Pay monthly services

[andyjonpage]

Upon checking my Vodafone bill this month I found that I had been charged for a premium rate call lasting 20 mins to 'Personal Roadwatch' at a cost of £25.

I rang up Vodafone today and was served by a woman who informed me that as the call had originated from my phone the best they could do would be to offer to reduce the charge by ten pounds as a goodwill gesture. I felt this was pretty unacceptable so I asked to be transfered to a supervisor and after being kept on hold for 15 minutes was put through to an incredibly rude man who informed me that I must have dialed it (accidentally or otherwise.)

Having owned a smartphone before my current phone I know all too well of their tendancy to unlock and dial people from inside your pocket therefore I have my phone locked and pincoded.

The result of the call is that the supervisor refused to offer me anything other than the £10 'goodwill' gesture and I said that I was going to pay off the usage that I should be billed for and cancel my direct debit. Obviously as I am 12 months into a 24 month contract this would not be the best course of action.

tl;dr,

Can Vodafone legitimately force me to pay for a premium rate number that I know I have not dialed and if not what would be the best way to deal with this?



Many thanks.

[Wayne]

Hi andyjonpage and welcome to the eForum

Thanks for your post here. I’m sorry to hear that you have been charged for a call you are not aware you made.

I’m afraid there isn’t any other way for a call to appear on your bill unless it was made from your SIM. It is not possible to clone SIM’s so the call would have definitely come from your SIM.

Is there not a possibility that somebody else had your phone at any point and accidentally made the call?

Thanks

Wayne

eForum Team

[keza82]

This has just happened to me, i've been charged £25 for a call I did not make to 'Personal roadwatch'  i'm in a right panick as I cant afford to pay this!!!!!!!! I've not managed to get hold of anyone in vodafone yet as its a bit early, but I will be ringing shortly.  What is going on??????

[Noetic]

Can I just ask what phones you both have, and whether there are any apps you have recently downloaded?

[AnnS]

---

keza82 wrote:

This has just happened to me, i've been charged £25 for a call I did not make to 'Personal roadwatch'  i'm in a right panick as I cant afford to pay this!!!!!!!! I've not managed to get hold of anyone in vodafone yet as its a bit early, but I will be ringing shortly.  What is going on??????

---

That happened to me once and it was quite by accident, I forgot to put my keypad lock on and connected to AA Roadwatch.  Fortunately, quickly realised and disconnected.

It may also be worth considering whether anyone else has not been able to get hold of your phone at the time the call was made without your knowledge.

[Noetic]

Just noticed that the number for this is 2222, almost as if designed to be dialled by accident

[tshoon]

This also happened to me on 23/4/2011. I was working that day and cycled home so definitely did not need personal roadwatch as I only live 7 miles from work and clearly know my way home! I had never heard of personal roadwatch before and googled it and found link to people saying they had been illegally charged like me. I have cancelled my direct debit and paid my bill by cheque (minus the £25.19 + VAT vodafone charged me for the call). I have a brilliant credit history and do not do debt so now am concerned that I will recieve  a black mark on my credit history for not paying my bill in full but I really do not see why I should pay for a call I know I have not made. I have googled Personal Roadwatch and it states calls are charged at 45p a minute  inc VAT so 20 minutes would cost £9. I am writing to OFCOM, the address is

The Ofcom Contact Centre, 2a Southwark Bridge Road, London SE1 9HA (the address is on the back of my vodafone bill) and I will send them a copy of all the other threads on this page but I strongly suggest anyone with the same problem does the same. I work bloody hard for my salary and certainly do not want to spend if for calls I have not made.

[biffo1963]

Depending on the model of handset you have (and whether you routinely delete the info) you could check your call logs on the actual phone to see whether you dialed that number accidentally...... I assume you've already looked into this ?

John

[frankmcg]

i have faceed something simlar, not in the same scale as the other charges listed, but I looked at my recent bill and it showed that I made a call to India which lasted four seconds 911204532500 costs £1.25.   I have contacted customer services fiur times and they just come back with the same answer confirming that I made this call.  I did not made this call and it was not one I made accidentaly.   Having dealt with situations like this whilst working for another communcations company and through my own experiences working in the media i believe that my phone was scammed. Vodafone despite my insistances dont want to look into it.   i have informed them that I will be looking at my bills more closely and if it happens again i will be taking the matter up to a higher level, poss legal advice

[Flip123]

I also think that this needs to be taken more seriously.

My wife just experienced her Motorola Flip phone trying to dial 22222222's and we could not stop it. We had to take the battery out.
When putting the battery back in and switching on, all was fine for a while and then off it went again. I even saw it dial up 2345 by it self to tell us the credit had been used up (as it was a prepay phone). £20 had been used up. After seeing this website and realising this could be a wider issue I contacted Vodafone and they could see that the calls made were sequential stop start until the credit had gone. They refunded the £20 on condition that the phone was looked at in a vodafone store.
This was done and all was fine until later on when of it went again dialling a string of 222222222's. £13 was used up.
I am not sure what is causing this but the phone has worked fine for the last 2 years until now.

Maybe its time to move on to a new phone? Is there any way of barring 2222 being called?

[smirnofred]

I'm willing to bet none of you are using any kind of keypad/screen lock.

The keypad lock is essential these days, mainly to avoid pressing/dialing unnecessary numbers ie 999 or 2222 etc, which in turn cost the handset user additional costs.

You can all argue until the sky turns green, but the fact of the matter is you guys made the call, aware or not, as phones do not randomly call up numbers on their own (especially with the battery removed).

At best Vodafone should offer a barring system to deny the dialing of such numbers on contract and payg sims, to avoid the users these additional costs. 

The definite way to avoid these costs is like I said, use the keypad/screen lock.

[biffo1963]

Smirnofred  -  I used to have a Motorola flip phone, they don't have a keypad lock because closing the phone covers the keypad up so that the keys can't be pressed.  That was one of the main reasons I chose that phone !

As others have said, you don't have to be a cynic to believe that 2222 was chosen partly because it CAN be dialled accidentally....

John

[DaveCD]

Hi guys.

Thank you for all of your input.

A very warm welcome to our newest members Flip123, frankmcg, tshoon and keza82

I understand it can be frustrating seeing these charges on a bill and not recalling the calls themselves and I am more than happy to look into this for you; I have sent you Flip123, frankmcg, tshoon, keza82, and andyjonpage, an email to complete and reply to.

This way we can look into each account, the calls made and the IMEI numbers used to verify where and when the calls originated, and it will also allow us to look at all the options and decide together the best form of action to take.

Thank you AnnS, smirnofred and biffo1963 for your fantastic contribution.

Flip123 your post is unusual that you saw the numbers physically being dialled, as you mentioned your handset has been fine for 2 years, but what this also means that due to the handsets age may have developed a fault on the keypad.

We can also look into your account and see what the best course of action is, it may need to be checked in store and may need a repair. If this is the case, please back-up all the information on your handset.

Look forward to hearing from you all.

Many Thanks

Davecd

eForum Team

[ness]

Hi  I have today checked my invoice as it is higher than normal, and then phoned customer services who told me that II made a phone call for 16 minutes to personal road watch, costing £22.00.  After trying to explain that I have never heard of this service or would never use this service, the woman replied, will it came of your sim therefore you must have made the call.  I then told her exactly where I was on the day of the said call and what I was doing, therefore it is not possible for me to make the call, again this fell on deaf ears.  I then spoke to a Team Manager, who was quite rude, I again went through the whole story and yet again know understanding.  I am not sure what to do with this anymore, however I will not give up, as this is a lot of money, which I really cannot afford.  Any ideas

Ness Holman

[Dave]

Hi ness, welcome to the eForum!

We'll need to take a look at the account and our systems to see what shows up, so I'll pop you an email to get your details.

Please reply back with the requested details and we'll be happy to have a look.

Dave

eForum Team

[james99]

The same thing happened to me. 20 min call costing £25.54!

It appeard on my bill on 14th May 2011.  When I Phoned vodafone they said I'd phoned Personal Roadwatch. I didnt know the service existed, I do not use services such as this, I would not ring this service. The woman said I'd phoned it! But I haven't. I'd never heard of it until this.

To answer some questions I do not access internet on my phone so I've not downloaded any apps. My phone is a Nokia 6300.

I've been happy with vodafone until this incident. I've been charged for a service I have not used.

[DaveCD]

Hi james99.

First and foremost a very warm welcome to the eForum, it is great to see new users here.

I can see this has caused you some frustration and I would love to get this looked into.

In order for me to do so I will need to look into your account so I have sent you an email to the address you have registered with so please complete and reply to this and we can investigate further.

Hope to hear from you soon

Many Thanks

DaveCD

[Flip123]

Thanks DaveCD for your response,  I have now upgraded the phone from the motorola flip to a Samsung and so far all is well  and the credits have been reinstated.

This would imply that the phone or the combination of the phone and the vodafone sim card caused the problem. I now suspect the phone.

I may try to localise the issue further by using a different non vodafone Sim card in the motorola flip just to see how the phone reacts.

If I reach any further conclusions I will let you know.

[james99]

Thanks for listening to my situation DaveDC, didn't expect such a quick response.

Very pleased with the resolution and would advise anyone with any issues regarding their vodafone account to get in touch with the staff via the eforum.

Thanks again,

james99

[28]

I have had the same problem.  I have just had a look at my latest bill which i was expecting to be about £50 and acyually it's £107!  Found 2 calls to personal roadwatch - £25 each time!  The thing is there are 2 calls, each on exactlty the same date, at exactly the same time and both lasting exactly the same amount of time.  I have just rang vodafone to query this, i don't even know what personal roadwatch is, let alone the number to dial etc.  I spoke to a very unhelpful lady who insisted i must have made the calls.  Even if i did dial the number by accident (which i am convinced i didn't), i questioned how i could ring the number twice, at exactly the same time, on exactly the same date and each call lasted the same amount of time - both costing me the same amount of money.  She didn't want to know and told me i must have made the calls.  I am so annoyed, any suggestions on what to do now?