Vodafone - International roaming

A11yson

Help please - your views? My daughter is in New Zealand and has been using her mobile for Internet access on roaming - yes she's run up a bill of £2500 in the last month! My concern is that she was never advised by them of the cost of this - until a text telling her how much the bill would be! my argument is that she should have been advised by text on arrivL of all charges and in failing to do this Vodafone are not treating customers fairly. Anyone else taken on a mobile phone company??

Techhead_2

Its not really money saving behaviour to use a service without knowing what the costs are.

Given that the costs are easily available before travel then your daughter will have to rely on a goodwill gesture. Unless you can prove that Vodafone failed to do something they agreed to do.

gjchester

A11yson wrote: »

Help please - your views? My daughter is in New Zealand and has been using her mobile for Internet access on roaming - yes she's run up a bill of £2500 in the last month! My concern is that she was never advised by them of the cost of this - until a text telling her how much the bill would be! my argument is that she should have been advised by text on arrivL of all charges and in failing to do this Vodafone are not treating customers fairly. Anyone else taken on a mobile phone company??

Sorry this will sound harsh but she has to pay it. Vodafone will have been charged most of this by the network carrier in NZ so it's got to come from somewhere, if it's not your daughter it will be passed in a small amount to all other subscribers.
There is the chance that is an incorrect bill but most likely it's correct.


You do usually get a courtesy text telling you call and data prices on arrival but ignorance of the cost, or not recieving that text is not an reason to avoid payment.

When someone (presumably your daughter) called to turn on international roaming they tell you the costs.

Alternativley costs are eaily found on Vodafones web site, Data is £3 a meg for the first 5 meg, then £5 for every 15MB afterwards.

All the prices are on Vodafones web site if she had looked.

£2500 is a lot of money for data, if it's for a month (ie 30 days) thats £83 a day, so assuming the above costs that somewhere between 30 and 35mb of data a day, or around a gig a month. Even if she was in the UK she'd most likely to be charged extra.

She must be on the phone a lot to run this up, did it never occur to her to check costs.

If your paying the bill you may want to ask what she's been doing, if it's her contract it's her choice what she uses the phone for but needs to pay for the services used.

grumbler

A11yson wrote: »

... my argument is that she should have been advised by text on arrivL of all charges

Normally such text arrives when the phone starts roaming, but I don't think that it is something that networks are obliged to do.

BTW, you can use this opportunity: OFCOM CONSULTATION ON UNEXPECTEDLY HIGH PHONE/BROADBAND BILLS responces by 14th June

d.ross_2

I didn't think that there would be anyone that didn't know that mobiles cost a fortune to use when abroad. So a claim that she didn't know wouldn't be taken seriously. It probably also says in the instructions that came with the phone that roaming calls will cost considerably more.

She will be very lucky to get a good will gesture, as Vodafone will have been chrged a fortune by the foreign networks.

It is always cheaper if you are going to need to use a mobile quite a lot when abroad. to buy a cheap PAYG sim and phone for use on the local network.

grumbler

d.ross wrote: »

... Vodafone will have been chrged a fortune by the foreign networks.

grumbler wrote: »

roaming wrote: »

they have already offered 50% off the bill saying they are letting go of profits and any more would mean loss to the company.

this explains why they are not interested in setting any limits and sending any warnings.

They have to work hard to earn £1.25K from the customers staying in UK.

A11yson

Forgot to mention - I pay the bill by D/D from my account - ouch. Thanks for your responses, not unexpected but really helpful guys! Guess I'll have to cough up and await the travellers return.

gjchester

A11yson wrote: »

Forgot to mention - I pay the bill by D/D from my account - ouch. Thanks for your responses, not unexpected but really helpful guys! Guess I'll have to cough up and await the travellers return.

You may want to get the SIM blocked and replaced, letting your daughter know she needs to buy a local one. Saves the bill getting higher...

Also I'd suggest you don't let her off easily, I've no idea how old she is but learning the cost of things is a good lesson at any age, not expecting mum and dad to cover bills.

A11yson

She's 19 - and trust me she'll be paying back every penny out of hard earned cash when she goes back to work! Harsh words have been had - and while I haven't blocked the phone she is in no doubt about whether she can use it!!

gjchester

A11yson wrote: »

She's 19 - and trust me she'll be paying back every penny out of hard earned cash when she goes back to work! Harsh words have been had - and while I haven't blocked the phone she is in no doubt about whether she can use it!!

One last point, I assume it's a smart phone, many check for updates on a timed basis, if she's got say email or Facebook set up to auto update data may be fetched without her knowing.

She needs to disable all mobile data services, how thats done varies from phone to phone. If she'd not sure how may be best turning it off and leaving the phone off unless she really needs to make a call.

ACDeag

grumbler wrote: »

Normally such text arrives when the phone starts roaming, but I don't think that it is something that networks are obliged to do.

BTW, you can use this opportunity: OFCOM CONSULTATION ON UNEXPECTEDLY HIGH PHONE/BROADBAND BILLS responces by 14th June

The text notification on arrival is only a requirement when roaming in the EU. Some networks do it voluntarily in other countries.