$600 2Degrees bill for 2gb of data i didnt use!

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › $600 2Degrees bill for 2gb of data i didnt use!

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#1011377 23-Mar-2014 14:39

iirc android 4.x lets you see a breakdown of data use(down to the specific apps over the selected timeframe and distinguishes between wifi/3g) which would make it easy to find out what caused it-if it is an android phone.

Yep!
Even going back to 2.x you can see data usage split out over each app.

itxtme

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#1011405 23-Mar-2014 15:06

SaltyNZ:
itxtme: Salty do you not think this underlines a fundamental problem with the charging for casual data? Not saying this a 2degrees only issue, but $500 for 1GB of traffic that wasnt pre-agreed to on the casual overuse rates... How do you sleep at night?

The subtleties of pricing are not something I'm going to get into. I'm an engineer: I don't make those decisions. The prices are very clear in the terms and conditions, and customer care have been pretty fair - OP has said all but $80 of his bill has been waived. The same thing happens if you accidentally leave the hose on for three days, or the heater. It sucks, but it's life.

That said, if OP does send me through his details and a list of apps, I may be able to point him in the right direction and save him from another unexpected big bill. But I may not - we don't log the details of what applications subscribers are using unless they are under active investigation (that is, with their permission). Otherwise we just log the volume, because that's all we need for charging purposes.

Certainly wasnt a dig at you personally Salty, I respect all the work you put in around here, and like I said its the same for all networks not just 2degrees.

I am pleased you brought up the examples of leaving the water running, or leaving the heater on. I wasnt aware that power companies or councils increased the price per unit by 2500% when you left them on. I dont thinks thats fair, and would love to know how telcos can justify that.

sonyxperiageek

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#1011408 23-Mar-2014 15:13

isaiahp: I have spend control now set to $1.

Even my phone says under 'data usage' that i have only used around 300mb of data in the last month and I have a data warning (set by my phone) at 1gb which never alerted me???
Nothing adds up. If i was to use 2gb of data wouldnt it say under my data usage thats how much i've used? I know its not 100% accurate but that's a big difference to have 2 whole gigabytes of data run out of my phone without any trace.

I checked each app and youtube used the most with 144mb then instagram with 80mb, then a bunch of other apps used small amounts.

I'm using a samsung s3. I have no icloud or any cloud storage backup.

Just to clarify this has never happened before.

Ok, so have you tried telling them that?

Sony

robjg63

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#1011414 23-Mar-2014 15:28

$600 for 2GB is crazy though.
Fair enough - buy it in advance or on a plan it should be much cheaper - but $600 for 'casual' use?

If you were on a $19 prepay plan you would get 500mb.
So $80 is roughly 4x$19 - so maybe thats a 'reasonable' charge - assuming your account has actually consumed it - but $600?

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turnin

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#1011466 23-Mar-2014 19:20

robjg63: $600 for 2GB is crazy though.
Fair enough - buy it in advance or on a plan it should be much cheaper - but $600 for 'casual' use?

If you were on a $19 prepay plan you would get 500mb.
So $80 is roughly 4x$19 - so maybe thats a 'reasonable' charge - assuming your account has actually consumed it - but $600?

Yes, it is crazy, I agree, Telco's doing this are ethically wrong. Not that a business has to subscribe to ethics in a legal sense but it's still ethically wrong. 2GB of data on the wrong plan does not cost 2 degrees any more money than 2gb of data on the right plan.

Telco's have done this sort of thing for a while with overseas roaming, several people I know including my own company were "caught" by massive bills when returning from overseas. Technically and legally VFNZ and VFAU are in fact different companies but, perhaps coincidentally those companies just happen to have the exact same branding, policies and shareholdings. However, despite this, they just can't seem to avoid the temptation to capitalise on the technicality by charging massive international fees to each other, which the customer has to pay. No doubt it's a good income stream and arguably quite "tricky" but representatives of these companies, (who I am quite aware do not make these decisions), still fail to recognise that these policies cause people to feel like they are being shafted.

The devices that telco's sell to users and the Apps they run, especially if they haven't been connected for a while ,can and do use lots of data. Having massively inflated prices for accidental data usage is unethical.

The reason this aggravates me so much is in 2010 I was given a bill for $1950, nearly $1000 for data used overseas (sydney) over the course of 3 days. The data was menial, 20 or so emails, one having a 5mb attachment, a few facebook updates and 30 minutes of sydney phone calls. My protests at the time, which took me a long time to detail, fell on surprisingly deaf and unsympathetic ears, the local sales manager was only interested in helping me solve the problem if I transferred some of our existing connections with another telco - over to his telco.
Personally I had had enough of this. I wanted to be treated like a human not an ongoing sales opportunity with a short memory, so I couriered them a basket of crackers and cheese and thanked them for their services over the years, enclosed was also a cheque for early termination fees on 23 connections and I also moved another 17 out of contract connections from my partners company to another provider, for some reason they didn't ever thank me for the basket of goodies which is why I can say they don't have any ethics :)

I realise you probably don't have a lot of connections to use as leverage so If I were you (OP) I'd do one of two things, I'd either take the first offer and choose to be happy with it,
or
I'd go to the media , NOT because I think people should run to the media every 5 minutes with all their laundry, but because companies with policies that extort users for unbudgeted and accidental data usage (I use the word extort because they are charging a magnitudinally higher rate for something that has already been consumed leaving the user with no choice but to pay) should have their policies exposed to the generally honest and unwitting NZ public. For the very same reasons we expose fraudsters, confidence tricksters and corruption as unethical practices we should expose companies that have policies that are "traps" to average people.

isaiahp

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#1011618 24-Mar-2014 09:48

I've broken down the data usage on each app and nothing even comes close to 2gb.
Not even in the last month. Let alone in 2 hours.

Even if they were able to tell me how the data was used then i would be more inclined to pay for it. But the fact that this data has just disappeared with no trace it makes no sense.

"I am pleased you brought up the examples of leaving the water running, or leaving the heater on. I wasnt aware that power companies or councils increased the price per unit by 2500% when you left them on. I dont thinks thats fair, and would love to know how telcos can justify that." - itxtme.

^That is gold.

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lynley5

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#1011626 24-Mar-2014 10:17

My husband's Samsung S4 did the same thing a couple of weeks ago - although luckily for us it didn't cost that much.
It was going through data during the night when we were asleep even though the phone was connected to our wifi. After numerous hours going through the phone I finally found that the problem was that the phone ws trying to sync to the Samsung account but it had lost the password. As soon as I put in the password and did sync now the problem stopped. Now the phone is using 3MB in about 3 days instead of 2 gb in a few hours.

SaltyNZ

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#1011646 24-Mar-2014 10:46

isaiahp:

Even if they were able to tell me how the data was used then i would be more inclined to pay for it.

You would be happy for us to trace and log your every action, no matter how private? We can't even if we want to. For one thing, that's a lot of storage. More importantly we are barred by law from storing any privacy-sensitive information that is not required in order to provide the service. The only information we require to provide the service is the volume.

Note that there are a few exceptions for the purposes of legal interception, but that's not one of them (at the moment).

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These comments are my own and do not represent the opinions of 2degrees.

surfisup1000

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#1011649 24-Mar-2014 10:54

SaltyNZ:
itxtme: Salty do you not think this underlines a fundamental problem with the charging for casual data? Not saying this a 2degrees only issue, but $500 for 1GB of traffic that wasnt pre-agreed to on the casual overuse rates... How do you sleep at night?

The subtleties of pricing are not something I'm going to get into. I'm an engineer: I don't make those decisions. The prices are very clear in the terms and conditions, and customer care have been pretty fair - OP has said all but $80 of his bill has been waived. The same thing happens if you accidentally leave the hose on for three days, or the heater. It sucks, but it's life.

That said, if OP does send me through his details and a list of apps, I may be able to point him in the right direction and save him from another unexpected big bill. But I may not - we don't log the details of what applications subscribers are using unless they are under active investigation (that is, with their permission). Otherwise we just log the volume, because that's all we need for charging purposes.

A week of usage at $300/hour is 50k. That doesn't just 'suck'.

Telcos/ISP's are regularly in the media for excessive bills. So, why don't they apply a block when data limit is exceeded. I'd like that.

Telco's don't because then they can't get $300/hour from unsuspecting customers. There really is no excuse from the telcos that this is still happening.

kieran21

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#1011805 24-Mar-2014 14:37

surfisup1000:A week of usage at $300/hour is 50k. That doesn't just 'suck'.

Telcos/ISP's are regularly in the media for excessive bills. So, why don't they apply a block when data limit is exceeded. I'd like that.

Telco's don't because then they can't get $300/hour from unsuspecting customers. There really is no excuse from the telcos that this is still happening.

But the telcos do have data control/block. 2Degrees has Spend Control, Telecom has Data Cap, Vodafone has Flexi Data (that's Postpay). On prepay you have Skinny that has casual rate off by default and Vodafone that has PrepayData rate plan and PrepaySmart with $19 Prepay4G addon, all with casual rate turned off.

surfisup1000

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#1011814 24-Mar-2014 14:49

kieran21:
surfisup1000:A week of usage at $300/hour is 50k. That doesn't just 'suck'.

Telcos/ISP's are regularly in the media for excessive bills. So, why don't they apply a block when data limit is exceeded. I'd like that.

Telco's don't because then they can't get $300/hour from unsuspecting customers. There really is no excuse from the telcos that this is still happening.

But the telcos do have data control/block. 2Degrees has Spend Control, Telecom has Data Cap, Vodafone has Flexi Data (that's Postpay). On prepay you have Skinny that has casual rate off by default and Vodafone that has PrepayData rate plan and PrepaySmart with $19 Prepay4G addon, all with casual rate turned off.

Hey cool :)

I never heard of any of these.

Maybe they should all be on by default and this type of story will be history.

I'm going to investigate the telecom options this week!!!

Cheers for that.

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2degreesCare

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#1011822 24-Mar-2014 14:57

Thank you for your feedback guys.

We try to let customers know by text when they're running low but if they go over the 'low balance' trigger point and 'into the red' the text may not be received till it's too late and the customer is being charged casual rates.

To the OP please can you PM me your number plus name and address for authentication so I can look into how this was handled and why it was converted into $80.

To help prevent this happening we strongly advise Pay Monthly customers to set Spend Control to an amount that's inside their budget plus advise them to check their usage and balances regularly. Customers have a number of options open to them to do this -

Your 2degrees
Mobile app
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You can also call 200 or 0800 022022 24/7 365 days a year.

Here's more info on managing your data.

Cheers
^POB

2degreesCare

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#1011940 24-Mar-2014 16:51

Just to let you know we'll be introducing Worry Free Data in April that should eradicate this issue.

Cheers
^POB

Sideface

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#1011954 24-Mar-2014 17:03

2DegreesCare: Just to let you know we'll be introducing Worry Free Data in April that should eradicate this issue.

Cheers
^POB

Please forgive the silly question - why can't you introduce it sooner?

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SaltyNZ

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#1011978 24-Mar-2014 18:02

Sideface:
2DegreesCare: Just to let you know we'll be introducing Worry Free Data in April that should eradicate this issue.

Cheers
^POB

Please forgive the silly question - why can't you introduce it sooner?

We have a lot of moving parts to update, so these things have to go schedules.

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These comments are my own and do not represent the opinions of 2degrees.

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