HTC Desire Vodafone 500mb Fair Usage Policy

MikeKanani

As Tom has now defined excessive as 500mb and there is an official announcement on the forum I have began to write my letter of cancellation. Could someone please look over my letter of cancellation to ensure i dont sent off a bunch of rubbish:

RE: Termination of Pay Monthly Mobile Contract – Mobile # 07879 666 564 Account No. 282240880.

I hereby terminate my pay monthly mobile telephone contract with Vodafone, in accordance with clause 11b of your Pay Monthly airtime agreement terms and conditions. The reason being that charges for mobile internet are been introduced.


Information posted on the Vodafone eForums on 11th May 2010 states that Vodafone intends to introduce Out Of Bundle charges for Pay Monthly customers from 1 June 2010. Clause 11b states:

“You may end this agreement by writing to us if:
• we increase your charges in the UK which have the effect of increasing your total call and usage charges (based on your usage in the previous month) by more than 10% and you write to us before the increase applies; or”

The fair use policy states that:

“27. All Vodafone services offered free or under unlimited subscription are subject to our Fair Use Policy. If, in the reasonable opinion of Vodafone, your use is excessive, we may ask you to moderate your usage. If, after we have asked you to moderate your usage, you fail to do so, we reserve the right to:
(a) charge you for the excessive element of your usage at your price plan's standard rate;
(b) throttle your usage; or
(c) suspend or terminate your service in accordance with your airtime terms and conditions.”

You clearly state they you are able to charge at my “price plan’s standard rate”. However as there is currently no standard rate I consider this new rate to be an increase from £0 to £5 per 500MB. My usage in the previous month was XXXX and would be considered excessive by Vodafone (excessive being defined as 500MB by Tom_Vodafone on the eForum). The increase in the charge would therefore increase my bill to £25 per month, which is a 25% increase.

I now exercise my legal right to cancel the contract without penalty (as stated in clause 2 of your Pay Monthly airtime agreement terms and conditions). Please take this as the 30 days notice required and issue me with a PAC. This letter will be sent recorded delivery and the 30 days notice will be assumed to begin the day the letter has been received.

Should you choose not to terminate the agreement as clause 11b indicates I may, legal action will be taken and no further payments will be made once my balance up to the date of termination has been paid.

danielz000

indent the quote and surround it with double quotes...

TheLibertine

Guys just wanted to say before you do actually cancel check

1. the deals you can get on other networks

2. the quality/speed of their mobile internet

3. the phone (i.e. orange are horribly branding the Desire so they're ruled out for me )

I just looked at O2 prices for example and I'd have to use 2.5GB every month on my desire for my Voda contract to be as expensive as the identical contract on O2.

Just saying there will be lots of people like myself staying with Vodafone and trying to pressure them to make more sensible policy from within. I think as forum users we HAVE certainly managed to do that at least to some degree in the last week or so.

If you use loads of data then definitely leave...if you don't just think carefully and make sure it makes sense for you.

Tom re: your statement there are still things unclarified, a big one is why not in the first place offer these smartphones with different data packages...ie 500mb/1GB/2GB etc etc...what annoys people is claiming the Desire is unlimited and yet the Nexus One is apparently twice as unlimited! Plain English it is not...

Really the fault lies with the regulators...in one instant move they could ban the use of the word unlimited. Then ALL networks would have to sell with limits.

danielz000

TheLibertine wrote: »

Guys just wanted to say before you do actually cancel check

1. the deals you can get on other networks

2. the quality/speed of their mobile internet

3. the phone (i.e. orange are horribly branding the Desire so they're ruled out for me )

I just looked at O2 prices for example and I'd have to use 2.5GB every month on my desire for my Voda contract to be as expensive as the identical contract on O2.

Just saying there will be lots of people like myself staying with Vodafone and trying to pressure them to make more sensible policy from within. I think as forum users we HAVE certainly managed to do that at least to some degree in the last week or so.

If you use loads of data then definitely leave...if you don't just think carefully and make sure it makes sense for you.

Tom re: your statement there are still things unclarified, a big one is why not in the first place offer these smartphones with different data packages...ie 500mb/1GB/2GB etc etc...what annoys people is claiming the Desire is unlimited and yet the Nexus One is apparently twice as unlimited! Plain English it is not...

Really the fault lies with the regulators...in one instant move they could ban the use of the word unlimited. Then ALL networks would have to sell with limits.

Hi mate,

Thanks for posting in our best interest. My feelings are that I have hated this contract and VF ever since joining and I'll be happy to leave them even if I have to join another network at cost to myself...

As for the phone, they'll have to take it from me!

MikeKanani

danielz000 wrote: »

indent the quote and surround it with double quotes...

it is indented in my word doc

superbrainz

For a while I thought that VF were being reasonable and adhering to their FUP as set out initially, only enforcing it firmly. However it turns out they have simply sweetened up their initial proposal of charging as soon as you exceed 500MB. They should have kept the soft cap and allowed some leeway in my opinion (10-15%?).

Here's how I see it being played out (Correct me if I got it wrong)

A: If you come close to using 500MB in month 1 after the change is introduced, you will receive a text warning. You continue using and say use 500.001MB, you are deemed to have exceeded the 'fair' usage. This is your first slip up so you are excused.

B: Month 2 and you again near 500MB. VF send you a message saying you are nearing the danger mark again. You ignore this and end up using 500.001 MB again. Vodafone will then call you and warn you and discuss options and ask you to reduce your usage by 0.001 MB.

C: Month 3 again you get a warning close to 500MB and end up using 500.001MB. This time you will be charged (presumably £5)


Now VF will argue that they are sensible service providers and will not charge you if you just tip over. However, based on tom's announcement, they are perfectly entitled to charging £5 for 0.003 MB of extra usage over 3 months.


Based on this announcement, I am going to demand cancellation. I haven't exceeded 500MB so far as I use a fair amount of wifi. However, as someone correctly put it, I signed the contract based on my projected future usage and not my past usage. Vodafone have no way of predicting what I had planned on using the phone in the future for. Unfortunately, I am going to be out of the country for 2 weeks in a couple of weeks' time so will have to make sure I cancel in time.

Norro

TheLibertine wrote: »

Guys just wanted to say before you do actually cancel check

1. the deals you can get on other networks

If you can get out of this contract then you get to keep the phone, therefore you would not need an expensive deal, you could go with a sim only plan.

TheLibertine

Norro wrote: »

If you can get out of this contract then you get to keep the phone, therefore you would not need an expensive deal, you could go with a sim only plan.

Agreed, if you can do that then ####### go for it!

Just didn't want people to get carried away and then realise the grass isn't always greener.

bym007

TheLibertine wrote: »

Guys just wanted to say before you do actually cancel check

1. the deals you can get on other networks

I have just been to T-Mobile and there are loads of (Sim only) deals with "unlimited internet" 3gb fup for £20. Ofcourse, you do get 900 minutes, 500 texts etc etc along the way!

Linky

CaptainD_2

Just a quick question-

Do we definately need to provide them with 30 days written notice of cancellation?

The operator I spoke to yesterday told me I did at first, I politely declined because I certainly didn't get 30 days written notice from their company; why would they expect me to follow a proceedure that they have clearly not followed themselves? That is one of the reasons I am canceling! The contract is surely no longer enforcable and not even worth the paper it is written on surely?

I really don't see how they can argue with that (and the guy I spoke to reluctantly agreed after putting me on hold).........although I am very tempted to fire a letter off anyway to cover all bases- I'm just worried that that will give them an excuse to keep the contract live for another month and charge me more.

This is precisely the kind of useful information we need from vodafone now, instead of all this b*llocks about being able to view 8,000 web pages or whatever the latest lie is.