Pay monthly services

[Mikewsmith2]

We have been Vodafone pay monthly customers since the analogue days in 1992. I have a pay monthly contract for my iphone my ipad and my son's iphone plus wife has a pay monthly contract on her phone but today something UNBELIEVABLE happened. My son bought a MyFi and has now discovered he has run up a bill for £570 in just a few weeks. No text to say he was over his contract, no phone call to tell him - just an ENORMOUS bill. Vodafone KNOW that no one intends to spend hundreds of pounds extra on their contract, especially a young student, but they just let it build up and rub their hands in glee at the money they will make out of a kid. Its just a Scam The best they can offer is £10 discount and to spread it over 6 months. Big of them don't you think? Unless this gets sorted they have lost a customer of 20 years standing. I don't want to give my business to such an irresponsible and unethical business.

[grolschuk]

I was right with you up to the point you used SCAM as a description of the service.

I wouldn't be shocked at being charged for an off-network service at reasonable data rates... that is what a suresignal is for if you have poor service at home.

As you have not said what kind of usage has racked up this kind of bill, it is best left in the hands of the tech team who will be able to look at the account and advise accordingly.

There is no obligation to tell people what they are using on a contract, as they know the limits and costs of the deal, and various tools will report usage... I know i'd get ###### off with a daily phone call saying "you have used 23 minutes, 12mb of data and 0 txts today" every day

[_365_]

A huge unexpected bill is never nice, but that usage in a couple of weeks is way beyond "normal use"...the simple fact is that the end user should be aware of what they are using and manage that themselve...as the above posts says the last thing we need is constant monitoring...we sign these agreements as adults and should be treated as such.

[Mikewsmith2]

No you don't need a daily call. Just one call, email or text when you have exceeded your contracted inclusive limit so you know your are spending additional money. You can then keep an eye on your account via the website. He is sure that when he bought the contract he was told that it was "capped" and the service would be suspended when he exceeded his allowance , but of course there is no way to prove that. This was "normal" use for a Computer Science student having problems with his broadband availability. I think a bill of this size being run up should have triggered some alarm bells at Vodafone, so I can only hold the opinion that they should keep shtum and make as much money as possible out of someone's misunderstanding of the way the contract works. It's unethical and irresponsible trading IMO.

[Magicman13]

Unfortunately the onus of responsibility falls with your son. Vodafone have a responsibility to provide the means to monitor the usage, if this is neglected then any bill incurred is soley down to the user of the phone.

As for Vodafone keeping "shtum", All mobile networks are set up so that they could still run at a hefty profit even if every single customer kept within the allotted allowances. So ideally that would be the preferred scenario for the industry, as it would mean that customers wouldnt be calling to dispute bills etc, which in turn means less staff can be employed meaning less expenditure on wages etc. So in short, it's not about Grabbing the pennies, If a customer chooses to exceed their allowances, that is the customers choice alone.

Think about it, if a builder is doing a wall and says it'll cost £300, the customer says can you make it 2 levels higher for an extra £100, they wont say no, and neither would you?

[James]

Hi Mikewsmith2,

I’m sorry that you have found yourself with a high unexpected bill for out of bundle charges.

When it comes to high out of usage charges we will normally notify customers when they hit a certain limit however, the longer that a customer has been with us and the larger bills that they have had during the time with us will usually mean that the flag for the charges is higher.

However so that we can take a look at the bill for you o make sure that all of the charges are correct and discuss your options directly with you I have sent you a PM with our direct contact details, please follow the instructions on the PM and one of the team will be able to look at this for you.

You can find your PM inbox here.

James