$500 Late Payment Fee for a 2 week delay in paying internet bill

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#2376018 15-Dec-2019 21:36

Yeah, Vodafone have a reputation. However, you never getting a bill and never questioning it mean you're somewhat responsible here. However, they should have known your address and made contact.

I would dispute this with Vodafone, and if that doesn't work I'd take it to the TDR. You should change providers, ideally in the next few days if that's practical given your connection type, otherwise Vodafone should be able to reinstate your connection given the dispute of the bill.

JasonParis

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#2376063 16-Dec-2019 07:51

moschops: Cutting what were multiple long phone calls to VF CS short..

Back in July 2017 there was a problem with my regular standing order for payment of my VF Cable ADSL service. I noticed this perhaps around 2/3 weeks afterwards, it was before my next regular payment, so sent a manual payment for July.

I never received any communication from VF about the delayed payment and never thought about it again.

Since then there has been no further issue with my standing order payments and every month $99.99 is paid to the VF account.

Yesterday, Saturday morning, my Internet service was not working. I called VF and after 2.5hrs I managed to find out that my service had been suspended due to an outstanding balance of $583.

I double checked all my payments and not a single one was missed. After much debating I managed to have VF send me through all their account records since I have never had a bill sent to me and I wanted to match up with my bank statements with their accounts to prove payment had been sent.

During this process it was discovered that they had really messed up all my contact details. The phone number they had for me was missing the last 2 digits, they had my old address from before I transferred my service to my new address and they had an incorrect email address. I have no idea how a telecoms company managed to not realise that a 9 digit number is not valid nor be able to update an account address after moving the service across to it.

Anyhow, I worked my way back through my bills and discovered that my late payment in July 2017 had incurred a late payment fee of $17.25, applied to the September bill. Working forwards from there I see that every month my $99.99 is received on time as usual however they then start adding an additional $17.25 every month, for late payment of their late payment fee. This continues, increasing to $18.50 in March 2018, all the way through to December 2019 when they then decide I owe $500+ of accumulated late payment fees and that I must pay this in order to get my service back.

I really don’t believe this to be fair or just in any way. Even if they had recorded my contact details incorrectly they were absolutely aware of my new address since they had to send someone to install the service in my new address and there was no real attempt to contact me.

Besides the ridiculous late payment fee, during this I also noticed that they had increased my service cost by $3 at the beginning of the year and to make things even worse, I actually went on the VF front page to ensure what they are charging me is correct and the same service looks to be cheaper than what I am being charged.

I’m currently with no internet service which is a real problem since I go on holiday in a few days and my video security system is dependant on there being internet as well as my home automation gadgets - that is not to mention the lack of general internet access and streaming services that I can no longer use. I never realised just how reliant I am on having a 24/7 connection.

Yeh, venting my anger but also wondering on what anyone else thinks - is this really legit? Can they really charge me charges for charges that I wasn’t advised about and then for it to total so much?

Hi there. Thanks for bringing this to my attend team. Sorry about the experience you are going through - let me get the team onto getting this sorted. Can you please drop me a short email to Jason.paris@vodafone.com with your account details and best contact number?

Cheers

Jason Paris

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#2376100 16-Dec-2019 09:11

I'm going to stick my head up and say that I have never found VF any worse than anyone else as a general rule. That is not to say that they are perfect or that I have never had an issue but overall the experience seems fine to me. There have been peculiarities (the most recent being that I switched the account to a business plan and suddenly found I could no longer share my plan data on my tablet...coz nobody in business would want to do that, ever..) so switched it back.

One thing they have every other telco beat on is global roaming. If you travel and want to use your phone overseas without changing the number to a local one, VF is the best choice by a country mile.

Edit: forgot to say though that OP's issue seems to verge on usury! Punitive charges like that do no company's reputation any good and my one issue with VF is their petty "convenience fee" for paying a bill with a debit card.

moschops

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#2376107 16-Dec-2019 09:24

Jason has kindly picked up my issue and is helping sort this out.

Thank you for everyone’s input on this - it seems that whoever you go with no company is perfect and there is always a likelihood that you will run into an issue with your telco provider at some point.

My initial setup with VF had it’s problems however after getting up and running I’ve had a stable fast service and until now have had no reason to contact them.

Once my account issues are resolved I will inquire about the pricing of the package I am on since it does seem that I am paying more than someone who signs up new today would pay. I will also be ensuring that all my contact details held by VF are correct and will be making sure I get regular bills and that I am checking them.

MurrayM

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#2376111 16-Dec-2019 09:27

Geektastic:

I'm going to stick my head up and say that I have never found VF any worse than anyone else as a general rule. That is not to say that they are perfect or that I have never had an issue but overall the experience seems fine to me.

Yeah I have to agree with you. I've been with Vodafone for my mobile phones since the old Bell South days. For my internet I was with iHug, then Clear, and then Vodafone when they bought Clear. There's been the odd little hiccup but that was always fixed quickly and with just one call.

My invoices turn up in my inbox as regular as clockwork, but I guess if you didn't know that you should have been receiving invoices then it would be easy to just think that your payments were satisfying your debts.

Hopefully this can all be sorted out and common sense can prevail here.

BlinkyBill

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#2376118 16-Dec-2019 09:37

I think the Vodafone service is ok, their pricing is as competitive as anyone else’s, global roaming is ok. It’s just their billing and customer care systems are totally under-invested in and complete rubbish - and this problem makes support and correct billing very difficult. It’s their own fault too.

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premiumtouring

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#2376711 17-Dec-2019 07:38

JasonParis:

Hi there. Thanks for bringing this to my attend team. Sorry about the experience you are going through - let me get the team onto getting this sorted. Can you please drop me a short email to Jason.paris@vodafone.com with your account details and best contact number?

Cheers

JP

Hey @JasonParis

Glad to hear you are once again getting stuck in to help out a customer. As a non-Vodafone customer and process improvement specialist, could you shed some light on what measures you'll be putting in place to prevent this from happening again in the future? If you set up the right tools (including a little machine learning) you could actually detect similar customer issues like these well before they come to a head like this.

moschops

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#2376718 17-Dec-2019 07:53

I owe a big thank you to JasonParis and his team - THANK YOU!!

As soon as he was involved the issue was very quickly resolved with a very helpful Linda on the phone to me throughout the process to ensure I was happy.

They quickly recognised the absurdity of the charges and cleared off the balance and re-instated the service without any delay.

MurrayM

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#2376725 17-Dec-2019 08:17

See, it's not what you know but who you know!

clinty

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#2376727 17-Dec-2019 08:25

MurrayM:

See, it's not what you know but who you know!

or where you hang out lol

Go Geekzone :)

Clint

evilonenz

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#2376728 17-Dec-2019 08:28

Glad to hear it is sorted, just seems bewildering that you need to ping in the CEO on a technology forum to get the issue resolved..

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#2376763 17-Dec-2019 08:59

evilonenz:

Glad to hear it is sorted, just seems bewildering that you need to ping in the CEO on a technology forum to get the issue resolved..

They could probably have pinged any one of the few VF tagged people here and got this resolved.

It says something about Jason he himself got involved at this level and shows he wants things to improve.

premiumtouring

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#2376764 17-Dec-2019 09:00

evilonenz:

Glad to hear it is sorted, just seems bewildering that you need to ping in the CEO on a technology forum to get the issue resolved..

It isn't unheard of, especially for a company of Vodafone's size.

In fact, from a process perspective, these broken functions / manual processes are typically siloed to a team or department. So it is very common for a customer service representative to do what they're told and not to escalate anything up the chain - because as far as they're concerned they're following the standard operating procedures that were prescribed.

Their manager is not focused on public fallout, they just need to manage the call volumes and ensure things are resolved as quickly as possible. The managers are not typically paid to ask "why?". In some company cultures the behaviour is even discouraged.

The way @JasonParis responded is completely in line with any headline issue somehow (directly or indirectly) being put in front of a stakeholder (a stakeholder being a manager with some type of authority to create change).

My question is whether or not anything is being done to prevent it from ever showing up on Jason's desk again... because while it is a success story for OP, the fact that Vodafone's systems allowed this to happen (with no proactive / preventative stop gaps in place) means I don't think I could recommend them or use them myself. Billing should be the most frictionless experience ever - whether you on time or missed a payment.

Nova Gas currently NAIL this and should be used as case study for the utilities industry.