I have always taken the position, and will continue to take the position that telephone accounts should not be unlimited liability. Therefore, the carrier should enact either plans or controls that limit an account to a reasonable amount.
If your bill is NZ$20/month, who in their right mind would ever expect to receive a bill for $2300, stolen phone or not?
This problem fits across several large bill interactions with phone companies:
1) VoIP transit fraud 2) PBX fraud (almost the same as 1) 3) Stolen phones 4) Large roaming charges 5) Large data charges 6) Large 3rd party charges (music downloads, movie downloads)
In all cases, the carrier is hiding behind the contract which says "I can bill you for any charges you incur". This is the behaviour that needs to stop. Credit card companies stopped it a _long_ time ago with velocity and typical usage monitoring. They _CALL_YOU_UP_ and verify your identity when the charges differ significantly from normal behaviour.
Yeah, it would be good to check. I'm not a heavy phone user, and my call charges are usually less than $5/month (not counting the monthly fees). One month last year I spent over $160 in calls and although it was legitimate, Telecom never checked with me, despite being over 30x my usual monthly spend.
Contrast that with when Visa called us at work and asked whether we really did want to send $6000 to Colombia.
jpollock: I have always taken the position, and will continue to take the position that telephone accounts should not be unlimited liability. Therefore, the carrier should enact either plans or controls that limit an account to a reasonable amount.
If your bill is NZ$20/month, who in their right mind would ever expect to receive a bill for $2300, stolen phone or not?
This problem fits across several large bill interactions with phone companies:
1) VoIP transit fraud 2) PBX fraud (almost the same as 1) 3) Stolen phones 4) Large roaming charges 5) Large data charges 6) Large 3rd party charges (music downloads, movie downloads)
In all cases, the carrier is hiding behind the contract which says "I can bill you for any charges you incur". This is the behaviour that needs to stop. Credit card companies stopped it a _long_ time ago with velocity and typical usage monitoring. They _CALL_YOU_UP_ and verify your identity when the charges differ significantly from normal behaviour.
So what your saying is that the Telcos should be spending the money to develop the systems/processes needed to identify customers with higher than average usage?
How hard is it really to call your Telco to tell them your phone is stolen. I dont know about Vodafone but you can call Telecom 24/7 to get this done. If your to lazy to do so then IMO you deserve the huge account you receive.
rscole86: I agree with VF aswell. It is no different with a car, you report it stolen, when its stolen. Also, as with a car, you are liable for all speed camera photos/red light cameras, and any illegal activities commited with your vehicle, regardless of who was driving it.
Sure it sucks that it might take the offender years to pay it back, but thats what happens when you do not have a pre-paid mobile, and do not set a credit limit.
i disagree with vodafone's position. how on earth can you report a phone stolen if you don't even know it's stolen?
she knew a stranger had it in her possession. She should have called voda and told them it was lost. theycould have put a bar on it. she didn't bother.
vodafone should wipe the bill. what would telecom or 2degrees do in the same situation.
hopefully make her pay it, as they should do
think your wrong about the car. i think on fairgo a couple of years ago a guy went on holiday and had his car stolen and within a few days there was lots of parking fines and fairgo got them wiped i think.
difference is, if he is on holidya he doesn;t know his car is missing until he returns. This girl had ample opportunity to report her phone missing. she didn't bother.
jpollock: I have always taken the position, and will continue to take the position that telephone accounts should not be unlimited liability. Therefore, the carrier should enact either plans or controls that limit an account to a reasonable amount.
If your bill is NZ$20/month, who in their right mind would ever expect to receive a bill for $2300, stolen phone or not?
This problem fits across several large bill interactions with phone companies:
1) VoIP transit fraud 2) PBX fraud (almost the same as 1) 3) Stolen phones 4) Large roaming charges 5) Large data charges 6) Large 3rd party charges (music downloads, movie downloads)
In all cases, the carrier is hiding behind the contract which says "I can bill you for any charges you incur". This is the behaviour that needs to stop. Credit card companies stopped it a _long_ time ago with velocity and typical usage monitoring. They _CALL_YOU_UP_ and verify your identity when the charges differ significantly from normal behaviour.
there is an option for people who don;t want to risk running up large bills. It's called PREPAY.
secondly, why should telcos be forced to spend lots of money setting up these kind of systems when all it takes right now is a simple call from someone to say they lost their phone and please put a bar on it. How about some personal responsibility?
PhoenixNZ: So what your saying is that the Telcos should be spending the money to develop the systems/processes needed to identify customers with higher than average usage?
I hadn't thought about that... and as a programmer it should've crossed my mind!
Last year I found a mobile phone on my way home from work and being the type of person I am I took the liberty to look in his contacts and see if I might be able to text someone to ring me and tell me how I could get the phone back to its rightful owner. It was quite a flash phone at that too. Anyway before I got a chance to try to contact somebody on there texts started coming through from a lady who was obviously his girlfriend with the I love you on one or two of them. So I texted her back and told her that I had found her friends phone and could she ring me on it so that I could arrange for it to be returned to him. She rung me back straight away and asked me if I could bring the phone over to her as her boyfriend was working. She lived at the staff hostel of the hospital I work at so I met her there and handed the phone over to her. So I echo the point if you lose your phone or it is stolen contact your carrier immediately. Righto you might ring it first to see if it has fallen down the back of a sofa or in your car or something but if a stranger answers get your carrier to bar it as the stranger who answers it may either be like me above or the lady charging up calls in this story.
Guys, limited credit accounts are a day-0 feature on any billing system that I've designed. This isn't rocket science. There are two things you must always to do when building a billing solution.
Every business out there that allows you to run up a bill will put a limit on the amount you can run up. The only ones I know of that don't are phone companies.
And, yes, they should DEFINITELY pay to implement the feature. If only to get on Fair Go and say, "You know what? We've got this feature, switch to us!" The business plan looks even better if they look at it from the "loss prevention" that the credit card companies use. Vodafone just took a 25% loss on that bill, and got in the news, and not in a good way.
Talk about differentiation! I look forward to the first NZ carrier able to announce that they support a limited credit postpaid service.
Don't you guys see credit card advertisements? They advertise their loss prevention and fraud detection abilities. It is a great differentiator in a market with a lot of competition.
jpollock: Guys, limited credit accounts are a day-0 feature on any billing system that I've designed. This isn't rocket science. There are two things you must always to do when building a billing solution.
Every business out there that allows you to run up a bill will put a limit on the amount you can run up. The only ones I know of that don't are phone companies.
And, yes, they should DEFINITELY pay to implement the feature. If only to get on Fair Go and say, "You know what? We've got this feature, switch to us!" The business plan looks even better if they look at it from the "loss prevention" that the credit card companies use. Vodafone just took a 25% loss on that bill, and got in the news, and not in a good way.
Talk about differentiation! I look forward to the first NZ carrier able to announce that they support a limited credit postpaid service.
Don't you guys see credit card advertisements? They advertise their loss prevention and fraud detection abilities. It is a great differentiator in a market with a lot of competition.
So what then happens when you can't get hold of the customer if they reach their limit, you just stop their service until you do? So that customer goes to use their phone and finds they can't, doesn't sound like a great experience to me.
PhoenixNZ: So what then happens when you can't get hold of the customer if they reach their limit, you just stop their service until you do? So that customer goes to use their phone and finds they can't, doesn't sound like a great experience to me.
Of course you stop their service until they check in. They've just spent 5x (random number) their average monthly spend in 24 hours. Do you let that run for a month? No, it's a huge business risk!
It's not hard, difficult, complicated or bad service. As I've pointed out, your credit card company does exactly that. In fact, with a cell phone, you know where they are, and even when they are done using the device and likely o.k. with an interruption (immediately after a call). That is also not hard to do.
For the carrier, it's the perfect time to check and see if the customer is happy with their service, if they would like to change their credit limit and perhaps change their plan because they don't fit their existing one.
I had my credit card company put a hold on my card when I used it to make a payphone call before and after an international flight. Got to the hotel and had to call Mastercard. :) I've also had VISA call me when I bought an entire kitchen in a weekend.
Of course you stop their service until they check in. They've just spent 5x (random number) their average monthly spend in 24 hours. Do you let that run for a month? No, it's a huge business risk!
It's not hard, difficult, complicated or bad service. As I've pointed out, your credit card company does exactly that. In fact, with a cell phone, you know where they are, and even when they are done using the device and likely o.k. with an interruption (immediately after a call). That is also not hard to do.
For the carrier, it's the perfect time to check and see if the customer is happy with their service, if they would like to change their credit limit and perhaps change their plan because they don't fit their existing one.
I had my credit card company put a hold on my card when I used it to make a payphone call before and after an international flight. Got to the hotel and had to call Mastercard. :) I've also had VISA call me when I bought an entire kitchen in a weekend.
Great service.
I've worked in customer service for around six years now and I can tell you catergorically that the majority of customers hate it when their service is stopped, even if its for a good reason. You force them to call through to get it unblocked which most perceive as a waste of their time.
Usage changes, if a family member died overseas and you went roaming your likely to see a sigificant increase in your account the following month. Would you really want your service provider to cut you off while your in the middle of trying to sort the issue out?
Being on prepaid doesn't necessarily stop a large bill being racked up. I did $100 data one night which was more than the credit I had. They sneakily recouped the costs over the next few months. (I found this out when I was out of credit in the wop wops trying to send a text)
I've worked in customer service for around six years now and I can tell you catergorically that the majority of customers hate it when their service is stopped, even if its for a good reason. You force them to call through to get it unblocked which most perceive as a waste of their time.
Usage changes, if a family member died overseas and you went roaming your likely to see a sigificant increase in your account the following month. Would you really want your service provider to cut you off while your in the middle of trying to sort the issue out?
You're in customer service. Cool. There is a difference between cutting someone off and proactively notifying them that their behaviour is getting expensive.
So, have you ever worked in IT? Ever implemented a file server without both hard and soft usage quotas? How about a mail server?
Let's work through the example.
Your Father just died in the UK. You grab your phone, take a cab to the airport and pay 3k for a flight to the UK to get on the first flight out. While in the UK, you need to make a bunch of calls. You don't have time to go down to the shop and pick up a local prepaid sim, so you use your phone and rack up a bill at $5/minute. After 12 minutes on one call, you've hit a soft limit of 2x your usual usage (usually you don't go over plan, and your plan is $30/month).
The carrier automatically puts a flag on your account.
You finish your call and hang up.
The carrier's IN detects the disconnect and creates a call between you and the call center.
The call center staff verify your identity and have a discussion about overseas charges. They sell you an overseas roaming plan and (optionally) retroactively apply it. At the very least, they tell you that you've just spent $150, and see if you're surprised. Something like this:
"Hello, this is Jim from TNZ, we've noticed some dramatic changes in your account. You've just spent $150, so we would like to verify your identity. Can you please tell me your name, DOB and and home address?" "Sure thing, Bill, Oct 1, 1980, 3 Wibble St, Auckland" "Thank you Mr Jones, I see you're making a lot of calls in the UK, currently you're spending $5/minute, but if you switch to plan X, you can avoid most of those charges. Would you like to switch?" "Wow, I didn't know that, yes please switch me." "There, that's all done, is there anything else I can do to help? Will you be using the mobile for data while you are there? Those charges tend to surprise as well." "No, just calls and SMS. Thank you" "Very good Mr Jones, please call us if you have any problems" "Good Bye" "Good Bye"
Let's say that the telco can't get in touch with you. Eventually you hit the hard limit (let's say 5-10x monthly spend). The system then declines your calls, redirecting any outgoing attempts to the call center, as well as spamming you with SMS for every incoming call.
Hard to do? No. In fact, any carrier running eServGlobal's ChargingMax (shameless plug) product are able to implement that service out of the box (except perhaps the retro-active plan change - maybe even that!). The hardest part is coming up with the script for the call center people.
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