With all the packing and loading boxes and furniture onto a truck just to unload it all again a few kilometres down the road, it is just a hassle. Even getting movers in only serves to slightly reduce the hard labour part of the exercise.

With all this physical activity going on, when it comes to the more virtual tasks of changing over power, insurance and – yeah, you guessed it – phone and internet accounts, most movers would expect this to be a relatively painless process.

Not quite if you’re a Vodafone home line and internet customer however, as this writer discovered last week.

To illustrate my experience, here follows a paraphrased (and admittedly slightly dramatised) account of my call to Vodafone to inform it of my impending relocation:

LV: “I’m moving and need to transfer my connection.”

VF: “Sure, no problem, I can take care of that for you.”

LV: “Great – so the new address is…dah-dah-dah…”

VF: “Thanks. So to transfer the phone connection, there is a charge of $49 and to switch over the broadband will be $99...”

LV: “WHAT?!!! Uh, hold on. I’ll call back…”

After cutting short this exchange that was on track to costing me $149, I decided it was time reconsider my ongoing connectivity options.

It turns out it would cost me less to sign up to a new provider than to stick with Vodafone.

For instance Orcon charges no connection or relocation fees.

While Telecom does charge $52 to connect or move a phone connection, it does not charge to move a broadband connection and currently offers a free connection to new customers.

Slingshot charges $49 and $29 for the phone and broadband switch respectively.

But Vodafone it is not alone in charging high fees for relocations. TelstraClear also charges $99 for the broadband shift, but outdoes Vodafone on transferring the phone line with a charge of $59.

This means TelstraClear customers pay $158 for the pleasure of retaining it as their home phone and broadband provider.

TelstraClear explains this charge on its website: “We need to send technicians to disconnect the services from your old address and connect them to the new one.”

Is this really still necessary in this virtual age? Surely with exchanges being opened up through local loop unbundling and most homes already wired for phone lines, does a technician really need to go out and flick a switch? If so, why can other providers do it for less or even free?

It seems Vodafone may be trying its luck… as this next exchange indicates.

When I rang to cancel my account, the Vodafone customer service representative asked why I was cancelling, and then asked if it would help if the $99 broadband reconnection fee was waived.

I politely declined thinking this smacks of the kind of arrogance which is usually the reserve of incumbent monopolies – let the compliant customers pay away, but be ready to throw them a bone if they get unruly and threaten to leave…