Vodafone to Change Prices from 11 Oct 2011

spongerob500 wrote: »

How to calculate my bill and the percentage change in what I'll be paying? If I emailed it to someone and worked it our for me. My maths head is not on!

1) Download your .csv bill from the vodafone website. (View bills->Billed usage tab->small 'Download all' icon)
2) Open the downloaded .csv in openoffice (you can get openoffice from here)
3) On the import dialog select comma as the only cell separator.
4) Select a box of cells(hold shift), from A1 across to E1, and then down to the row containing your last call. (the row immediately before 'Total of XX calls'). Right click->copy.
5) Save my template spreadsheet from here, and then open it. (it's the BLUE download button at the bottom, not the green/red one in the centre of the page; the latter is an advert!)
6) Paste what you previously copied from your bill into cell A1 of my template spreadsheet. (right click->paste)
7) Change cell I5 to be your present monthly tariff (including VAT)
8) Change cell G5 to be the number of free minutes included in your tariff.

The spreadsheet will/should do the rest.

Note, it has lots of limitations.
a) It doesn't factor in text messages
b) It only recognises landline, voda & cross-network call types.
c) The spreadsheet recomputes your present call cost according to the tariffs on MY contract; yours may be different. To check, compare cell M2 with your pre-VAT call costs as shown on your Vodafone bill. If they differ, then you can manually enter your current call cost into cell M2 to override my calculations & it'll still give you an accurate % cost change.
d) If you make more than 992 calls, you'll have to extend the spreadsheet!

:edit:

Updated spreadsheet & instructions to fix an omission.

simax wrote: »

I've read the T+C's now - you can terminate if your total bill from the previous month would be 10% higher or more under the new charges.

Any change in terms is a good enough reason by law to set aside a contract. It makes no difference what the Vodafone T&C say. The company could be anything they like in the t&cs, that doesn't mean that the court would find them fair.

I'd be interested to hear if there are any success stories. I think c-m has a point - just because they state that you have to prove price changes to be negligent in their contract, doesn't make their contract fair under fair contract terms.

Would anybody be bothered enough to talk to OFT or consumer direct about this one?

OFCOM weren't who I was referring to, to be clear I meant the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) - and specifically their legislation/guidance on unfair contract terms:
http://www.oft.gov.uk/about-the-oft/legal-powers/legal/unfair-terms/guidance

i.e just because you write into a binding contract that any price rises are consented to automatically, doesn't make it so (in the eyes of the law at least)

I recommend sending an email through the link I posted earlier (check back) to the CEO's office, along with your workings out and the contract terms.

Someone from the executive complaints office should give you a call back in the next day or two.

If they don't send the same thing in letter form to them, explicitly stating you wish to terminate the contract with no charges under the terms you signed it, due to the change in costs, along with yourt workings out, and send it special delivery signed for. Keep the receipt!

Their call centres as standard are pretty poor and without perseverence I doubt you'll get very far with them.