone.
Its website, commsdirect.com.au, which claimed the company was Vodafone’s “largest premium partner”, has been offline since Friday.
The allegations against the dealer suggested that staff were encouraged to engage in “Siebel farming”, mining Vodafone’s nationwide customer database for customers approaching the end of their contracts and then trying to sell them on a better deal.
Once a sale had been made, Communications Direct, a Vodafone agent, would allegedly then call Vodafone and pose as the customer, asking for their original account to be disconnected. This would then allow Comms Direct to sign the customer on with a completely new account, earning it double the commission from Vodafone.
Comms Direct staff had access to all of Vodafone’s customer details so could easily provide Vodafone with the correct security code or other personal information required when cancelling accounts, such as the customer’s date of birth and address.
However, some customers who signed up to Vodafone plans through Comms Direct have unwittingly ended up with multiple bills and multiple charges when Comms Direct failed to cancel their original accounts.
Comms Direct staffers were separately claimed to have breached privacy by forwarding detailed customer call records outside the company.
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