[Hands0n]

My lad's HTC Desire had come up for its 18 months contract and was due a renewal. Being into his music and liking HTC Sense he did his research and settle his sights on an HTC Sensation XL with the Dr Dre headset that was being featured by Vodafone on-line and in its stores.

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Saturday
So, on Saturday we popped along to the Vodafone store in Bluewater to do a bit of shopping, as the wife likes to put it. I was after a Nokia Lumia 710 (that's for another post) and an upgrade to a HTC Sensation XL with Dr Dre headset for the lad. Nothing unreasonable there.

In store the friendly staff assigned me a salesperson and we set to work to sort out the Sensation XL. I was assured they had them in stock and so we went through the process of making the sale. The salesperson also, very helpfully, offered a superb buy-back of the HTC Desire (first generation) that the lad had been using for the past 18 months. It was in pristine condition too, not a mark on it. So we went for that also.

Unfortunately, we had missed a couple of vital clues, these being that (a) the phone was the HTC dark grey (the XL is white!) and the box it came in made no mention of XL anywhere. Lad had mentioned the colour of the handset but salesperson assured us it was the XL, and in fact the paperwork resulting from the sales booking clearly stated HTC Sensation XL. Also, Vodafone had lifted £165 from me as initial payment on this expensive handset on an 18 month contract (I don't do 24 month).

So, persuaded that we had the right product we set off home only for a couple of hours later for the lad to work out what the errors of our ways. Clearly and very evidently we had a standard HTC Sensation in our hands, not a Sensation XL. It was too late to go back on Saturday.

Sunday
The Vodafone store at Bluewater opens at 11am on a Sunday, so at 11:10 I was in the store and presenting my case to the in-store Service Desk. "Yup" said the chap at the desk "That isn't a Sensation XL". I pointed out to where on the paperwork it said that it should have been and also to where I had had £165 lifted out of my credit card. That seemed to satisfy him that I should have been the proud possessor of an HTC Sensation XL, so he went off for a bit of advice.

I turns out that Vodafone stores do not stock the Sensation XL and that it was only available on-line. He offered to take the HTC Sensation back into stock and after that he would arrange for the store to process an on-line sale for me, to be delivered the following week. That seemed okay to me, at least the lad would have his desired smartphone with only a few days wait. So I agreed to this. It didn't get any better from here on in.

After the Sensation was booked back in I was handed over to another salesperson. I say handed over, but the reality was that I had a 10+ minutes wait for one to become available. No matter, I had the time. Then finally I was introduced to a salesperson that was cited to be a very experienced individual and she then went through the efforts to book a sale of an HTC Sensation XL using their on-line sales system. It wasn't working. Several attempts and she then suggested that perhaps I could make the sale via the phone in-store. Not to be completely outwitted by Vodafone I agreed. It didn't get any better ...

Taking me over to the courtesy customer phone she set up the call to the Vodafone call centre. The usual amount of waiting and listening to music on hold had to be endured when finally someone answered. I explained my plight, the mistaken sale of a Sensation rather than a Sensation XL, the return to the store, the lack of stock in store and that I wanted to order one via the call centre. It got worse at this point ...

I was informed by the call centre operator that the HTC Sensation XL had been recalled by HTC, that Vodafone had stopped selling them and returned stock to HTC because of serious software flaws. He added that it was impossible for me to purchase an HTC Sensation XL from Vodafone under the circumstances.

WTF?
So, a moment to reflect;
1) The Vodafone store had in-store advertising for the HTC Sensation XL on display
2) The Vodafone website had the full blurb for the HTC Sensation XL available for all to see
3) The Vodafone store systems allow the sales staff to book sales of the HTC Sensation to customers, even though the stores do not hold stock of this device (only sold on-line I was told on Sunday)
4) The staff are unfamiliar with the difference between the HTC Sensation and the HTC Sensation XL as evidenced by the fact that the former was sold to me as the latter - and the premium up-front payment was successfully charged
5) Even the subsequent scanning of the HTC Sensation barcode did not throw up the inconsistency in the sale on the Saturday
6) Had we not spotted this I would have ended up paying £165 for the HTC Sensation that was a free upgrade anyway (see below).

The compromise
Having booked the HTC Sensation back in it was then necessary for me to go through the sales process from the beginning. And that is what we did, having decided that the HTC Sensation was better than no HTC Sensation at all. We'd given up on the idea of the HTC Sensation XL.

The only bonus to all of this is that the HTC Sensation is a free upgrade and so I had the £165 credited back to my card. It was shocking to think that I could have paid this money unnecessarily and that no one or no system had picked this up at the point of sale.

One could suggest "All's well that ends well" but this is a compromise, not at all what we had set out for. We're now committed to the HTC Sensation for the next 18 months. The only saving grace, I suppose, is that HTC say they will update it to Android 4.0.x Ice Cream Sandwich this year and so that will help it not become out date too quickly.

[Wilt]

HTC Sensation XL recall? First I have heard of that.

Did they not have any Sensation XEs in stock? They also have the beats audio.

[Ben]

Nice Vodafone experience, there. I can't remember the last time I went into Vodafone Canterbury and had a positive experience - normally the wait is at least 10 minutes, and I've waited over half an hour in a shop that isn't particularly busy. This HTC Sensation XL thing sounds like a complete debacle. I'd tweet this thread to Vodafone if I were you so they can look into exactly what went wrong there.

Being on hold in-store to Vodafone CS is a pitiful way to treat a customer. What, exactly, was the point of you going in-store at all at the end of that experience? Perhaps that's the whole point ;)

[gorilla]

I feel for you I really do, but I avoid phone shops like the plague. Every time I'm in I feel like I'm about to get violated.
I would try and talk you out of the Sensation, but that would surely mean another trip to the store!

[miffed]

I agree I tend to do all my phone shopping online , firstly to get the protection of the distance selling act, but secondly I always feel I'm paying a premium to be messed around by minimum wage staff that would rather be doing something else - guys like Getti who actually know what they are talking about are few and far between IME.

I am a bit baffled by it all to be honest - I cannot imagine a stores systems allowing a sale to be made on one phone , and then a different handset to be allocated to that sale ? Look at the phones that are available - 10 current models of iPhone , countless Galaxies, countless Xperia's , countless Desires...... I simply don't believe you could scan the wrong handset and not have it flagged to your attention ?

As long as you are happy then alls good .... but to me it looks like they've made you jump through hoops and offered little in the way of compensation for your trouble ? Not sure , but isn't the Sensation a previous Generation than the XE & XL ? If you are happy with the Sensation then fair enough , but I think they are bloody lucky you chose to "go with their mistake" without any kind of recompense ?

Anyway you know my thoughts on Vodafone ....

As for the XL , I had a look myself , came close , but ended up getting another Galaxy Note , in white this time :)

[Hands0n]

Well, the Sensation wasn't for me but he lad who has been keeping his HTC Desire in pristine condition for the 18 months he's had it. He wanted the XL for the Dr Dre headset more than anything else. However, having compared the Sensation and the XL using GSM Arena we find that he has the better deal in terms of screen resolution (important to him) and power (dual core on the Sensation, single core on the XL). And he's loving Sense 3. He's happy, and thats what its all about.

The XE is an update on the Sensation, as far as I can tell it is not a major change, more memory, faster processor. Nothing that either of us feel too badly about. He's not what I'd call a power user, just likes the whole Sense experience. The speed uplift on the Sensation from the Desire is significant enough for him to notice. I'd like to root it and remove all the branded apps - but he won't let me near it, preferring it stock! That apple fell a little way from this tree :) Awww, mustn't be too hard on the fella. He's a tech user, I'm the tech abuser.

I've had loads of folk throw cold water on the "XL recall" business. It may be that I was fibbed and fobbed off by the call centre. What can one expect I suppose. But in hindsight I really am grateful that the XL wasn't to be had. I don't think that was the better of the two handsets.

[miffed]

Have to admit I agree , I watched some videos of the Galaxy note vs the XE and simply couldn't find a single reason to choose the XL over the note - and I really wanted to choose HTC too as I have a love/hate relationship with Samsung. Seems you are paying a very big premium for the Dre branding and even taking a knock on CPU !

[Ben]

Will you be putting the savings into buying him a nice pair of the headphones to go with his new Sensation? :D

[Hands0n]

A full specs comparison of the Sensation XL vs the Sensation is here --> http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=4161&idPhone2=3875

@Ben - Hell no! He's got the buyback credited to the account for his number, he can make do with that. And the £165 is safely back in my credit card account.

@Miffed - Compared to the Galaxy Note the Sensation XL is a fairly significant backward step. I cannot imagine what HTC were up to.

[The Mullet of G]

Having recently rejoined Vodafone this experience doesn't surprise me, the quality of service I get is fine, but the user experience from dealing with Vodafone is horribly broken, its like everything they do is done by individuals who don't communicate with each other on any level, as a result nothing quite works the way it should and you end up jumping through more hoops than a Crufts showdog.

[Hands0n]

I know what you mean there. During the initial visit to the store I updated my SIM-only to get more data and less minutes. The sales person added iPhone Tether (£0), 750MB BT Openzone (£0), 500MB additional MBB and 100 MMS and Passport. The computer systems managed to lose the 500MB data and MMS. So I dealt with the Twitter team via Twitter and eMail. I had to show the paperwork, which of course I could. They sorted it out fine, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place.