cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
1

Ask

2

Reply

3

Solution

More 900mB usage issues

bodmino
2: Seeker
2: Seeker

Sorry...........reposting this as the post seemed to disappear when I edited the line spacing!

 

New to the forum, but found previous posting very helpful with respect to my issue.

Having suffered at the hands of BT Broadband at a holiday home in Scotland for many years (£30 pcm for 0.8 mbs speed) I was delighted to find that Vf had installed a tower locally allowing 4g access. My phone indicated great 4g reception.

I bought a TP link 4G LTE wifi router with sim card slot. Then took out a 30 day contract with Vf with 50Gb allowance for £30 pcm.

Everthing installed and working fine. Did a speed test - 35 mbs. Again delighted. Was in the house for 8 days. Wife & daughter requested to limit data usage, no streaming video, no downloading films.

Recieved my first bill a couple of days ago expecting to see £30. No - it was £178.56.

£30 Bundle charges

£25 Line Rental (there was no mention of this when I took out the contract)

£123 'additional charges'

The £123 addtional charge was for going 4.5Gb over the 50Gb limit.

I have looked at the itemised bill. Over several days there was unbelievable data usage of 7 - 8 Gb per day. Called Vf - of course everything ok. Looked closer at the bill and saw multiple 989mB items,

Two things to do -

1. I have downladed an App called My Data Manager which we will install on all devices (to find out who the culprit is - although I suspect there isn't one other than Vf)

2. The TP Link router has a data manager facility which can be set to switch off once 50Gb is reached.

Frankly I don't believe we have used this amount of data and suspect the problem lies with how Vf are metering the usage. I'm also really angry at the £25 pcm line rental - is this correct?

8 REPLIES 8

Annie_N
Community Champion (Retired)
Community Champion (Retired)

@bodmino Now I understand why there wasn't a Reply button when I wanted to reply! But I still have no idea why you should be seeing a "line rental charge" on your bill - no such thing for Mobile Broadband.

As I understand it, you bought the wifi router separately, rather than as part of the transaction with Vodafone? If you buy a mobile wifi device or data dongle as part of a 30-day contract, there is a one-off charge upfront for the device, but it's hard to see why that should be described as line rental. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the invoicing system.

I'm sure that one of the Vodafone Team will be in touch to look into the matter, but presumably you are confident that the devices connecting to your router haven't been doing major updates? As you've probably seen elsewhere on this board, Windows 10 on a laptop can chew through a fair bit of data while doing updates, but I'd expect that to be concentrated into a single day, rather than 7-8GB per day for several days.

You're certainly taking the right precautions to prevent a recurrence of the issue, although most modern phones will include their own data monitor, which should give info on what apps are using data, and how much. Also you can turn on the account-level data cap, to ensure that the data is switched off when you reach your allowance - please note that the data cap is off by default. You should have received a warning message as you approached the top of your allowance; I believe it shows in the online account, but you may need to investigate how that would display in your system.

BTW, I see from my email notifications that @pipcoo may have tried to contribute to this thread, so I fear that it wasn't just your original post which vanished!

Hi Annie_N - thanks for the prompt reply. Very useful.

I also can't understand why I'm being charged line rental.

As regards usage there are no Windows 10 or other potential high usage devices connected. Only two iPads and one iPhone connected via wifi, and I just can't believe these are hoovering up 8 gB/day for several days.

The built in data usage monitors on these devices only work for cellular data. As they are all switched to wifi via the tp-link router the usage is not recorded on the devices. Hence the installation of the 'my data manager app' (which incidentally seems to work well).

My next 30 days has now started, so when I visit the property next all data usage will be closely monitored and I will report back.

PS - can any other members chip in and advise whether they are being charged line rental?

 

 

 

Alex
Moderator (Retired)
Moderator (Retired)

@bodmino We'd be happy to look into this for you from our end.

I can see you're also doing some investigating yourself, be sure to keep this thread updated with any findings.

I've sent you a private message with details on how to contact our team, once you've done this we'll be in touch. 

Thanks Alex,

I'm just off the phone to the helpline and made some headway.

The £25 line rental (in fact £25.16) is the bundle charge from 25 Jul - 19 Aug. The bundle charge for period 20 Aug - 19 Sep is £30. This is all ok - I'm paying both arrears for the previous month, and advance charge for next month. Next months bill should just show £30.

Confusion arose from seeing line rental in the bundle section of bill making me think I was paying £55.16 every month.

 

Second bit of progress was the operator volunteered to set a a usage cap at 50 GB. The operator claimed to be able to apply this.  I have read correspondence saying this has been done and then failed, but I'm being optimistic at the moment.

 

I just need to find out how three relative light usage devices are hoovering 8GB / day, but I have my plan in place. Will report back.

 

 

Annie_N
Community Champion (Retired)
Community Champion (Retired)

@bodmino I'm glad to see that CS were able to help you. The problems with engaging the data cap on MBB accounts seem to have been a "teething problem" of some sort, and I believe that that should go OK now, but it's worth keeping an eye on the level of usage showing on your actual account. I have a good data counter app on my android phone, and it gives me a pretty good idea of how things are going, but it differs slightly from the measure that Vodafone gives me - probably fortunately, the app takes a pessimistic view!

If you feel you need any help from the Vodafone Team, do respond to Alex's PM, and also please do report here on the outcome of your researches. As you'll have seen from other threads, there's a bit of anxiety around this topic, and the more data we have, the better.

Hi Alex,

 

I've just moved to Scotland and purchased exactly the same TP Link wireless router to use with a 40Gb PCM SIM only contract with VF.  I checked on data usage 10 days into contract to have exactly the same shock that you reported with additional data charges of £195!  One day my wife and I apparently used 15gb of data whilst I was away on business and the only device my wife had connected to the router was an iphone and a smart tv on which she watched about an hour of iplayer.  I've disputed this data usage with VF whom are adament it is accurate and that because they sent text messages warning me of the excess data usage (to the router where I couldnt read them without logging on and checking)  I need to pay it. 

 

Did you get to the bottom of your high data usage anomoly?

 

 

Tash
Moderator (Retired)
Moderator (Retired)

Thanks for getting in touch @bendyson1000.

We'd like to take a closer look into your data usage for you. So we can do this, please follow the details I've provided in the private message I've sent. A member of our team will then be in touch to discuss your account and data for you.

pipcoo
4: Newbie

Hi, I did reply to your original post which then disappeared but has now appeared again ! In case you didn`t see it here is a copy `n` paste.

 

Hi, sorry you`re having these problems but you`re not alone !  I`m not sure about the £25 line rental charge but it doesn`t sound right, I have the exact same package as you and have only ever been charged the £30 monthly bundle cost, hopefully one of the mods can explain this further. There is a data cap that can be applied through the my vodafone app although I couldn`t get it to work and had to go through web chat to get it switched on. I can`t understand why the data cap isn`t on by default and have raised this a few times without a satisfactory answer.

 

                                                                    I have the same router as you as well (Archer  MR200 ) and found that the data usage facility was a bit hit and miss, it didn`t seem to reset itself at the end of the period so I think it`s better to get the VF data cap applied.