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RUSSIA’S DAILY CORONAVIRUS infections have soared to their highest level this year as authorities struggle to control a surge in cases amid a slow pace in vaccinations and with few restrictions in place.
The daily Covid-19 death toll exceeded 900 for a second straight day, with 924 new deaths reported — a day after reaching a record 929.
Russia already has Europe’s highest death toll in the pandemic — topping 213,000 — and the authorities’ conservative way of recording Covid-19 fatalities suggests the actual number could be even higher.
Today, the government’s coronavirus taskforce reported 27,550 new confirmed cases, a nearly 10% rise from the previous day. New infections in Moscow soared by nearly 50% to 5,404.
A quick rise in infections and deaths began in late September, with authorities blaming it on the low vaccination rate.
As of Tuesday, almost 33% of Russia’s 146 million people had received at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, and 29% were fully vaccinated.
But the Kremlin has shrugged off the idea of imposing a new nationwide lockdown, delegating the power to tighten restrictions to regional authorities.
Some regions have limited attendance at large public events and restricted access to theatres, restaurants and other places to people who have been vaccinated, recently recovered from Covid-19 or tested negative in the previous 72 hours.
In some areas, Russia’s vast yet severely underfunded healthcare system has started to show signs of being overwhelmed by the outbreak.
Russian media have reported long queues of ambulances once again forming in front of hospitals in St Petersburg.
And on Tuesday, the presidential envoy in the Ural Mountains district — a part of central Russia that encompasses six regions — said 95% of the hospital beds for Covid-19 patients there have been filled.
Overall, Russia’s coronavirus taskforce has registered nearly 7.7 million confirmed cases and 213,549 deaths.
However, reports by Russia’s state statistical service Rosstat that tally coronavirus-linked deaths retroactively reveal significantly higher mortality numbers.
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I left them for one simple reason. Their plans are far too expensive.
Same as that. I left them 6 years ago and from what I hear they haven’t improved much
Same here left them a Xmas there plans are to much, and the signal where I am was crap, chanced and oh full signal,
Way too expensive for what you get. Three are by far the best value.
I will do the same in September Jason, they have become so expensive and when you ring no joy, hope the learn their lesson.
i’m delighted with this news, serves them right and eircom too. i cancelled a contract with them last year a month in advance, they took their last payment then the following month but… 2 months later they went in for another grab and took close to €1. Now, not a lot but if they do that to 1,000 customers per month and half don’t notice? Yea, much like banks until they get caught. Thieves of the highest order. They told me it was done in error “we apologise, we can deduct it from another product of ours if you like?” how the f*** would i do that when I’ve just cancelled the contract? They then said they’d post the cheque out. It never arrived. They then said i would need to write (by post only mind NO email facility!!!) to their customer complaint section in Dublin! haha, the cost of the stamp alone. They have it all worked out. Notice how you can’t get an email confirmation from them anymore, its all Chat live crap. They also can’t give a person their call history on their login account online if they’re pre-pay, only bill pay. Now wouldn’t that data of just a simple call history be available to all customers of vodafone once they login to their account? I figured out why that is, pre-pay is tarrif, they offer these Free calls to Vodafone customers, but as we all know, many 087 numbers could be moved to 3mobile, so how can they tell they’re calling vodafone numbers just by 087? They can’t really unless they listen out for a beep. This leaves pre-pay customers in a lurch, they’re not sure if they’ll go over their tariff or not. This works to vodafone favour. If a prepay customer could see their call history then they could work out which 087 numbers are been charged outside the tariff.
Get rid of them, will there ever be an honest, fair company.
Their customer service is excellent.
Great company.
Free calls, texts and data.
Don’t need me a stupidly expensive phone, 24 month contract or €50+ a month phone bill
I left them about 6 years ago after they conned me into signing for ‘up to 8 MB broadband’ they couldn’t even provide 1MB. A fact they freely admitted AFTER I signed the contract.
Metor hav the same offer for 30 euro per month ???!!!!! So how is 50 + gud ?
You can get the same deal on tesco for €25
That off net beep you are talking.about happens before the phone starts to ring so you have the option to hang up once you find someone is not on Vodafone. That off net beep is the same for all networks. It’s how you know a number is no longer on its original network.
And their customer service is appalling.
I’m with Vodafone and I hate them. Stealth charges everywhere and their deals and customer service, particularly in-store (Blackrock), are appauling. 02 and Meteor have their problems but are preferable any day.
I’m just waiting for my contract to end in the summer to go back to meteor or even 3 mobile. Plans are a rip of and customer service is shite.
Paddy the Blackrock branch is ridiculous. if anyone what’s to see the lunatics running the asylum drop in and have a look.
It’s a complete joke Richard!
Blackrock can have 10-15 people in the q at times and the staff mosey around the place on some sort of go-slow! Stillorgan branch is kind of under the radar for some reason and you can be in and out fairly quickly!
they get meaner and ruder. get too big for their boots. i think p**pal service has gone down the drain too. we need a competitor FAST.
Probably because they are the most expensive operator out there!
It’s really not rocket science. Vodafone still believe that we’re living in the Celtic Tiger. They’re plans are a massive rip-off.
Irish Vodafone customers get very poor value for money as compared to their UK Vodafone counterparts.
they lost most of their cherry points in 2014, they’ll lose them all this year.
Not surprised they’ve been ripping people off for years . By far the most expensive and worst to deal with.
A friend of mine was paying €59 a month with Vodafone for 500 minutes, unlimited texts and 1GB of data and a so called free phone. 24 month contract. His bills were always €75 plus. He moved to tesco mobile sim only plan no contract, unlimited calls, texts and 15GB of data for €25 a month. Or he had the option of paying €10 a month for unlimited calls and 5GB of data.
1Gb data, that’s shocking poor. I’d eat that if I fell asleep at night listening to my podcasts.
Mike, could you please forward your CV into us please and don’t bother with a cover letter.
If you want my number just ask :)
i think 3mobile offer the best data contracts, €20 a month sim if you’ve your own phone for 20.3gb. hopefully the coverage will get better using 02s network.
I’m just waiting to offload my contract…I’ve got my good phone now after being ‘ upgraded’ for the last time. There’s very little more phones could possibly do better… Unless they can do the hoovering
@Paudie. Tesco pay as you go mobile, was used on mainland Spain, and Lanzarote with no problems at all. They work off the o2 network and are doing great deals..
The guy who once ran the US patents office famously claimed about the year 1900. “Everything that can be invented has been invented”. Don’t given up on the Hoover phone just yet.
Possibly the worst costumer service I have ever witnessed.
Actually no they definitely have the worst costumer service ever.
Takes ages to navigate through the talking machine and when you finally get through to speak to an actual person they are rude and unhelpful. Cannot wait for my contract to run out so I can leave.
I left them mid contract because I was having nothing but problems with either the service or the phone. The shop kept telling me it was the service and customer care kept telling me it was the phone. No help from anyone but I had plenty of contact when I left mid contract, continuous letters from debt collection agencies threatening to take me to court. I told them to take me to court because there wasn’t a judge in the country who who would order me to pay for a service I wasn’t receiving. I had a detailed account if every call I had made and every visit in store. They eventually stopped hassling me when they realised they were never going to get another penny out of me and that they didn’t have a leg to stand on. They are dreadful..
Vodafone are the worst shower of w@nkers I have ever had to deal with. Hope they continue to lose customers, as their customer service is absolutely atrocious. Power to you, my hole..
Rip off, too expensive and could never get through to customer care.
The second my contract expires this year with Vodafone I am out the gap.
Kafkaesque doesn’t even begin to describe my interactions with their customer services representatives. I have spent the guts of a year trying to sort out a mistake that Vodafone themselves made and they haven’t been willing or able to resolve it. Emails go unanswered. Letters go unacknowledged. Phone calls go from pillar to post and no one is able to transfer me to the relevant department nor give me the direct line to contact a manager.
Their latest innovation is scrapping the ability to email the company and referring you to an online service rep which removes any paper trail and is infuriating to say the least.
For a company that specialises in telecommunications they don’t really do the whole communication thing very well.
There you go rant over!
Executive Summary: Not in the least bit surprised. Can’t believe they still have such a large market share.
Leave a public comment on their facebook page, they won’t be long helping you then. It was the only way I could get an issue resolved after months of emails & phone calls. Quite possibly the worlds worst customer service ever!
I worked in a phone shop a while back, Vodafone customers were always pensioners and the like. The tarrifs are to expensive but pensioners didn’t seem to understand that and were anxious about changing.younger people have no problem changing providers.
The Vodafone store in sligo is awful customer service also my mum went into ask something and the girl in there was talking to her friends and told my mum she was busy so my mum left and I sorted it out for her. I reported it and someone said they would contact us back but no one ever did #disgraceful
they’re all c***ts. 3mobile took €1 to register the account from the bank card. its meant to come off the next bill, took 2 months but whatever. when i called the store back to confirm that, the girl there said “no thats not refundable”!!! seriously i think some f***heads in there like to play with customers. I then got the correct information from their head office. “Yes, it comes off your next bill” Grand, so why did the other one say otherwise?
Vodafone is absolutely atrocious.I had nothing but trouble using their service.Customer support wasn’t helpful in any way.No wonder their is a huge decrease in their customer base.
there*
As soon as my Vodafone contract expired I high tailed it out of there! Atrocious customer service and much too expensive!
I switched from Vodafone to Three recently. For €20 a month with 3 you get free 3 to 3 calls, free any network texts, free any network calls, unlimited data and the €20 credit left to spend.
That’s way better than Vodafone’s €20 a month which only gives you free Vodafone calls and texts and 5GB of data and you only have €10 left to spend.
That’s prepay by the way.
The only reason I’m a Vodafone customer is because its the only network that has signal at home, otherwise I’d be long gone, customer service is shocking
@Melissa. They have you by the short and curlys when your outside the citys and towns. 7 out 10 times you have no coverage.
Don’t know why anyone goes near Vodafone when Three are offering unlimited data (15gb fair usage cap) for as little as €26 per month on a two year contract. 4G is a €5 addon I think.
Basically they give you a high enough cap that you can use your phone for all the usual stuff without having to knock your data off or go hunting for wi-fi all the time.
Am with Vodafone 14 years until my current (far too expensive) contract expires this year. Sick of being ripped off
Maybe if they didn’t offshore all there customer care staff to Egypt, Romania, india, all the money saved there is costing the actual bottom line
Yeah, because 3 aren’t offshore either? Right? ;-) shared services and consolidation are obvious moves for large global organisations. I think we’re being a bit naive to think that every company that operates here will have an irish call or support centre…
I worked in telecoms for years both here and abroad and Vodafone really are and nearlys were the most expensive out there. For low to middle users prepay is probably the way to go in my experience. When I had the shock of actually not having a free mobile plan and had to.pay I moved to prepay. I’ve seen too many people massively exceed the bundles they purchased. Prepay that you can top up from your mobile is very handy and much better for lower users.My 20 quid a month covers all my calls texts and Internet for the month easily
@catherine sims…. great name for working in telecoms!
For the record I.had it first :)
Vodafone are an absolute joke. I was nearly driven to the looney bin trying to deal with them recently, over a mistake they made. Their customer service is appalling. They don’t give a monkeys about their customers. I cannot wait for my contract to end.
They don’t give a s##it anymore. I went into a store to ask for my customer account number to move off to O2. He didn’t even try to persuade me to stay.
Maybe they are not paid enough to care…..
Pity. Your one in the store is a fine piece of gear.!!!
You should have asked him out for a drink.
I think there’s a market for a premium service…
People will pay, for business people especially who depend on their phone service €2 a day is a small cost for a reliable service.
The trouble is when they call themselves a premium service and charge accordingly…. But cut customer service and start outsourcing, service outages, billing errors, credit checks, forcing people on to electronic billing and cutting off their service when they haven’t paid bills they haven’t received.
I actually ran such a mobile department in the UK fir business customers. Initially they were willing to pay for their bespoke mobile plans but eventually it did boil down to cost for them and we had to get competitive. Most of our customers had come from Vodafone
You’d be surprised… They churn based on cost… Or because an accountant in the company sells a cost reduction plan
and when it all goes to shit or some C suite executive gets hung out to dry… They will come back to the service where they actually have an account manager and dedicated point of contact and volunteer to pay more.
Well most of the large networks provide business account managers Drew. All of them do. In fact the larger accounts ( size of coca cola for example) probably have a dedicated team. ( small team but still a team). I really ended up being the account manager for our bigger accounts. Our account managers weren’t very experienced. Many having come out of telesales. Anyway there was some pretty crazy requests. One Ceo wanted the latest girly phone for his daughter. Our suppliers didnt have it so I ended up buying it off the website of one the bigger mobile companies for his daughter. They really expected a lot in return for their custom at times.
I always found the CEO’s the nicest, most patient and grateful… It was the just hired interns from a country I can’t name that made me want loose it.
Absolutely brutal customer service I left them over a year ago and a bill arrives in the door the other day telling me I owe them €130 for unpaid bills despite when leaving I asked the customer serivce operator if i owed them anything and being told I didn’t. I queried this with them and they couldnt be bothered responding to me.
Took me 5 months to pay a bill last year! Their online bill paying service did not work in every browser imaginable. They told me to go to the post office to pay. Sure, like we are living in the 80′s here! Oh. And I am into month 22 of 24 of a rip off business contract, and no sign of iPhone 6 yet!
You’ll only get the 6 when you sign up to a new 24 month contract!
I think they’re grand for home phone and broadband, infinitely better than eircom.
vf are surviving with corporate contracts & the grey population.
They just haven’t kept up. They fail to understand that data is the key.
Add with the fact that they are exceptionally expensive they need to change there business model urgently before it’s too late
Too expensive
I’ve been with Vodafone on PAYG for years now. Long enough that they double my credit whenever I top up, so everything ends up being half price. Even then I think that it might be worth switching, it is slightly cheaper on other networks. It is purely inertia that keeps me here.
My daughter and all her friends (18-24 age bracket) are with Meteor PAYG or 48 go conquer. They all top up by 5 euro per month because they all use Viber, WhatsApp, Snapchat etc. They point out that most places have WIFI and whilst at home or in friends houses they can avail of the WIFI there. They rarely use their credit because of the free apps that are available now.
Having dealt with their customer care I don’t blame people jumping ship
I am one of them, thank god. Too expensive and bad customer service.
Can’t wait for contract to be up. Moving elsewhere. Customer service is appalling, have had several issues with being overcharged and got absolutely nowhere near to a satisfactory resolution. Was given Internet security from vodafone that I didn’t ask for @5.99 a month. Only spotted it months later and asked them to remove it. Still took another call several months later to have it removed.Spoke to 2 people I couldn’t understand in their customer service base and in short vodafone don’t give a toss about customer
service.
If they are moving to 3 mobile, they won’t last to long I think long. Cause 3 have the worst customer service I have ever experienced
Not suprised, Brutal customer service
Had broadband with them for years, but used the old eircom modem as they never gave me one in the first place.
Wanted to get the simply broadband package and made it clear I wanted the modem within the week. Never arrived so I cancelled the contract.
Not surprised at all at the results. Customer care is very poor indeed.
Thats the number of the divil in their logo.
Moved from o2 to vodafone the worse mistake of my life as bad as o2 are vodafone are worse as soon as the contract is up will be moving back when I queried my bill was told to check it on line for some reason it wont let me do this & when I asked for a print out of the bill was told would take minimum of 28 days to post it out. what a load of crap if they fixed their on line service then i wouldn’t require a print out
vodafone still had their old eircell attitude to customer support, take it or leave it… i found their coverage awful, their prices awful I’ll never go back to them.
I tried leaving them, but 3s Business Customer Care was so shite I ended up coming back.
I will be leaving them next month once my contact is up. Coverage in rural areas has gotten very bad in the last two years. I miss so many business calls, it’s become a real hindrance.
Crap for mobile network.but there broadband is sound.
Vodafone lost 278 customers A DAY in 2014
278 Reduced 2+7+8 = 17
2014 reduced = 2+0+1+4 = 7
……We saw plenty of those figures last year..
very odd you saw a lot of ’2014′ last year….must be a conspiracy…
Good man frankie, you’ve solved the riddle sir
Frank… What was the significance of 7 in 2014… You brought it up a lot…
When I was younger we were always taught that 7 was a lucky number followed by 17…
jenni_ Google Christine Lagarde….. the magic number 7
She will explain everything about it.
I do think they are expensive for mobile and that is why I am with Tesco Mobile. However I have home broadband from them and they are really good at that. Even their customer service for fixed lines is amazing. I was moving house recently and they even assigned a person to help me with this process including direct number for here. She also rang every few days to inform me how it is going. New line had to be installed in new house so it took little bit longer but I am supper happy with them. Shame their phone division sucks so much.
What’s tesco mobile like??
Great, cheap and they have good customer service. You also get clubcard points. I am pay as you go and every few weeks when I do my shopping I get a slip with my receipt with free clubcard points as thanks for being their customer.
I went to Tesco a few months ago. €25 a month for an excellent package. Good customer service but, although I live in Dublin, I rarely get 3G, I’m E right now – so ask people that live in your area & are on the network about the signal. If you use the net a lot & speed is important, it’s not the best. If price is most important – it is very inexpensive €25 for 15gb of data & unlimited texts & calls – weight up your priorities to decide. Hope that helps.
I left them just before Christmas. Prices too high, data allowances too low, problems where there was no reception in my area, full reception but no calls/texts coming to the phone, delays switching plans, no way to phone support and speak to someone (needed to use online chat or Twitter to solve anything)…
Switched to 3, no issues, pay €10 less a month and actually have unlimited data… Not the unlimited that is used up after two weeks that I used to have…
No surprising their customer service is appalling!!
Was with VF since I got my first mobile phone about 17 years ago. Their customer service was brilliant for years. Always got through to customer service quickly and got to speak to a person with good English (mostly people with English as their first language). Then things changed – endless billing problems & for customer service a million buttons to press to get through to a human & then having to ask them to repeat things as their English was difficult to understand, rude employees who insist you are wrong & they are right & when you explain that your a customer for years but are being forced to leave they say “go ahead”. So I did & looks like others did too! No way to do business.
Can’t wait until I am out of contract with them. Far too expensive!!! I’ve been a customer since the Eircell days.
Thanks to their fantastic service – walked into the shop in cork City and none of the three staff even acknowledged me.. Especially since I was the only other living person in their. Then went into the shop in Mahon point and the shop was empty and again the lovely staff prefer to look at their own phones than the passing “potential” customers
Left them years due to their relaxed (being very kind) view on data protection. With 3 since ’08. Best of the bunch.
I left them only for one reason..
One day i had 3g..
The next day i didnt!!!
They couldnt explain why..
I moved to 3 instear
Serves them right…they falsely lured me into a breach if contract a few years and expanded up having to fork out a few hundred as a result… F### them
There nothing but thieving pric#s was with them for 2.5 years and service got very bad , rang them numerous times couldn’t be fixed so said I was leaving they said ok contract nil and void . 1 month later got a solicitors letter saying I owed them €300 cancelation fee, went through everything ended up having to pay it would not advise anyone to go near them
No surprise their a joke of a company. Customer service is nothing short of a joke. Ring with issues and false information after false information. All they do is mess you around. Cant wait till my contract is up!!
Had the exact same experience! I left.
I had to laugh the other day when I heard an ad on the radio for Vodafone. For a 20 euro top up they’ll give you 5 gb Internet allowance and take a tenner from your 20 euro balance.
Now compare that with three, where leaving the free calls to other three numbers, free any network weekend calls, and free any network any time texts aside – They give you UNLIMITED internet allowance and DON’T take a tenner from your credit. And them trying to make it sound like a great deal!
Im delighted to read they’re losing this amount of customers.. truly delighted.
Il save my next rant for super value when they get there comeupance too
Joined 3 in January 2011 on bill pay. €40.66 per month for 350 mins/700 texts and unlimited data. Highest bill I’ve ever got is €44 and any extras on your bill are clearly explained on the monthly invoice.
Couldn’t tell you what customer service (in store in Carlow branch is excellent) is like because I’ve never had to ring them. Says it all really!
Not suprised their signal coverage for mobile and 4g is a joke in the Knocklyon area. Roll on August and I out of contract
Iam glad that i had left vodafone early this year , found 3prepay coverage not great at my job and i need to talk alot so moved to meteor which great 20 for unlimited call and 7.5g which is fair and if u need extra data u can buy,
Absolute gangsters.
There isn’t enough tinfoil on the planet for Frank. Psycho ..
Their data a limits on bill pay plans are way too low for this day and age. Also the amount of data people consume over the course of a month of modest use your almost guaranteed to go over the limits every month.
I pay €35 a month on a sim only 12 month contract for unlimited calls and texts but only receive 2gb of data. Yet a pre pay customer tops up by €20 a month and yet receives 5gb of data!! Makes no sense to me
Static IP for business- Eircom was more reliable. Lost thousands on them messing up.
Wheres my comment???
Just there. ..
Wow.
A lot of negative comments and not one mention of a regulator.
There is a technique to complaining, and using tactics that really fk up their day have served me well.
Try querying the VAT on a suspect invoice and copy Revenue.ie – always gets a prompt response…
eek!
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They’re going to lose one more tomorrow, sick of their measly 1gb data allowance, talk about being miserable, they are a horrible company and I’ll never look back.
I actually tried to port form meteor bill pay and they wanted €200 deposit for a €250 phone and €60 a month
I told them I’d just renew with meteor for €150 for the new phone. Same priced plan
Vodafone network is quite good but the prices are a bit out of touch
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