Midnight WAP internet charges on mobile bill

FedUpOfScams

My young son has without realising added another £28-£30 to his mobile bill over the last 2 months due to his phone apparently accessing the internet at midnight. This causes £1 a day extra to be added to his bill which of course I pay. What began as a £15 a month contract without internet nearly 2 years ago has turned into £50 this month. I don't understand how Vodafone manages to provide and charge for this service when it has not been requested or authorised. I have been doing a fair bit of reading on this topic and it seems that if your phone (smart) is left on over night it will default to chargeable internet even though you may be in a wifi zone when it uploads updates. It's the end of contracts for him and back to pay as you go!:(

gjchester

It could be the data is used in the day , and vodafone only apply the charge to the account at midnight

Guys_Dad

I had exactly the same problem with Vodafone. It followed me accessing then internet once to check on the train times. From that moment on, I was hit with daily charges.

I did 2 things. I contacted Vodafone CS, explained the position and they wiped the charges. I should say that the handset in question was a basic Nokia dumbphone.

I then went into a Voda shop to get them to check that there were no services that were running in the background, such as email checking etc and they confirmed there was not. I got them then to set my Voda account to preclude any internet connection.

Although I still don't know what caused it - and there have been c couple of threads on this same subject - I did find Voda quite reasonable in the way they dealt with it. Perhaps because I was reasonable with them and asked for their help rather than exploding.

I would try this first if I were you rather than cancel his contract, if he has been responsible previously.

Hope this helps.

Vodafone

Hi FedUpOfScams,

I am sorry to hear that you have unexpected data charges on your sons account. It sounds like it may be an application that is automatically updating on the handset.

So that I can take a look into this for you, can you send me an email to the address here with WRT135 FAO Heidi in the subject and a link to this thread. I can then take a look at the account and advise the best way to avoid this.

Many thanks,

Heidi
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK

Vodafone

Hi FedUpOfScams,

I haven't yet received an email regarding this. Has this now been resolved?

If not, feel free to get in touch and I will be happy to help further.

Kind regards,

Heidi
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK

Tuono

Just discovered the same problem on our son's phone. He was lost in a town and went onto the internet to find the bus times or something. 2 months of 85p per day taken at midnight. Onto Vodafoney now. Not willing to pay for something for nothing. Funny how Vodafoney can contact you at the drop of a hat when they want a contract renewing or to flog you some other rubbish :mad:

Techhead_2

Tuono wrote: »

Just discovered the same problem on our son's phone. He was lost in a town and went onto the internet to find the bus times or something. 2 months of 85p per day taken at midnight. Onto Vodafoney now. Not willing to pay for something for nothing. Funny how Vodafoney can contact you at the drop of a hat when they want a contract renewing or to flog you some other rubbish :mad:

Are you saying that he used the net once and since then has been charged every day even though he has not used data?

Before contacting Vodafone you need to make sure that he didn't switch something on or install anything which has been using data. Check the data counter on the phone. If he has used data then it will need to be paid for.

If you are certain he hasn't then call them with the evidence and ask them to do an investigation to check whether the data was actually used.

Guys_Dad

[QUOTE=Techhead;46158099]Are you saying that he used the net once and since then has been charged every day even though he has not used data?

Before contacting Vodafone you need to make sure that he didn't switch something on or install anything which has been using data. Check the data counter on the phone. If he has used data then it will need to be paid for.

If you are certain he hasn't then call them with the evidence and ask them to do an investigation to check whether the data was actually used.[/QUOTE]

That's exactly what happened to me, Techhead. As I wrote above, I had a very basic Nokia 5130 and the guys in the Vodafone store - who were actually quite switched on - confirmed I had nothing running and, anyway, the handset was too basic for apps (no - email was not set up either).

There seemed to be some trigger that was set when you first use the internet that assumes you will want to every day from there on at £1 per day.

I had no problem getting a credit and also got them to switch internet off on my account.

vickimonster

:eek:
I have contract with vodafone for an iphone 4 which has been running since dec. I have now been charged random wap charges for 8.334 at midnight, i dont use 3g in my house as i have wifi. I thought the first thing to do would be to email customer service to save time i sent them my query i got a reply that didnt match the details i gave in the email. vodafone told me i dont have an internet bundle on my phone which i have since i took it out and that i have been charge only 0.833 which is not what is on my bill. I dont know who to contact as i have had problems with telephone customer services before, i feel the charge for one night is excessive.

Techhead_2

Guys_Dad wrote: »

That's exactly what happened to me, Techhead. As I wrote above, I had a very basic Nokia 5130 and the guys in the Vodafone store - who were actually quite switched on - confirmed I had nothing running and, anyway, the handset was too basic for apps (no - email was not set up either).

There seemed to be some trigger that was set when you first use the internet that assumes you will want to every day from there on at £1 per day.

I had no problem getting a credit and also got them to switch internet off on my account.

The 5130 does have Java apps, it also has various always on facilities like SyncML. So it is possible you may have accidentally started something.

Tuono

I've had a reply from Vodafone.
Our son's phone has switched a data update thing on automatically. All Vodafone have done is confirm the data uploaded every day. He's not used the internet and is very up set that he thinks we might be accusing him of using it. It's cost us over £50 + VAT so far and all I've received is the usual rubbish answer to my queary from an automaton.

Not happy. It's not ending there.