Vodafone charges for paper bills despite agreeing to a contract price

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › Vodafone charges for paper bills despite agreeing to a contract price

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sbiddle

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#1167241 3-Nov-2014 07:22

mattbush: multiply $1.50 times 12 months times the number of customers you think VF will have........and you will see that it has little to do with the cost of paper invoices

Exactly.. The figure of $1.50 is roughly what it costs a large company to print and send a bill, so there is no profiteering there.

There is however the fundamental issue that the $1.50 cost has always been built into the existing plan, whereas now they're trying to move that cost across to the customer.

Andib

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#1167253 3-Nov-2014 07:36

I have no issue with this, it's what I agreed to when I signed my plan... that vodafone have the right to change the terms of the plan (like all telcos have in their contracts). They could've easily raised the price of everyone's bill by $1.5 if they were out to make money.

ageorge

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#1167273 3-Nov-2014 08:19

sbiddle:

There is however the fundamental issue that the $1.50 cost has always been built into the existing plan, whereas now they're trying to move that cost across to the customer.

My point.
Vodafone demographics: https://www.vodafone.co.nz/our-company/in-new-zealand/
Some quick approximate maths:
1 Million customer base on contract (likely much more)
60% opt out of paper billing, leaving 400,000

Therefore by changing it during a contract, they are making an additional (because it was not part of contract) $600k/month/$7.2M per annum. Not bad eh.

If you were in business would you do this during a contract? I never have and if I receive a quote I expect it to be adhered to.

Thanks to all who commented on this thread. Some worthy comments especially the legal interpretation of it.
Best wishes,
Al.

webwat

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#1167285 3-Nov-2014 08:50

mattwnz:
tardtasticx:
sidders80: This is not at all different to a situation when mobile providers increase allocation to a certain plan. Lets say when you signed a contract and Vodafone was giving you x amount of minutes and some data as a part of that plan. You signed for 12 months and Vodafone increased the allocation for that plan after 6 months. Now would you expect this change to be applied to your plan from the next billing cycle or once your contract finishes? I guess you would be pissed off if you had to wait till the end of the contract.

But in that case (assuming the provider offered to increase the customers allocation) both parties would obviously agree to the change in terms, because there is no loss whatsoever for the customer, and the provider is the one offering the change so they can't really object either since it was their decision to start with.

Where as in the case of invoices being charged for, the customer will be out of pocket or at a loss (not receiving a paper bill) so therefor they should be able to agree or disagree to the change in their terms.

They will however have the option to opt out of receiving that invoice, and just have it emailed, which wouldn't incur any additional cost.

But I think that these telcos really need to remember that these people are their cusomters, and are paying their wages. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth of customers, and creates some badwill, when the company maybe paying hundreds, if not thousands per month, and the telco can't absorb a small fee like that. It is not as though their margins are small in most cases either. Obviously the bean counters in the back room making the decisions think it is worth charging it vs. the badwill it creates.

High margins for internet providers? Don't think that's happened, its been a low margin business ever since Telecom started wholesaling broadband. Internet has become a commodity that requires large numbers of users to pay for the expensive infrastructure. It doesn't make sense for an internet business to be printing/folding paper invoices and paying postage, so obviously customers who have internet also have the means to receive invoices by email, even though not all of them want to.

Time to find a new industry!

ckc

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#1167289 3-Nov-2014 08:55

The legal interpretation will change for contracts next year, 17th March, with the unfair contracts provisions of the Fair Trading Act coming into force. It will stop provisions in contracts that give one party rights to changes and cancellations without giving the other party those same rights. So for contracts entered into from that date next year (it's not retrospective) there'll be legal recourse through the Commerce Commission to render contract provisions that allow things like this without giving consumers the right to cancel void.

This is partly explaining the trend towards no contract services in gyms, ISPs, Sky, cellphones, etc that's been picking up speed. There has to be a way out of it for both contract parties from March. There's no way out of out now, but the no refund no cancellation clauses will be dead unless both parties have the right to cancel without penalty.

coffeebaron

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#1167325 3-Nov-2014 09:47

I do wonder why we are back at this issue again. Vodafone tried this a couple of years back then backed down. I agree it's not great to have this extra charge lumped on your bill whist in your contract.
Why did Vodafone not just implement this for all new contracts back when they first tried this? By now the majority of people would be already be paying extra for a paper bill or be getting them by email. Would it have been too hard a couple of years ago as they have since launched several cycles of new plans to simply say your new plan price is for e-billing only, but you can add-on an optional paper bill for $1.50

Problem would have been solved, with very little customer flack.

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mattbush

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#1167518 3-Nov-2014 12:11

sbiddle:
mattbush: multiply $1.50 times 12 months times the number of customers you think VF will have........and you will see that it has little to do with the cost of paper invoices

Exactly.. The figure of $1.50 is roughly what it costs a large company to print and send a bill, so there is no profiteering there.

There is however the fundamental issue that the $1.50 cost has always been built into the existing plan, whereas now they're trying to move that cost across to the customer.

If VF were genuinely trying to reduce costs, wouldn't they be better to offer customers a discount to use paperless methods?

But we all know that VF isn't genuine to its customers!!

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mattbush

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#1167519 3-Nov-2014 12:11

sbiddle:
mattbush: multiply $1.50 times 12 months times the number of customers you think VF will have........and you will see that it has little to do with the cost of paper invoices

Exactly.. The figure of $1.50 is roughly what it costs a large company to print and send a bill, so there is no profiteering there.

There is however the fundamental issue that the $1.50 cost has always been built into the existing plan, whereas now they're trying to move that cost across to the customer.

If VF were genuinely trying to reduce costs, wouldn't they be better to offer customers a discount to use paperless methods?

But we all know that VF isn't genuine to its customers!!

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