PrePay Billing Data

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alasta

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#10985 23-Dec-2006 15:35

Carried over from 'Anyone Else Experiencing this on Bestmate':

cranz: No this service is only for on account. Prepay users can log in to the website to top up, manager personal details and special offers but they are unable to see a run down of usage. Usage details can only be requested from 777 and no form of print out/statement is provided for prepay (GST receipts are available, and under some situations you can get a printout of txts)

That's a bit of a worry. If PrePay users are unable to reconcile the usage of their credit, then they can't have any confidence that charges on their account are legitimate and accurate.

I'm not suggesting for a minute that Vodafone are untrustworty, but we all accept that billing mistakes happen from time to time and it seems that these mistakes can easily go unnoticed in the case of PrePay customers.

richms

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#56255 23-Dec-2006 19:28

They wouldnt even provide that for me when I had a phone "borrowed" without my permission for a week and all the credit used up and noone would admit to it. They told me that it was to protect the privacy of the person that made the calls. I called bull on that one but they wouldnt budge without me making a police complaint, and even then, there was no way that I would be given the records.

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freitasm

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#56257 23-Dec-2006 19:36

Completely different case, and yes (IANAL) I think it's covered by the Privacy Act. You would need a court order to get those records. A police complaint is nothing close to a court order.

The problem with Prepay is that there's no way to relate that phone to anyone in particular, since no identifiable ownership records exist for nefarious purposes.

As far as Vodafone is concerned it could be a stalker calling them to try and apply social engineering ("pretexting") to extract this information.

I agree with Alasta, people need to know where their money is going to, in special with a product where everything is on the provider's side...

cranz

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#56279 24-Dec-2006 13:31

I believe it would be great to be able to access call information via the website for prepay, but this is not part of the service. when you sign up for prepay it is clearly stated in T&C and connection guide that you wont get any sort of bill or statement. If you are that concerned about the charges on your connection then you can call up 777 and all charges can be read out to you by operator. That is what they're there for :P

Also in the situation richms described and also in the case of stolen phones if they cant verify you were using the phone or have a reason to doubt, they might not provide you with phone numbers dialed/txt'd (charges can still be released). This is to protect the owner of the dialed numbers. Say I stole person A's phone and started txting richms. Then the phone owner called up Vodafone and got richms's number - they could now start harassing richms as he 'knows' the person who has the stolen phone.

johnr

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#56281 24-Dec-2006 13:52

richms: They wouldnt even provide that for me when I had a phone "borrowed" without my permission for a week and all the credit used up and noone would admit to it. They told me that it was to protect the privacy of the person that made the calls. I called bull on that one but they wouldnt budge without me making a police complaint, and even then, there was no way that I would be given the records.

The reason for this is because the person that " borrowed " the phone would not have called or sent TXT themself

If you get hold of the call detail and then start ringing or TXTing these people it can cause conflicts!

paradoxsm

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#56282 24-Dec-2006 14:00

oh yes.... but on vodafone Australia.... this is all in the online area... oh but Vodafone NZ would never consider such a thing...even though they run the same system it would give customers a benefit and as we know, our local arm of vodafone are far from the innovative, positive experience we see overseas.

And as billy goat gruff clop clop clop clops over the small bridge up comes a ...............

johnr

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#56284 24-Dec-2006 14:24

The laws are different in OZ

freitasm

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#56292 24-Dec-2006 16:41

Right... So you say that a company should only worry about going the extra mile to provide a service for the clients if there's a law demanding it?

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cranz

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#56300 24-Dec-2006 18:36

Australia has different privacy laws than NZ does.

And as for Vodafone not considering this, do you know that they have never considered offering this service? This could be in the works for all we know.

"as we know, our local arm of vodafone are far from the innovative, positive experience we see overseas." I wouldn't go that far, as an example they were the 2nd (maybe 3rd) Vodafone to launch 3G, even before Australia. NZ has also rolled through HSDPA upgrades before the majority of other Vodafone op-cos. I believe VFNZ also brought prepay to NZ, along with TXT messaging. Imagine if we were just Telecom still!

johnr

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#56306 24-Dec-2006 20:17

freitasm: Right... So you say that a company should only worry about going the extra mile to provide a service for the clients if there's a law demanding it?

I am saying that if a device is " borrowed " and the person that borrows phone rings lots of people the call detail is meant to be held private

Stops people going out on a vigil anti

sbiddle

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#56307 24-Dec-2006 20:58

johnr:
freitasm: Right... So you say that a company should only worry about going the extra mile to provide a service for the clients if there's a law demanding it?

I am saying that if a device is " borrowed " and the person that borrows phone rings lots of people the call detail is meant to be held private

Stops people going out on a vigil anti

I don't understand. If you're on account and do the same thing the owner gets a bill with all the details.

Why should prepay users not be able to access an online list of all billing items in the same way on account customers can?

johnr

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#56308 24-Dec-2006 21:30

That bit I nver understood as on account customers would get the call detail

But I guess most people would carm down after a while and by the time the bill turned up they were not wanting to go out and bash someone!!

paradoxsm

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#56332 25-Dec-2006 17:12

Vigilante's! Ha ha ha... Good imagination though!. I don't think That's really got anything to do with vodafone providing a similar level of service here and overseas. It's just turned off..... The system function is there but vodafone abstain to allow pre pay users access.. It would be a very handy too. I have had mysterious credit dissapear and also reappear too along with most people i know. I always find it hard to belive that everything is straight up with all the endless billing, system and network problems we experience here. Hardly invokes that feeling of trust. Now we have a text problem..... What next.
We got a umts network early as unlike most other places overseas, telecom already had a much faster data network and vodafone was stuck with gprs. Telecom certainly have their trickery and problems (i won't even start on their disgusting wap pricing!) but as a user of both consecutively, i find vodafone to be much more hassle to deal with, and their network is just abysmally unreliable.

Please, if anyone is listening, sort out the continuous network problem and offer something that gives customers real value instead of the terrible complicated mess of you choose and supa prepay.

johnr

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#56345 25-Dec-2006 22:33

Nothing confusing about supa prepay or you choose

cranz

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#56348 26-Dec-2006 00:00

Supa prepay is quite easy to understand, I'd hardly call it a mess.

The simple fact is, this is not a prepay service it is an on account service. If you want a statement of calls then go to on account.
There has to be differences between the prepay and on account systems to make each look more desirable than the other