Vodafone continued overcharging and ignorance.

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paradoxsm

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#6023 17-Dec-2005 14:18

OK people, We can finally now confirm Vodafone are a buch of monkeys.

I have two connections with them, a data on-account connection and a prepaid
my prepaids balance has had $34 sucked out very recently and they won't tell me why.
they said they have been overcharging people and this is being "resolved" well this is happening far too many times for my liking. it's like every week they are caught trying to overcharge etc.

My on account has sessions charging random amounds like 27c/KB etc and data usage does NOT correspond with my phon'es data counter. While using my imate with SPB GPRS manager (superb software) , I see major discrepancies.

I don't use chat and rarely use email. of course "Shannon" from data support was her usesless unhelpful self (she needs to be fired) and she said I need to speak to customer services and they need to email people for investigation which they never manage to succeeed in doing, everything is a hand-off in Vodafone. they she got really nasty with me when I voiced my concern to her about being overcharged and got quite abusive, I recorded this call (like all I make to them when they promise something and never fufill it) and will be passing this one on.

17 December 2005 WAP 0c/10KB 0.0967 $0.00
16 December 2005 WAP 0c/10KB 0.3174 $0.00
16 December 2005 WAP Activity 10c/10KB 0.0586 $0.60
14 December 2005 WAP 0c/10KB 0.2070 $0.00
14 December 2005 WAP Activity 10c/10KB 0.1172 $1.20
13 December 2005 WAP 0c/10KB 0.0703 $0.00
13 December 2005 WAP 27c/10KB 0.0454 $1.24 <-------- What is this!
13 December 2005 WAP Activity 10c/10KB 0.0586 $0.60
12 December 2005 WAP 0c/10KB 0.0615 $0.00
11 December 2005 WAP 0c/10KB 0.1123 $0.00
10 December 2005 WAP 0c/10KB 0.1660 $0.00
10 December 2005 WAP Activity 10c/10KB 0.1074 $1.10
10 December 2005 WAP Free AnyTime MB's 0.0000 $0.00
09 December 2005 WAP 0c/10KB 0.1299 $0.00
08 December 2005 WAP 0c/10KB 0.3115 $0.00
07 December 2005 WAP 0c/10KB 0.0010 $0.00

Hey..!!!!!!! Wait a minute, I'm on a DATA BUNDLE! (GPRS 1MB) these are CASUAL RATES and so have the last 4 bills been!!!!!!!!!! what's all those funny charges. useless Vodafone.

................................WARNING!......................................

And I thought my Woosh phone was bad!

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BDFL - Memuneh
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Geekzone

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#24898 17-Dec-2005 14:29

I know the major problem for both local operators is billing. Can't say much more due to some of my involvement in past projects, but I can imagine how painful is talking to someone who don't really want to understand or admit a fault.

paradoxsm

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#24899 17-Dec-2005 14:38

I've had issues with Telecom before but they fix it after a few days and usually spew credits my way or at least apoligise. It seems something so simple from a billing end.

Isn't billing carried out as an alert which charges specific to a webpage IP going through an address and a web portal which ID's the phones connection through the gateway and charges the correct account accordingly?, I can't even bookmark any pages in VLIVE now.

I hate to moan about it but they always say" is there anything else i can help you with" and she hadn't even take my number or checked what was wrong. O,o,o, o, o, o,o,o A, a, a, A, "screeeech" (monkey noises)

It's not the poor operators fault and i've heard the company gives these poor Call Centre staff little help and lots of "stats", dare they see an "abandoned call" ;-P

Shannon however is always unhelpful and very rude tone, I still have the old recording (i-mate records all calls) where she seemed puzzled as to what the SMTP server for Vodafone email was. DuuuH!

juha

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#24900 17-Dec-2005 14:46

Is it by any chance related to this:

http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/UNID/C21AE8864106820ECC2570D1000F49A9

?

Juha

paradoxsm

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#24901 17-Dec-2005 14:46

The Problem is GSM handsets are so GOOD! argh it's so hard!

sbiddle

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#24902 17-Dec-2005 14:48

I'm still annoyed I lost my offpeak advantage (unlimited offpeak calls) due to Vodafones "upgraded billing system".. yeah right.. Vodafone seriously need some outside auditors in to check through some of their systems such as billing, with the number of problems they have had in the past and their ongoing problems now it's obvious there are fundamental problems with their systems that need fixing.

paradoxsm

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#24903 17-Dec-2005 14:49

saddest part is... no it's not, yet something else that's iffy with their billing. there are two fauls there, the 27c for 10KB and the fact my included GPRS is not rating at $0.00!

how many other links aren there for overcharging on vodafone? remember when they sneakily charged 21c for a TXT! (telecom was doing and still charges $0.19c)

paradoxsm

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#24904 17-Dec-2005 14:52

HISSSSSSSS Goes the cobra ;-)

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johnr

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#24906 17-Dec-2005 16:10

paradoxsm the charge looks like you have been on vodafone live and gone into the chat services.

3 cents per kb of data as advised when you log in,

This is not included in your Data bundle

sbiddle

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#24909 17-Dec-2005 19:14

paradoxsm: saddest part is... no it's not, yet something else that's iffy with their billing. there are two fauls there, the 27c for 10KB and the fact my included GPRS is not rating at $0.00!

how many other links aren there for overcharging on vodafone? remember when they sneakily charged 21c for a TXT! (telecom was doing and still charges $0.19c)

Vodafone charge 17c + GST for an SMS.

Their problem was they charged 18c + GST for an SMS and then some marketing person decided to promote SMS's at 20c which was a con it itself as when BellSouth launched SMS's only cost 12c each.. or free if you know about the bug in their billing system - ring up and get data enabled on your phone ($10 per month) then get data cancelled and they would no longer charge you for any SMS's. It was just a shame I only had about 3 friends to TXT way back then! :-)

My girlfriend was double charged for roaming calls this year while we in Europe and Australia. She set up roaming for her prepay and while in the UK was charged on the roaming bill as well as having it deduced from her prepay balance using the auto roaming. After realising this and getting a credit she went to Australia the following month and the same thing happened! They promised to fix it and she wasn't double charged for her trip over last month but you have to wonder how many people it happens to as many would have no idea what their prepay balance is to realise they are being double charged.

Getting back to the original post what date is your billing cycle and how much data had you used in the previous days since the start of the cycle? The 2.7c /kb has to be the Live! chat service which is the only thing through a WAP APN on your bill that is charged at that price.

cokemaster

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#24910 17-Dec-2005 22:38

I'm also been affected with GPRS overcharging. Tier 2 support are supposed to be looking at it but its taking quite a while... still no resolution.

Also have the fun with customer services not believing what I have to say.

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paradoxsm

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#24913 17-Dec-2005 23:54

I remember that free texting bug well, my work phone had it, i still get faxmail free too thanks to mobile data overlay being installed.

paradoxsm the charge looks like you have been on vodafone live and gone into the chat services.

3 cents per kb of data as advised when you log in,

This is not included in your Data bundle

No I don't use CHAT,i have no need to and if I needed to chat or "hookup" not that i'm "married" and all i'd hop on nzdating or jump on MSN or IRC........ my vodafone live profiles does not even work, just says there was an error anytime I try to enter somewhere. i had this removed deliberatly to avoid kids playing on it if i leave my phone behind.

I have a feeling it's taken some of my other wap data usage as being "chat" typical screwup.

philip79

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#24915 18-Dec-2005 04:19

I too get over charged. I don't even touch the gprs because if I do it always ends up with half my credit gone. I have also called to ask for my money back but they make out I'm wrong. I never had this problem with my Telecom phone. I'm so sick of over charging I'm thinking of ditching my flash phone and getting a Sanyo. If we all switched to telstra we might get that third network and we can keep our flash phones. I know one person who's switched to Telstra and says the customer service is much better.

Jama

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#24962 19-Dec-2005 09:00

Telstra is just Vodafone in a different coloured wrapper. Will be interesting to see how Econet handle the customer service side of things.

Seriously though billing systems are one of the most complicated and specalised beasts for a Telco to manage. I know one Telco in the US who has 14 billing engines and they still can't charge correctly for data!

paradoxsm

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#24970 19-Dec-2005 09:55

That's because they have 14 billing engines, Pretty scary.

Telecom have a pretty reliable tight system, issues with them have been due to orders being run by staff whom don't know what they are doing so this is just human error. issues have been almost non-existent and my normal account phone is with them, they get $100 a month, vodafone get $5-$7 now. It used to be totally the other way around.

Jama

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#24982 19-Dec-2005 13:36

I agree with you on the human error side of things. Very tricky when there are so many spot codes applied to services. Very easy to miss a spot code or load an incorrect one.

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