johnr: Browsing all of vodafone live is free unless stated
Really... I browsed on VF Live a couple of weeks ago clicking on the airnewzealand link which was presented on one of the menus to look at the grabaseat fares - was charged $0.50.
As a matter of principle called VFNZ Customer Service a week later - call was routed to Egypt - it took 3 attempts to explain to the CSO what Air New Zealand was and even then I didn't get the impression that she understood.
She told me that she would credit the incorrect charge. Checked the balance subsequently several times and hadn't received the credit so waited until a couple of days ago as thought it might take a while for the credit to reach the account (one of my Prepays).
When the credit hadn't arrived by this Monday phoned again and was once again routed to Egypt - the CSO I spoke to on this occasion said that the charge had been incurred because the AirNZ link went to a page which wasn't a 'Vodafone Family' page and so was chargeable - she said she would however apply a goodwill credit but that I should know that browsing was only free for 'Vodafone family pages'.
There was no point in arguing with the CSO on this occasion as she was applying a credit anyway but I believe that it is misleading to say that it is free to browse as Johnr has said above if in fact what the CSO told me is correct - I had merely browsed a link presented on VFLive and there was no warning or statement that there would be any charge.
The call duration was approx 9min 50sec for a $0.50 credit - surely not efficient use of my time or Vodafones - especially considering that this was the second call regarding the matter and I also had to send 'bal' txts to see whether the credit had been applied - I suppose one could cynically assume however that many people wouldn't worry about the 'principle' involved and also many wouldn't even notice small deductions from Prepay balances (its interesting that VFAU has details of charges online for prepay but VFNZ doesn't) so in fact incorrect charging probably is of great NET benefit to VFNZ if it frequently isn't followed up.
Perhaps the Commerce Commission should investigate and suppoena records etc... to require refunds to customers when the charging hasn't been correctly disclosed beforehand or has been misleading - much along the same lines as what happened to the banks who recently had to refund some degree of credit card foreign currency fees. Perhaps my 9min 50sec would have been better spent writing to ComCom - now that might be a better idea if a similar situation recurs!
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