Free GPRS ?

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4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#20357 22-Sep-2005 06:40

No have never paid it back when I top up. Have done this for months at a time and have never been charged even when topping up. It depends on your phone etc I think, because PDA phones, which I had when I had money on my prepay they always charge it, and is not cheap at all, but when no money and got a top up, was never charged.

johnr

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#20359 22-Sep-2005 08:52

No way it depends what type of handset you have got, Its called luck !!

freitasm

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Geekzone

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#20362 22-Sep-2005 09:03

johnr is correct... The handset type has no influence on how an account is charged. Billing systems may leave an account behind, or some transactions, due to faults on the application - this is called revenue leakage.

But sorry, your handset is not the thing doing it...

taniwha

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#20372 22-Sep-2005 10:28

arrgh! pay it back when you top up! - that's horrible... the point of prepay is so you can manage how much you're spending and not get a suprise bill. Completely defeats the purpose if you top up $20 and then an hour later you're empty again due to something you did last week.

or have i misunderstood?

vodafone_rulez

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Wannabe Geek

#20389 22-Sep-2005 17:20

normally you have to hve at least 20 cents on your vodafone account balance to free txt in the weekends.....well thats what they say anyway

tonyhughes

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#20390 22-Sep-2005 18:01

taniwha: arrgh! pay it back when you top up! - that's horrible... the point of prepay is so you can manage how much you're spending and not get a suprise bill. Completely defeats the purpose if you top up $20 and then an hour later you're empty again due to something you did last week.

or have i misunderstood?

The general intention is that you pay in advance for your services, but in some instances, you may reach a zero balance and things will still work.

I think there has to be a little responsibility on the user to be aware of whats going on, and know that if you exceed your credit balance, and continue to use a service that has a price, that you will be expected to pay for it.

I do think that people should be notified that they have hit zero tho "Hi, its your carrier, your balance is $0.00 and any further costs may be deducted from your next topup"

Would that be very hard to implement? I doubt it.

If you have an overdraft at the bank of $100, and you withdraw $40 more than you should have (by way of fees, eftpos, cheque, AP, whatever), who pays that $40? Of course its you.

johnr

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#20391 22-Sep-2005 21:34

ASB money machine in Browns Bay gave me a few extra $20 once they never got them back LOL

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taniwha

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#20412 23-Sep-2005 09:53

Disenchanted: If you have an overdraft at the bank of $100, and you withdraw $40 more than you should have (by way of fees, eftpos, cheque, AP, whatever), who pays that $40? Of course its you.

Yes - but when you don't have an overdraft - i'd expect that nice "Declined" event to happen. I don't want an overdraft on my prepaid account.

When i run out of peanut b utter i have to buy more - that's the same service i want from voda ;-)

i imagine that if voda was able to detect your $0 balance in a timeley fashion, they'd actually use that info to bar the account instead of sending a sms tell you about your empty prepay.

Disenchanted: I think there has to be a little responsibility on the user to be aware of whats going on, and know that if you exceed your credit balance, and continue to use a service that has a price, that you will be expected to pay for it.

I agree - but there's a time limit on this - 24 hours, maybe even 48 hours. It is unreasonable to expect prepay users to keep track of any and all billing events that occured a week ago that haven't been billed yet. There's no Account statement for a prepay customer to reconcile those against.

tonyhughes

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#20424 23-Sep-2005 13:20

Free weekend texting, and a jar of peanut butter - now THERES a promo

Absolutely the carriers should be tidying up these loose ends to provide a better experience for all their users.

dora007a

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#20477 24-Sep-2005 22:12

....

taniwha

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#20478 24-Sep-2005 22:16

dora007a:it will charge you if you top up before 11:59pm, but not the next day

GPRS billing can be many weeks delayed, sometimes months...

johnr

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#20490 25-Sep-2005 12:20

taniwha GPRS delayed billing by weeks or days or months is long over and done with lets get over it and move on.

tonyhughes

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#20513 25-Sep-2005 18:34

johnr: taniwha GPRS delayed billing by weeks or days or months is long over and done with lets get over it and move on.

Are you saying it doesnt happen any more, or its been debated to death?

johnr

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#20514 25-Sep-2005 18:48

Both

wtf

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#20543 26-Sep-2005 12:56

vk3xem:
As stated once Vodafone live was launched earlier this year the GPRS service has been locked down tight, but there still is a loophole a friend found. He tunnels all traffic through the DNS port to his home ADSL account.

I think you will find that this does not work. I'm told that the billing system does not in fact care what type of packets they are, it will bill you just the same. There is the capability to charge different rates for different traffic, but it is only used to allow free browsing on the Vlive site and such things.

Feel free to experiment and let us know how you get on!

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