Vodafone's new ads = dodgy?

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spazz

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Topic # 8041 30-May-2006 00:12

Is it just me or are Vodafone's new ads just a tad misleading?

Confused over the new "15c Calls for only $14.95 a month" billboard in town, I popped into Courtenay Central Voda and asked the guy what it was all about.

The guy had no idea what I was talking about.

I showed him the poster in his shop, advertising said promo.

"Oh," he replied, "Um ... well ... you see, for $14.95, you get 100 free off peak minutes."

"That's all well and good," I said, "So are excess minutes charged at only 15c as long as they're off peak?"

"No", he said. "You just get 100 minutes free a month".

"So... what's the 15 cents got to do with anything? You don't actually get 15 cent calls at all?"

"Well no not really", he said, a bit embarrassed. "It works out to be 15c if you divide $14.95 by 100 minutes. Excess minutes are charged at the normal rate".

"Right" I said, disillusioned, and walked out.

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I reckon this is dodgy! I mean gosh, Telecom's never been the best at marketing but in my mind, Voda was always on top because it made things so simple and easy to comprehend. This is downright confusing and to be honest, a little, well, DIShonest!

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Reply # 37106 30-May-2006 00:27

Um ... well ... you see, for $14.95, you get 100 free off peak minutes.

You just get 100 minutes free a month

What is their definition of free again?
Last time I checked the Oxford American English dictionary, free in this example meant "Given or available without charge : free health care". I didn't post the whole listing as its huge....

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Lipex666

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Reply # 37107 30-May-2006 06:47

Looks if a lot of these newa adds are just smoke and mirror.

With us having high interconnect costs between telecos, inflated phone charges and the goverment looking at the costs of interconnection and even talk of looking into the mobile space like broadband we now see all these adds like 1 cent txt messaging and 15 cent phone calls - wow phone calls are cheap arnt they and we dont need competion and we can self organise our own pricing. Tui add here. But the mayfly add was brillant. Like all things check the fine print before signing you life away.

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Jama

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Reply # 37111 30-May-2006 07:46

Apparently pricing confusion is one of those marketing ploys used by Telcos.

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sbiddle

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Reply # 37112 30-May-2006 07:49

cokemaster:
Um ... well ... you see, for $14.95, you get 100 free off peak minutes.

You just get 100 minutes free a month

What is their definition of free again?

Last time I checked the Oxford American English dictionary, free in this example meant "Given or available without charge : free health care". I didn't post the whole listing as its huge....

But remember this is the Vodafone dealer saying this, not the sign. The sign says 15c per minute for calls.

The only problem with this is that to get the 15c per minute you have to get 100 minutes of calling time for your $14.95 which can only be done if your call minutes aren't rounded. While Vodafone have always charged by the second after the first minute and Telecom have now moved back to this as well it only applied for charged calls and not if you're using included minutes. With included minutes your calls are rounded up to the next minute for billing purposes. This isn't an issue with Get300 etc or Telecom's Go 300 as they are only referring to the number of included minutes and not actually putting a price per minute on that calling. Obtaining the actual 100 minutes stated to get the 15c rate is impossible to do in the real world with You Choose unless you have a stopwatch to time all your calls.

johnr

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Reply # 37113 30-May-2006 07:51

spazz the ads say calls from 15 cents per minute whats confusing about that

sbiddle

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Reply # 37114 30-May-2006 07:53

johnr: spazz the ads say calls from 15 cents per minute whats confusing about that

The You Choose brochures say "15c per minute", there is no mention of "from". The Vodafone site says "from" in the small print.

johnr

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Reply # 37115 30-May-2006 07:56

So then get a pricing plan add on in the You choose range and divide the cost by the minutes

Your time 300 divided by the cost (what ever that is)

lokinz

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Reply # 37117 30-May-2006 08:09

spazz:

I think your sales man got a bit confused. Of course it’s not free you are paying $14.95 for 100 OP minutes which is 15c a minute the billboard isn’t wrong. No deception there. The free part would be the fact that for the first 3 months of your term you get that add-on for FREE. 100 OP minutes a month for 3 months and you pay nothing for them that is, by definition free.

In fact the VF website doesn’t use the term free either.

I am sorry you had to deal with a salesman that wasn’t on top of the game, but please don’t blame the company for his mistake. Vodafone have used no deception here. You are paying 15c a min or 1c a txt.

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Reply # 37132 30-May-2006 08:46

The salesperson should not have said FREE minutes, but INCLUDED minutes!!!

mikman

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Reply # 37157 30-May-2006 14:52

Probably not legally dodgy but enough gotchas in this that i'can't see customers falling for it...

15cent calling or 1 cent texting is only achieved if a customer makes *exactly* 100 mins of calls or 1000 VF - VF texts a month (as an example on Your time 100 add on or TXT 1000 add-on )Otherwise its more expensive through either

- paying an overage charge if you go over the limits
-under-utlilising your minutes texts (eg only use half of them in a month and the price per minute / text effectively doubles)

Also the promo is clearly pitched at the high end - need to spend at least $110 per month to get the deal - so can't see it having broad appeal of the $10 TXT campaign

Shame really as the You CHoose concept is a really good one that could be marketed more effectively other than 'cheap minutes' - its almost like the marcomms people at VF don't get that its about customers being able to customise their plans and gain cost certainty at the same time - no more complicated than that