High roaming bill I think this is unfair. Is there any way someone from Vodafone sort this?

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › High roaming bill I think this is unfair. Is there any way someone from Vodafone sort this?

PaulZA

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#100411 11-Apr-2012 11:29

Hi guys I have a mate who went to Australia, he got home only find an invice for about $5000. He has begun paying this off, however he is finding it hard, he is mildly special needs, he's not getting any support from his family to help him pay it off. He is getting letters from a debt collection threatening legal action. and to make matters worse, he understood that he was on a plan which has a $150 calling limit on after then it wouldn't allow him to call or txt. he didn't know that he was getting such a high bill, and he is in financial trouble at the moment, and the and bill is very hard from him to pay, especially as I mentioned before when he said that he thought he wasn't going to spend more then $150 on his prepay limit.

Can anyone please sort this out?

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BDFL - Memuneh
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#607740 11-Apr-2012 11:31

It seems calling newspapers and making a noise should get Vodafone to wipe part of the bill.

Seriously though, bill shock is something that shows up on papers every now and then. If you have friends going overseas and you know mobile roaming costs a lot then you should tell them BEFORE they leave to not use it at all, or use a local SIM.

People should do their part, because telcos are not moving any fast to get mobile data roaming cheaper.

More in my blog.

PaulZA

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#607742 11-Apr-2012 11:36

Thanks for the reply Maurico.

How could I contact the paper, as they only print storys that seem "Newsworthy" and they ignore the others.

How would I bring this to their attention so that they don't ignore it?

xpd

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#607743 11-Apr-2012 11:41

Ring/email/Tweet them....

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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freitasm

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#607744 11-Apr-2012 11:43

Contact Tom Pullar-Strecker on Dominion Post or send him a Geekzone PM.

gmball

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#607747 11-Apr-2012 11:45

You didnt mention if you have spoken to Vodafone? Maybe they could consider reducing the bill given the background info and setup a payment plan to pay the remainder off over time?

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#607749 11-Apr-2012 11:47

freitasm:
Seriously though, bill shock is something that shows up on papers every now and then. If you have friends going overseas and you know mobile roaming costs a lot then you should tell them BEFORE they leave to not use it at all, or use a local SIM.

When you go to the airport, you have the opportunity to change your currency, so you have local cash when you land. I wonder if there is a business opportunity to also sell pre-pay SIMs for many of the common travel destinations as well. Done right it may also serve to increase the awareness that global roaming can be very, very expensive.

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#607750 11-Apr-2012 11:48

PaulZA: Hi guys I have a mate who went to Australia, he got home only find an invice for about $5000. He has begun paying this off, however he is finding it hard, he is mildly special needs, he's not getting any support from his family to help him pay it off. He is getting letters from a debt collection threatening legal action. and to make matters worse, he understood that he was on a plan which has a $150 calling limit on after then it wouldn't allow him to call or txt. he didn't know that he was getting such a high bill, and he is in financial trouble at the moment, and the and bill is very hard from him to pay, especially as I mentioned before when he said that he thought he wasn't going to spend more then $150 on his prepay limit.

Can anyone please sort this out?

Hi Paul

PM me some details and I can get someone to take a look,

John

Equinox IT

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PaulZA

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#607763 11-Apr-2012 12:03

Hi John I'm not sure how this PM thing works on Geekzone. (So confusing) could you please send me a PM first on geekzone with the info you require, to get the ball rolling.

Thanks

LennonNZ

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#607765 11-Apr-2012 12:06

Hi PaulZA..

(yes its a long comment and I have probably said lots of wrong things and have lots of spelling mistakes and bad grammar)

You have asked someone from Vodafone to "Sort it out" but you post on Geekzone. Without knowing the specific details on "why" your mate got a huge bill (TXT's, Data or Calls) its a little hard to comment on and no one here can sort that out. Has your mate contacted Vodafone regarding all this? Mistakes are made sometimes (I got $1000 bill from roaming to AU a couple of months ago which was wiped as a company had made a huge mistake on the way they billed the Data I had did)

Looking quickly on Vodafone Site Roaming calls in AU are $2/min, TXT 80c and Data is 50c/Mb (but it depends on the plan the person is on)

40 hours of talking,6000+ TXTs or 10G of Data.. Thats ALOT of Cell Phone use (even if he was in NZ)

Debt Collection emails are normal when someone doesn't pay and doesn't contact the place you owe the money to. If I owed lots of money to a company I would contact them and work out some type of arrangement to pay it off thus it wouldn't normally go to the Debt Collectors (baycorp or whoever). If you get Baycorp letters its usually too late and not you owe money to the Debt Collection company.. not Vodafone as the the collection agencies "buy the debt". But remember no company can take you to the debt collectors if you dispute the amount (for valid reasons - i.e. they made a mistake). (I'm not a lawyer so could be completely wrong)

Saying all this.. we don't know the specific details and (do we really want to know??)

If you had said "my friend went to AU and roamed and did 10M of data and made a couple of hundred calls back to NZ and he got a $5000 bill when he returned then yes someone was strange about it and we can comment on it (but not fix it)" but the charges could have been anything (someone picked up his phone and called Turkey for a few hours maybe??). If it was a technical fault johnr might comment if you are nice and try to help but I am 100% sure he cannot just wipe someone's bill.

Nothing against your mate but I presume from his post he didn't understand what things cost. _IF_ he was on a $150 Spending Limit Plan? (I heard something on Fairgo about this a while ago) and the limit didn't kick in maybe he can complain about it . Or maybe the Limit doesn't kick in overseas roaming. Maybe there is a delay from roaming data -> being billed (unknown number of days) so he could have easily done $5000 worth of data before Vodafone knew about the data?

And what about the TXT messages he got when he started roaming to AU.. did he read those?

All very much speculation.

So what does he do? Get all his facts right.. check what plan or whatever he is on and the cost involved If he cannot understand any of it (you said he's mildly special needs) maybe he can go to citizens advise and get some help from them. Maybe it won't change that he actually does owe the $$ but it might help him understand WHY he got charged and he learns from past mistakes.

Kyanar

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#607933 11-Apr-2012 16:35

LennonNZ: If you get Baycorp letters its usually too late and not you owe money to the Debt Collection company.. not Vodafone as the the collection agencies "buy the debt". But remember no company can take you to the debt collectors if you dispute the amount (for valid reasons - i.e. they made a mistake).

The first part of this is not usually true. Baycorp doesn't actually buy debts like some of the small "Vulture" collectors do. With Baycorp, they charge a commission fee to chase up the debt, it's still yours.

Also, it's not too late when it's with the debt collectors either - you can still legally dispute the debt if you have a reason for doing so, and the collection agency will act as an intermediary between you and the creditor to sort out whether the debt is valid. If the creditor can't prove it's valid to the collection agency's satisfaction, they will often wipe the debt and it becomes either the creditors problem or is written off entirely.

LennonNZ

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#607949 11-Apr-2012 17:30

"you can still legally dispute the debt if you have a reason for doing so"

Thanks..

"unfair" is not really a good enough reason IMHO.

"He is getting letters from a debt collection threatening legal action"

Baycorp is never threatening so it cannot be them :-)

mudguard

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#607994 11-Apr-2012 19:33

Ooh a can of worms. Someone with special needs with a credit facility.

jtbthatsme

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#607995 11-Apr-2012 19:33

Has been a long long time since I've had dealings with Baycorp and yes they can be threatening but as has been pointed out they are only a intermediary and do not own your debt. The debt if disputed can be returned to the company that referred it (I assume Baycorp would charge them a fee for this) and this would not have any effect on your credit rating.

If nothing can be done and your friends struggling then possibly the best thing to do is to let the thing go to court as it sounds like there's been no or very little communication to the company as if there had been something would not go to the likes of Baycorp. If it went to court they can not enforce repayments that are unreasonable that would mean your friend could not get by. Not only this after it's all settled and done through the courts there's no interest (penalties or otherwise) that can be charged what is outstanding at the end of the court process would be all that would need to be repaid. It's not the most ideal situation but it works as some companies would keep adding penalties on a regular basis which at times just make your payments a joke.

Please note I am in no way saying this would be the case for Vodafone and if it was I would be shocked lol. Good luck either way it is unfortunate that it is generally a lack of knowing what to ask that costs a lot of people a lot of money. I work in debt collection and our office deals with hundreds of people daily where 100% of them have had debts created through lack of communication between the concerned parties. It's important to keep people who provide you services informed.

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#608003 11-Apr-2012 19:55

freitasm: It seems calling newspapers and making a noise should get Vodafone to wipe part of the bill.

so.. does this reflect the real cost to roam? ie: half the price and they still make money?

jtbthatsme

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#608010 11-Apr-2012 20:11

No offense but do you think companies would just do 50% off and take a loss??? Most companies are making more than 100% mark up hell some are making 1000% it's just a reality I don't think MF is saying that at all and he is also not saying that they'll knock 50% off the bill or even anything.

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