Are you charged for a call to another Vodafone phone when it's not answered?

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › Are you charged for a call to another Vodafone phone when it's not answered?

lchiu7

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#31117 5-Mar-2009 13:19

My wife is on my account plan as a best mate (she is prepaid). So when she wants to talk to me she calls and then hangs up so the call isn't completed. I can tell from the callerID she has called and so can call her back and take advantage of BM.

But we are noticing her prepaid balance reduces quite quickly each month even though pretty much all of her call activity is texts. I cannot rationalise the number of texts she makes with the amount her balance reduces each month.

Placed a call to VF support and spoke to a nice lady (in Auckland not Cairo!). She was able to look online at the prepaid bill and said she was sure that even if a call to another VF phone is not completed (that is the other party does not answer nor does it go to VM), the call is charged for one minute (which is 89c I guess on the prepaid plan).

I can't believe that. This goes against everthing I know about telco billing - calls not answered are never charged even if they are completed (that is they make it to the calling side). If true we will have to alter her calling activity to text me to call her at 20c rather 89c

Anybody from VF confirm or deny this assumption?

Thanks

Larry

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johnr

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#199404 5-Mar-2009 14:18

No the call has to connect to voicemail before a charge happens not during paging time

Test it one day when you are beside each other and check the balance after every call a charge will not happen.

John

johnr

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#199408 5-Mar-2009 14:50

Why not use the free SMS service " Call me "

Simply text the phone number of who you'd like to hear from to 798 (i.e. 02XYYYYYYY to 798). They will then receive a text notification asking them to call your mobile number back!

Does this help??

John

lchiu7

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#199416 5-Mar-2009 15:33

Didn't know about that. But if what you say about no charges for uncompleted calls, then that's much easier to do. She can press fast dial for me, let it ring once and hang up.

VF CS sent some billing information on a couple of weeks of calls. I can't make much sense of it. For example

This call got charged 89c and yet it says Abnormal Termination whatever that means. I would have thought that meant the call did not complete.

As an aside how can a prepay customer get detailed billing information to confirm that they are being charged corrrectly? I am pretty sure my wife's charges are not correct but it's hard to prove

Normal 0 false false false EN-NZ X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

Usage Detail

To #

Billed

Service Type

Sub Type

Date / Time

From #

Duration

Amount

Originating Cell

Call Status

Downloaded (kb)

Uploaded (kb)

Size (kb)

Size (b)

Product

Discount

Call Code

Call Type

Country

Network

Sponsor

IMEI

Tarrif Class

Closing Bal.

Amount TXT

Amount Secs

Dest. Carrier

Value Secs

Rerate Adjusted

Adjusted

Disputed

Normal 0 false false false EN-NZ X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

029xxxxxxx

Unbilled

Voice

19/12/2008 07:29:22 AM

006421xxxxxx

00:00:03

0.89

Abnormal Termination

NZ Prepay Voice

0.00

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brentbart

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#199418 5-Mar-2009 15:52

lchiu7: Didn't know about that. But if what you say about no charges for uncompleted calls, then that's much easier to do. She can press fast dial for me, let it ring once and hang up.

VF CS sent some billing information on a couple of weeks of calls. I can't make much sense of it. For example

This call got charged 89c and yet it says Abnormal Termination whatever that means. I would have thought that meant the call did not complete.

As an aside how can a prepay customer get detailed billing information to confirm that they are being charged corrrectly? I am pretty sure my wife's charges are not correct but it's hard to prove

Normal 0 false false false EN-NZ X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
Usage Detail
To #
Billed
Service Type
Sub Type
Date / Time
From #
Duration
Amount
Originating Cell
Call Status
Downloaded (kb)
Uploaded (kb)
Size (kb)
Size (b)
Product
Discount
Call Code
Call Type
Country
Network
Sponsor
IMEI
Tarrif Class
Closing Bal.
Amount TXT
Amount Secs
Dest. Carrier
Value Secs
Rerate Adjusted
Adjusted
Disputed

Normal 0 false false false EN-NZ X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
029xxxxxxx
Unbilled
Voice
Voice
19/12/2008 07:29:22 AM
006421xxxxxx
00:00:03
0.89

Abnormal Termination
0
0
0
0
NZ Prepay Voice
0.00

That shows the call was active for 3 seconds, so the full minute was charged.

johnr

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#199419 5-Mar-2009 15:54

If you reject the incoming call " Press end key " this will send the call to voicemail

Charged call

John

lchiu7

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#199422 5-Mar-2009 16:10

I never reject the call deliberately. Just let it ring a couple of times and I know it will stop ringing since that's our strategy. I then call her back. I guess I am going to have to ask VF CS to provide me a log of calls for the last month so I can really investigate what's going on if they are indeed willing to do that.

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johnr

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#199425 5-Mar-2009 16:31

PM me a contact number and I will look at it now

No Point looking at CDRs from SIEBEL this will not help

John

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johnr

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#199444 5-Mar-2009 17:45

Everything checked out fine

richms

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#199495 5-Mar-2009 21:16

So what was the outcome of this?

I have done a missed call to get someone to call me back many times and being charged, but sometimes I would have called and got the fabulous nothing happening for 5-8 seconds so hung up and called again. I am thinking it may have gone to VM and not played something on those occurances.

I had no idea about the thing to text to request a callback for free. Has it being advertised anywhere at all?

Richard rich.ms

johnr

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#199500 5-Mar-2009 21:26

The out come is posted above your post

John

lchiu7

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#199503 5-Mar-2009 21:31

Yes many thanks to Johnr who looked at the billing info and sorted it out for me. Bottom line is, if a call is not completed (that is not answered or not routed to VM) then it's not charged as you would expect.

Turns out my wife had made calls/texts she has not thought about and it all added up (at 89c/minute it doesn't take long!)

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

johnr

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#199505 5-Mar-2009 21:33

richms:
I had no idea about the thing to text to request a callback for free. Has it being advertised anywhere at all?

Its on the Vodafone NZ website

John

johnr

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#199506 5-Mar-2009 21:35

lchiu7: Yes many thanks to Johnr who looked at the billing info and sorted it out for me. Bottom line is, if a call is not completed (that is not answered or not routed to VM) then it's not charged as you would expect.

Turns out my wife had made calls/texts she has not thought about and it all added up (at 89c/minute it doesn't take long!)

What I wanted to say but thought I would leave it up to you!

John

paradoxsm

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#199554 6-Mar-2009 01:29

lchiu7: (at 89c/minute it doesn't take long!)

At 89c per minute and with calls rounded up towards the next minute charging block too remember! one of the pitfalls of Prepay and also with the "pre-bought minute blocks" aka "included minutes" versus charging a tiered actual per-minute rate.

And on Egypt, why is the call quality when calling customer services there just usually uttery abysmal, Tonight it was bad cracking noises, the other day there was some severe VoIP packet loss going on, finally got my BM changed!

lchiu7

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#199570 6-Mar-2009 08:46

Actually the CSR who told me that uncompleted calls still incur a charge and sent me a bill log was based in Auckland!

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.