Why has my £5 BVB apparently suddenly changed into a £10 BVB?

[Marrea]

I have a £5 Big Value Bundle.  On 5 March I had a balance of £45.13.  When I checked yesterday (6 April) my balance was showing as £35.13.  Why have Vodafone suddenly taken £10 out of my account instead of £5?  I am somewhat confused.

[Annie_N]

I've been wondering when this might happen, since the £5 BVB hasn't been available for new sign-ups for a while. This morning I received my routine monthly warning, reminding me to check that I have a balance of at least £5 - so I'll be pretty miffed if they switch me to the £10 version without any warning.

Signal here is poor from all networks, but my "escape plan" is to switch to the £5.50 bundle offered by Ecotalk - unlimited minutes and texts plus 500MB data. I've an idea that they use EE, and their profits get ploughed into buying land for RSPB, so it seems worth taking a punt on it.

[Marrea]

Annie_N

I too hope you don't suffer the same experience as me!

What has surprised me is that I cannot seem to find anywhere on the My Account section of the Vodafone site a record of how much they have deducted each month.  I can see my balance but not the amounts taken out.  I have just installed the Vodafone app on my phone, but the same there – no record of the amounts taken out !!  Or am I missing something?

[WelshPaul]

Login to your Vodafone account and navigate to:

Settings > Plan usage > Usage breakdown

You can see what was purchased or deducted from your balance there.

My £20 bundle was purchased on 30 March 2021 and here it is listed as a purchase on my Vodafone online account:

The amount was deducted from my balance.

[Annie_N]

Well, my husband's £5 BVB renewed correctly a couple of days ago - so far, so good, and I think I discover my "fate" at the end of today.

I've had a look an my "usage breakdown", and can see my top-ups as "purchases", but I can't see the deductions relating to my renewed BVBs. My usage is quite low, so I can see activity back the full 90 days to early January, and the three renewals since then are not visible.

I think that this is a change, as both top-ups and deductions used to appear, though both were described the same way, and neither gave any indication whether it was an addition or a subtraction from balance. @WelshPaul, are you definitely seeing your purchase of a BVB, rather than a top-up?

[WelshPaul]

My last top up was for £30 and that was on the 22nd March 2021.

I did switch from a £10 bundle to a £20 bundle and maybe that's why it's showing? Maybe bundle renewals are not listed there?

[Annie_N]

Could be that it doesn't show "same as ever" transactions, just changes - but that makes @Marrea's experience even stranger!

[Marrea]

WelshPaul

Many thanks for directing me to Settings > Plan usage > Usage breakdown.  It shows my last top-up, but I can’t see the deductions.

However, I have now had an acknowledgement to my query on the Vodafone Facebook page, apologising for the delay in getting back to me, and saying that in order to take a closer look into the charges I’ve received, can I please confirm my mobile number, which I have now done.  So I currently await their response to that.

[Annie_N]

I can confirm that my £5 BVB renewed correctly overnight!

I think that WelshPaul must be correct that it's only top-ups or BVB purchases that are deliberately caused which appear in the Usage Breakdown. Routine BVB renewals happen shortly after midnight, whereas the items which Marrea and WelshPaul illustrate, and the items which I can see in my usage, all happened when we actively initiated them.

The removal of routine renewal charges from the information available to customers seems thoroughly bad news, as it makes it extremely difficult to monitor whether one's account is behaving correctly. Having to check one's balance every day at bedtime, then again on waking up, really isn't a very useful model, especially if you can't see why the balance has changed, let alone provide easy proof of what happened and when.

[Marrea]

Annie_N

I’m glad to learn that your £5 BVB renewal went ahead correctly.  That’s a relief for you!

I completely agree with you that the removal of routine renewal charges from the information available to customers is thoroughly bad news.  I myself obviously know by how much, and when, I have topped up because I myself have initiated that.  But it would be extremely useful to see exactly how much Vodafone have charged me every 30 days.  The only way I can do that is by keeping a running total of how much credit I have available and then checking with *#1345# every month to see what my balance is.

[Marrea]

An update on progress (or lack of) via Messenger on the Vodafone site

On 13 April at 13:58 I received the following message:

Hi Marjorie, sorry for the delay in getting back to your messages here! So we can take a closer look into the charges you've received, please can you confirm your mobile number? Tash

On 13 April at 16:58 I replied:

No problem.  My mobile number is xxxxxxxxxxx.

to which the immediate response was:

I'm sorry, we couldn't understand that. Pick one of the options below - that'll give us an idea of how we can help.

So I picked the option for Account and billing

to which the response was:

Pick the most relevant option below as to why you're getting in touch

There was no option for what I wanted to ask about so I gave up then.  I have heard nothing since and am beginning to lose the will to live!!  Getting repeated responses saying “I’m sorry, we couldn’t understand that” is a complete waste of time.  It seems a bit pointless asking a customer to communicate via Facebook Messenger when all that happens is a series of automated answers which are completely irrelevant to the questions being asked.

I think now I shall just have to wait and see how much Vodafone take out this month.