Accidental roaming data blow-out on 2Degrees

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Accidental roaming data blow-out on 2Degrees - anything we can do?

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#242331 22-Oct-2018 16:22

My poor wife is supposed to be enjoying a solo break in Seoul this week...she has just messaged me in a panic as she realised she hadn't turned mobile data off on her 2Degrees mobile like she thought she had (or accidentally turned it back on...)

I have logged on to her portal and at a casual roaming rate of $10per MB (!) she has accidentally smashed $1600 of roaming today with her phone doing its usual background stuff. Turns out that spend control wasn't on either, so we missed that safety net.

She is now both distraught and kicking herself and I really don't want this to ruin her holiday.

I have tried to speak with 2Degrees on her behalf as she is not a position to make the phone call currently, but understandably they can't really do anything for me as she is the account owner.

I have set the spend control on her account and she has now turned the thing off, so we shouldn't incur any further charges.

Is there any likelihood of some sympathy from 2Degrees on this? I know that technically we do owe the data spend used, but it was a genuine cock-up on her part and she has never done this before.

Do you think a waiver or at least a good-faith discount on the $1600 would be possible and if so, how best to go about it?

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#2112331 22-Oct-2018 17:55

She would of got a roaming welcome SMS as well warning her of roaming charges!

Time to pay up and to be honest I have zero sympathy and $1600 is far more than back ground data in 1 day

John

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#2112332 22-Oct-2018 17:58

Linux:

to be honest I have zero sympathy

John

Thanks! Appreciate you taking the time to inform me of your sympathetic status. Be sure to keep me in the loop if anything changes.

Linux

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#2112334 22-Oct-2018 18:03

$10 into $1600 = 160MB as above 160MB is a quite a bit of background data

John

dejadeadnz

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#2112335 22-Oct-2018 18:04

I'd say just get your wife to politely e-mail 2Degrees and see if they will waive some of the charges or at least offer a payment arrangement. Linux: there's no need to abuse the OP. He's not asking for your judgment.

Edit: typo

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#2112336 22-Oct-2018 18:08

dejadeadnz:
I'd say just get your wife to politely e-mail 2Degrees and see if they will waive some of the charges or at least offer a payment arrangement. Linux: there's no need to abuse the OP. He's not asking for your judgment.

Edit: typo

I did not abuse the OP I have zero sympathy for customers that get high roaming charges I have used 2degrees around the world and got the warning SMS about data roaming costs they even sent SMS a warning for High cost roaming countries as a further reminder they also send a SMS about using Wi-Fi calling due to high roaming costs

John

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#2112338 22-Oct-2018 18:11

dejadeadnz:
I'd say just get your wife to politely e-mail 2Degrees and see if they will waive some of the charges or at least offer a payment arrangement.;

Edit: typo

Yeah - bill isn't due for another 20 days or so. Guess all we can do is get her to call/write when she gets back and see if they feel like being generous. She knows it is a dumb mistake and if we have to cough up then we will do so.

IMHO It seems completely unreasonable to be charged that much per MB, but that is another argument for another thread and it is made pretty clear on their site that those are the charges for casual roaming, so...*shrug*

Worst case, I guess we should use it as an opportunity to be thankful for the fact that - whilst painful to lose in this way - it is a cost we can bear without too much drama. There are many more out there for whom this kind of genuine mistake would be a crippling blow.

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#2112370 22-Oct-2018 18:16

I know when I was at Telecom (way back in the day) they would do a goodwill credit, one-off, of 50% of the roaming charges; so in this case it would be $800 owed. However, if you went over again, you would be expected to pay anything owing.

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#2112372 22-Oct-2018 18:18

This is bit off topic and not related to this thread but the number of customers that got massive roaming charges 10k+ when I worked for Vodafone and disputed never getting a warning SMS

I use to pull the VSMSC / SMSR logs for these disputes and every single time warning SMS going out and getting delivered to customers handset and they just ignored them

John

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#2112373 22-Oct-2018 18:20

Linux: She would of got a roaming welcome SMS as well warning her of roaming charges!

Time to pay up and to be honest I have zero sympathy and $1600 is far more than back ground data in 1 day

John

Nice!

I do have sympathy, these roaming charges are way out of proportion to actual cost. (and I have worked with roaming and clearing houses in the past). Making an honest mistake that can cost $1600 is unreasonable.

An issue is that the foreign operator will invoice 2degrees for a certain amount based on the negotiated contract. It can be hard to tell whether 2degrees has a huge markup or the foreign operator but I bet it is the foreign operator with the high fees. So, it is not just 2degrees who must forgive this debt.

If it were me, I'd just tell your wife that it is all sorted so she enjoys the rest of the trip. Then, when she returns, get her to authorise you to deal with 2degrees and explain it as you have done here.

I'm not sure why 'Linux' would think 160mb of data is more than background data. I can see that emails downloading could blow that by itself. There are a ton of background apps that might access data and 160mb is not really much data these days.

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#2112376 22-Oct-2018 18:22

Linux: I did not abuse the OP I have zero sympathy for customers that get high roaming charges I have used 2degrees around the world and got the warning SMS about data roaming costs they even sent SMS a warning for High cost roaming countries as a further reminder they also send a SMS about using Wi-Fi calling due to high roaming costs

John

It's also pretty easy to make a mistake, turn on data again by accident, have a momentary brain fart etc etc...

Whilst your statements on the situation itself are true, I genuinely wonder what value you felt you were bringing by smugly declaring to the forum at large that "you have no sympathy" for someone who is upset, stressed, feeling foolish and lonely and is now going to struggle to enjoy a solo trip they have been looking forward to for quite some time due to an honest mistake?

You could have just stopped after your first couple of lines of feedback (though I appreciated the help with the basic maths) but you really needed to ensure that everyone knew just how un-sympathetic you were.

Rest assured, your position is very clear - thanks!

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#2112377 22-Oct-2018 18:23

quickymart:
I know when I was at Telecom (way back in the day) they would do a goodwill credit, one-off, of 50% of the roaming charges; so in this case it would be $800 owed. However, if you went over again, you would be expected to pay anything owing.

Fair enough.

Fingers crossed then - getting burnt once is a warning too many!

surfisup1000

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#2112378 22-Oct-2018 18:24

Linux:

I did not abuse the OP I have zero sympathy for customers that get high roaming charges I have used 2degrees around the world and got the warning SMS about data roaming costs they even sent SMS a warning for High cost roaming countries as a further reminder they also send a SMS about using Wi-Fi calling due to high roaming costs

John

Then the way you thought you communicated was not the way it sounds to other people. To me, you sounded almost gleeful.

But, that is the way of the internet... i sent an email to someone once and they took some offense when none was intended. I was just short and to the point , probably busy.

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#2112379 22-Oct-2018 18:24

Automatically uploading a bunch of photos taken on holiday each day would easily use 160MB/day.

Linux

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#2112380 22-Oct-2018 18:25

160MB is not a large amount of data but it is if you are getting charged $10 per MB another issue is rounding up of data sessions to the nearest 10KB or even 100KB so the end user could of actually used much less than 160KB

John

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#2112381 22-Oct-2018 18:26

RunningMan:
Automatically uploading a bunch of photos taken on holiday each day would easily use 160MB/day.

I am thinking that may be the bulk of it - I haven't got the clear story yet, but if she had the data on and then stating taking pictures, it would have eaten that pretty quick!

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