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[ratmanhk]

Roaming cap was introduced in June 2011. Might hae had a case there. I got a text in the evening of the 21st saying that i was coming close to using my daily allowance. That's the last thing i heard from VF until a call telling me my bill was over £1k 2 days later.

[Magicman13]

Vodafone have a data roaming cap, this is automatically applied at point of set up and needs to be opted out either direct via customer service or by texting a 4 or 5 digit number, cant remember exactly.

If this cap is not showing as opted out on your account then Vodafone have no right to charge you above the afore mentioned £100.

This may well be the loophole you have been looking for, but if the cap is showing as opted out then Vodafone will have a record of how and when this was done.

If it was via sms then that has 100% been requested from your own sim card so either yourself or someone else (unlikely i know) has done this from your phone.

If it was done via customer service then they can possibly listen to the call to ensure this was requested by you.

So in short, then yes check this with customer service.

[savio27]

The data roaming cap and mobile phone capping with vodafone is a grey area to say the least.  Vodafone appear to say it is automatically put on and you will get warning messages when you reach the £100 cap:

http://www.vodafone.co.uk/vodafone-uk/about-this-site/terms-and-conditions/products-and-services/dat...

However what may be of interest is half way down this page:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2011/09/data_roaming.html

There is a vodafone response at the bottom.  Some confusion as to whether you have to opt in to be capped or whether it's automatic, but nevertheless you should have got text warnings about your balance and usage.

[Magicman13]

is that the 21st of June? if so, depending on what date in June 2011 the cap was introduced, you may be able to use that to your advantage.

Just to highlight what people (myself included) have previously commented, that Vodafone do care about there customers and are aware of issues arising from the smartphones data flaw, hence them introducing this cap.

i can only hope that you fall under this cap as £100 is a damn sight better than £1000+.

[Magicman13]

Not sure about when it was first introduced, but at current the cap is applied to every new account and has to be Opted out.

This may have been different back when Vodafone introduced this but You could always argue that you were never informed this cap wasn't automatically added.

[ratmanhk]

Where's that Shareholder bloke ? Aka Vodafone ... anymore advice my friend ?

Anyone know when the Data Cap was introduced ?

[Woppy]

---

Earthman wrote:

Where's that Shareholder bloke ? Aka Vodafone ... Anymore advice my friend ?

Anyone know when the Data Cap was introduced ?

---

The "shareholder bloke" as you call them is a nobody and have no official affiliation with Vodafone, they are just a normal user just like you and I

With that said I would take everything they say with a large pinch of salt if I were you and most certainly don't take anything at face value

[ratmanhk]

Hi Woppy, Oh don't you worry about me, I've learn't to take most things with a mill of salt. Have you got any thoughts on what I should do sir?

[Magicman13]

I would call Vodafone and ask them if the cap was taken off. if they say no, then ask why you incurred such high charges.

[ratmanhk]

Apparently the £100 data cap came in to effect at the end of last year. That's what VF are telling me.

Another brick wall !!

[Magicman13]

it was certainly in place in june 2011 as this is when the T+c's are dated from.....

Who qualifies
Vodafone Data Traveller (Data Traveller) is available to pay monthly and pay as you go Simply customers. Sorry, but it can’t be used with mobile broadband price plans.
How it works
See vodafone.co.uk/goingabroad for details on how to opt in (if required), applicable countries, charges, switching between countries and the data allowance applicable in countries.
A daily or monthly charge (depending on what’s included in your price plan or what you’ve selected at opt in) will be applied automatically and you’ll receive a daily data allowance for use in specified countries. These countries may change from time to time.
If you opt in, Data Traveller may take up to 24 hours to be applied to your account.
Regardless of the country you’re in your daily data allowance can be used from 00.00 to 23.59 UK time. Whilst you’re travelling you’ll need to check the time in the UK to understand what allowance you have and when it expires. Data notifications will be sent to you to inform you when you’re getting close to using all of your allowance.
Business customers can opt out of Data Traveller at any time; it will be removed from your account 30 days after your request.
Pay as you go customers automatically pay Data Traveller rates when they’re roaming.
Pay monthly consumer customers can change between monthly and daily Data Traveller options within the Europe charging zone (Europe Zone). Outside of the Europe Zone you can choose to pay Vodafone World rates or opt in to Data Traveller Rest of World (Rest of World Zone). You can opt out of the Rest of World Zone at any time; it will be removed from your account 30 days after your request.
Please be aware
Each zone (Europe Zone or Rest of World Zone) provides you with a daily allocation of data to use in the country you’re in. If you travel to another country in the same zone in the same UK day you’ll continue to use the same allocation of daily data allowance up to the maximum daily data allowance for the country you’re in.
Any unused daily data allowance will not carry over. If you exceed your daily data allowance or opt out you’ll be charged our data roaming rates.
Unless you’re on a business tariff, Data Traveller is for your personal non-commercial use. If you’re using it for commercial purposes, we’ll charge you or restrict your use in accordance with the price plan charges.
Use of Data Traveller is subject to these terms and our Airtime Conditions and price plan charges. If you’re on a business tariff you’re subject to these terms and the Enterprise Customer Agreement. We may vary or amend these terms, but if it’s to your disadvantage we’ll notify you.
For more details on Vodafone Data Traveller visit vodafone.co.uk/goingabroad

Vodafone Limited, Vodafone House, The Connection, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 2FN.

Version June 2011

so thats the end of 2011 ruled out for you.

[Magicman13]

Ignore that, it appears that it has given me a completly different T+C's to what i clicked on.

[Magicman13]

same date still applies though   1. Eligibility

Vodafone customers will automatically start receiving notifications when they access data abroad either on their phone, tablet or on a computer with Mobile Broadband. Customers on Your Plan, Anytime, Anynet, Smartstep, Smartplus, Simply and Mobile Broadband price plans will also receive notifications when they access data in the UK. All Vodafone customers will automatically be opted into the whole world data roaming spend cap (£38 exc. VAT in the European charging zone and £100 in the rest of the world charging zone) for each monthly billing period (or for the remainder of the calendar month on pay as you go).

2. Notifications

You’ll receive a notification when you’re approaching the next charging point. If you’re in the rest of the world zone, you’ll receive a notification when it’s nearly midnight in the UK. We’ll send you notifications by text. Mobile Broadband customers will get a flash pop-up via the dashboard software.

For each zone, you’ll receive notifications at 80% and 100% of the monthly cap limit. Once you’ve reached 100% of the cap in either zone, an automatic data roam bar will be applied. You won’t be able to use any further data when abroad for the rest of the monthly billing period (or for the remainder of the calendar month on pay as you go) unless you choose to opt out of the cap. If you opt out of the cap, you can always opt back in at a future date to start receiving cap notifications again.

• See the countries in the Europe charging zone

• See the countries in the rest of the world zone

3. Set Up

Mobile Broadband customers may need to upgrade their software. If you’ve added an inbound text message bar, you won’t receive notifications.

4. General

If you make any changes to your price plan or data bundle it’ll take up to 24 hours for notifications to be accurate. Notifications are a free service to help you manage your data usage. Vodafone doesn’t accept responsibility for notifications that aren’t received for any reason outside Vodafone’s control. You’re responsible for how much data you use.

Version June 2011

[ratmanhk]

This all happened in Feb 2011.  4 months earlier. Aaarghh !!!

Thanks for help but back to drawing board.

[Magicman13]

Maybe not applicable but it still might be worth chasing up as this data cap was not Vodafones idea, it was brought in to place by a Government legislation for all networks so there should be something omline re dates etc.

[ratmanhk]

What was that Talking Heads song? I'm on a road to nowhere?

[ratmanhk]

Well well. I wrote to my MP David Lidington and he's written a letter to Vittorio Colao, CEO of VF!! What a guy. He'll be ignored too no doubt but still, great effort. Data request in with cheque for 10 quid so I wait and see. I will scan and put on here for all to see.

[vinod]

I can only empathise with you reading your unfortunate case described. I sincerely hope you soon settle this issue since you appear to be spending a lot of time on this chasing various people and updating this thread. I know £1000 is a lot of money, but sometimes it makes sense to "move on" considering the time and effort....

Just to reiterate for all of our benefit, It is always a good idea to switch data-roaming "completely off" the moment you touch down at an international location and make sure data usage is always user-controlled rather than phone-controlled.   

Also, to win this battle, it is really important for you have to prove that you "did not" use the phone that constitutes the bill rather than asking vodafone for "what/how" you used and blaming them for "stealing"  .  I cannot emphasis more on the fact that Vodafone's billing system is a regulated and controlled system, and it will not do anything special to your account/sim details. The chances of a Chinese wiz kid intercepting and duplicating details of your GSM sim and BIS subscription and using it for his personal use is very bleak too.

 The only way you can prove this that you "did not" use is by producing stats from your phone and making it available for independent inspection.

One thing that I am still not clear after reading your numerous posts is

- is  the 300MB of "unaware" roaming usage is for Blackberry Internet Service(BIS) OR

- is it pure packet roaming data using a Chinese roaming partner of Vodafone-UK on a 3G/Edge/GPRS network 

If you go to your phone settings, the usage stats on BIS and other packet-data services is clearly separate.

I am sure you have this information while you were in China?

Re: Usage cap SMS messages, I know for a fact that this is not real-time when you are roaming. It takes 48 hours for Vodafone to receive this info from its partners, so by the time "cap SMS message" is sent, the damage would have already done ?(as it icould be  in this case)

[NIghtFalcon]

The fact of the matter is that data was used on your phone while you were in China. Whether it was due to personal use or a background software update, it was used. I really dont think this is going to get you anywhere. Still good luck Rat.

[ratmanhk]

Hi Vinod, Thanks for your post. The phone was connecting via "Edge" when I was out there. It always does in China. I don't think the phone was "hacked", sure of it. I am sure of the following things.... 1. I never received received a single email unless the phone was connected to WiFi. Nor could I access the internet to check my webmail. 2. I have no Apps and so nothing could have updated on this front. 3. The total size of all the emails I received over the 2 days was around 4MB. I have them in my Outlook Inbox still. 4. I have never, ever used over 25MB of data in a month 4 years previously and 1 year after with the same phone. I have purposely left roaming on to test it. I have never come close. All I want is someone at Vodafone to tell me how this happened. Will it happen again? Should I change phones? Networks? Why did the phone behave so differently over this 3 day period? And most importantly I want to see proof that this level of data usage is even possible on that handset in China. Why am I the one who has to prove I didn't request the data. My word should be good enough. If this isn't good enough then they are calling me a liar and so I think I am entitled to say they are stealing!!