Vodafone euro traveller is a 900% price increase for me!!!

Higgins91

NFH wrote: »

Have you had the £10/month applied every month (or nearly every month) since the contract started? This could add more weight to your argument.

I had the monthly option applied for around 3 months last summer whilst living in Spain and Germany and then reverted back to the daily option upon my return ready for short trips (eg: a long weekend). I wanted to reactivate it this September for 12 months while I am abroad as the daily option would not be economically viable. This, however, is no longer possible.

I have also been using Passport throughout this time.

If Vodafone want to be really awkward and demand proof I will be away, I have that too.

Higgins91

NFH wrote: »

Vodafone's legal department know full well what a judge would deem to be an unfair contract term based on the legislation. This will determine Vodafone's treatment of the affected customers. For a more objective opinion, you need to ask a consumer lawyer.

The CAB's consumer advice service rang me today and said they cannot help as it is a complex case and have referred it to Trading Standards. If I don't hear anything within three working days I've been told they will make me an appointment at my local CAB.

Higgins91

A quick update guys. I emailed my complaint to Bitterwallet.com and they have written an article about it. Enjoy!

bitterwallet.com/is-vodafone%E2%80%99s-new-eurotariff-just-charging-people-more-through-the-backdoor/57552

NFH

barryd999 wrote: »

I have spent over an hour on the phone to them this afternoon which to add insult to injury they are billing me for despite again three weeks ago them telling me that calls to them while abroad will be free.

Vodafone have to provide a free-of-charge number on which you can contact them while roaming in another EEA country. This is mandatory under Article 14(2) of Regulation (EU) No 531/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2012 on roaming on public mobile communications networks within the Union. Orange, for example, make calls to the usual customer service number free of charge from within the EEA. If Vodafone have a special number for this purpose, it should be listed in the text message you receive when entering a country.

barryd999

NFH wrote: »

Vodafone have to provide a free-of-charge number on which you can contact them while roaming in another EEA country. This is mandatory under Article 14(2) of Regulation (EU) No 531/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2012 on roaming on public mobile communications networks within the Union. Orange, for example, make calls to the usual customer service number free of charge from within the EEA. If Vodafone have a special number for this purpose, it should be listed in the text message you receive when entering a country.

Just catching up with the thread (im not online much now!)

Yes they provide a number 4636 in the texts but its just a recorded message. If you want to speak to them you have to dial the voda uk number and your charged for it. So they are not providing a free number to talk to them.

I cant find the bit of legislation you refer to sorry. Is there a way you can point me to the actual text please?

Anyway a few things I have found out since my last bill on the 15th (the first since VDT finished)

Despite them telling me I am no longer on Passport I clearly am! Calls are still 75p and when I entered Slovenia recently I got a message saying I Was still on passport! They just dont have a clue do they?

What I have also managed to do by using the Opera Mini Browser app which compresses sites and downloaded data by up to 90% is use my phone briefly every day just to quickly check webmail (the iphone email program uses a lot of data) and look at low bandwidth sites and in 15 days I used just over £5 worth of data! But its a complete pain in the !!!!!. I do feel however a slight feeling of satisfaction from beating their system just a little bit.

On a completely separate tangent by really scrutinising my bill online when I got wifi I discovered that they were billing me for 60 text messages. This is interesting as I dont really text. I had sent 9 in a month and two of those were 2 part texts (quite long). Turns out the majority were to a number of which I have no knowledge and apparently I sometimes texted this number at 4am in the morning when of course I was tucked up in bed!

Clearly its a mistake but they were having none of it, I must have sent them! What a laugh! Do I have any trust in anything Vodafone tell me anymore? Nope!

I raised this on another forum and a few members have had similar issues. One guy had a bill for a 24 hour call from abroad for over £900! Seriously. Is this company run by people or chimps? Actually Monkeys would do a better job.

simax

Using the free App Onavo reduced compressed my email data by 92% when I used it on my old Voda contract.... might be worth a punt?

barryd999

simax wrote: »

Using the free App Onavo reduced compressed my email data by 92% when I used it on my old Voda contract.... might be worth a punt?

Not heard of this one, must be similar to Opera Mini which I notice coincidentaly have started advertising on TV!

What I did worry about is if Vodafone would charge a minimum of 69p for a data connection which is the new charge for 1MB of data but they dont, they just charge for what you use and 1MB can last me three days.

Its such a backwards step though. We were doing this years ago, teathering an old nokia to a laptop to quickly check webmail.

Vodafone Data Traveller was an absolute breakthrough. IF they were loosing money then fair enough, just reduce the data allowance to say 5MB a day for £10 a month. That would keep me and most of the long term travellers happy.

Perhaps they will listen but I wont hold my breath

simax

NFH wrote: »

Vodafone have to provide a free-of-charge number on which you can contact them while roaming in another EEA country. This is mandatory under Article 14(2) of Regulation (EU) No 531/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2012 on roaming on public mobile communications networks within the Union. Orange, for example, make calls to the usual customer service number free of charge from within the EEA. If Vodafone have a special number for this purpose, it should be listed in the text message you receive when entering a country.

I think you are referring to this:

(82) In order to improve the transparency of retail prices for roaming services and to help roaming customers make decisions on the use of their mobile devices while abroad, providers of mobile communication services should supply their roaming customers with information free of charge on the roaming charges applicable to them when using roaming services in a visited Member State. Since certain customer groups might be well informed about roaming charges, roaming providers should provide a possibility to easily opt-out from this automatic message service. Moreover, providers should actively give their customers, provided that the latter are located in the Union, on request and free of charge, additional information on the per-minute, per- SMS or per-megabyte data charges (including VAT) for the making or receiving of voice calls and also for the sending and receiving of SMS, MMS and other data communication services in the visited Member State.

This states there must be a free number for info - this does not have to be a customer service number.

NFH

simax wrote: »

This states there must be a free number for info - this does not have to be a customer service number.

True, but some operators, e.g. Orange, use the same contact number for "info" and for customer services. Therefore I have dialled 150 for Orange customer services for free when roaming.

sha2000

Hi - just noticed this thread. I myself have gone through Ofcom and the Ombudsman and got no where as for me the change was an increase from £10 to £90 a month and it appears that vodafone can make these changes and we just have to accept it.

Just adding this note to see if everyone just gave up or tried any legal avenue to get vodafone to reinstate the £10 a month for 25Mb/Day charge. I would be happy be with £15 or £20 a month but not £90 to £60 for 3 weeks. Way too much considering my only use is data / emails / occasional browsing.

I tried and failed back in August/September and I just got all roaming costs refunded for the trip last year when I discovered after travel that the option which they allowed me to purchase on the phone was actually not available and the customer service rep made a mistake on the phone.

I started to look around today as today received an SMS from vodafone stating closure of the passport service. Surprised the announce changes by SMS and not email !

I have checked other network providers and it seems that all roaming charges on offer are expensive and kept within the EU guidelines of about 60p a megabyte - so the £10 for a month for 25Mb a day was just something that we had that was too good and seems can;t have that price level anymore. Would have expected technlogy to get cheaper not dearer.

anyway - has everyone given up? Has vodafone been allowed to withdraw a price level for the data roaming service?