Please help, Vodafone Extortion!?

JoeS132

Hi All,

I'm really hoping you can help.

I went to the bank today to see if my pay went in ok and I saw my Vodafone direct debit, instead of being its usual £15 or there abouts, was £114.14!!!

I am still shaking. I called them and they said that I'd been 200 minutes over my 600 minute allowance?! I am looking at my online bill and I can't actually see the total useage anywhere! Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place? Why is it so hard to find that total call amount?

I have been through the calls individually and they look ok... I'm really shocked if the total is 800 though... I have NEVER used my 600 allowance before. And the calls that are charged are ridiculous - I have a relatively high volume of calls between 1-5 seconds which are charged at £0.29 each! I count 3 pages, 20 items a page.. that's nearly £18 for calls that were not even picked up!

I'm totally confused and devistated. The Vodafone representative told me it was all correct and nothing could be done, and gave me a £5 credit on my next bill. But this seems like extortion to me - my bill is £95 more than I would ever have expected and the money's just been taken! I can't imagine how I ended up over the limit, but as a regular £15 customer, £114?!?!

What can I do??? Can I contest the charges?!

Thank you so much for any help

Joe

DUTR

So did you dial non geographic numbers?

JoeS132

Thank you for your reply DUTR. What does thta mean?
If this is what you mean, I did call 08712009009, which is Comet... But taht call only lasted a few minutes.

ppc1

JoeS132 wrote: »

Thank you for your reply DUTR. What does thta mean?
If this is what you mean, I did call 08712009009, which is Comet... But taht call only lasted a few minutes.

DUTR means is there lots of 0845, 0870 numbers etc that have been charged?

DUTR

JoeS132 wrote: »

Thank you for your reply DUTR. What does thta mean?
If this is what you mean, I did call 08712009009, which is Comet... But taht call only lasted a few minutes.

As per post #4, the 0871 and other numbers are not included in your allowance and are chargeable, they soon send the bill up.

latecomer

JoeS132 wrote: »

But this seems like extortion to me - my bill is £95 more than I would ever have expected and the money's just been taken!

Firstly they didn't just take the money - your bill would have shown you what was going to be taken long before it happened. I presume you dont check your bills?

Once you have found out why your bill is so high - you could ask whether Vodafone would be willing to retrospectively add a bundle to reduce the costs - some people have managed to get this done after receiving large bills for data.

Lastly - I would have a look at whats not included in your inclusive minutes and make sure you understand what numbers you will be charged for calling.

JoeS132

Thank you all for your help.
oh, no - there arent any more expensive phone numbers.

I just called them again and spoke to someone who was no more pleasant than the last guy but more clear with information.

For some reason, my total minute usage is not on the online billing, but I've asked them to post it to me. Apparently it's 765 mins 14s, and since my price plan is 600 minutes that's why. I can't believe I did use that many minutes, since I usualy only use about 250! And £95 for 165 minutes seems very excessive?!

Either way, this is the technicality - and the explanation offered by the latest guy. I made 324 calls in that month (as opposed to my normal amount which is usually under 200). Apparently every 1 second call is taken as a minute, despite the fact that there is clearly no communication taking place. So right away that's 324 minutes gone.

So I didn't actually use the 765 minutes, I just made a lot of unsuccessful or very short calls (we were moving house, might have been to do with that). If the number of minutes in a bundle isn't the true measure of the capacity of that plan, why is it promoted/sold in those terms?!

Is there anthing I can do? I think this is highly unethical, to charge me for hundreds of minutes instead of seconds! And for 1 second calls to be charged at 35p inc. vat!!

latecomer

Some networks bill calls for a minimum of 1 minute - we got caught out in Canada a few years ago when travelling round and on occassion we had to phone round for accommodation - if the call connected then you were billed for 1 minute even if it just rang a few times. We made a lot of very short calls
and each one cost us around £1.

Anyway have a look at the out of bundle costs for your contract and it will tell you what you are charged - £95 for 165 mins is 59p/min which is higher than I've ever seen unless some of them were premium rate numbers?

sportsarb

What does the small print of your contract say regarding call charges?

It probably has it in there somewhere that you will be charged £x.xx per minute.

To be fair, if you turn it round the other way people could have a vry quick conversation and finish it up in under 60 seconds, Vodafone would lose out if it had to be a full minute.

Technicalities they may be but it will probably be in your contract that they can do this. All you can do is hope they have some goodwill. I wouldnt hold my breath though.

JoeS132

Latecomer - I know, I just don't understand it. The two times I spoke to them I kept saying "why is the charge ex. VAT £82 for 166 minutes of calls?! That works out as about 50p a call" - but then they just repeat themselves about the total minutes, number of calls, the £82 etc.

But the plot thickens - I just spoke to them again... I had to pin the guy down again and again and eventually I got him to address the issue of £82 for 166 minutes and all of a sudden he says he'll discount the bill by £57.66 - essentially making it £0.29 per minute for the extra 166 minutes.

He gave me this long thing about how if I want the bill recalculated it has to take 5 days but he can do it instantly. He dodges the question as to where the original £114.14 came from. I thank him and explain that although it's helpful that I'm now being charged the "correct" amount, I still object to being charged so much for a load of 1 second calls and I ask if I can appeal the whole bill and pay the £15 per month I always pay.

He repeats himself RE the 5 days it usually takes to re-calculate a bill. A bit of pushing on my question later, and he suggests that he refunds £29 more. I say ok and he confirms £79 balance on my account.

I repeat my question and he eventually says I should go to a Vodafone store.

Is that truly the best thing to do or should I write a letter? If a letter, to whom? I would like to 1) contest by bill and argue it should be the £15 as usual 2) complain about the customer service 3) find out why the wrong amount was taken from my bank account 6 days ago and 4) find out why it took me 3 long calls to have a representative admit that the bill was wrong and refund some of it - and 5) whether if I hadn't have wasted so much time I would have had the incorrect charges refunded at all! Which is surely plain theft!

This has really been a bizarre experience. The phone operatives are surreal - I can't tell uif it's a poor grasp of the English language or it's smoke screens and mirrors - they seem to make it up as they go along. It's so amateurish and worrying that they can just play games with money by picking numbers out of the air. Especially since the billing/charges on the online account system are so opaque. No figure for total call time?! And these people have my bank account at their hands!

This is on top of a nightmare I had when I took out the contract - when I was blatantly mis-sold my contract and then had about 11 hours of my time thrown away by "customer services" representatives not helping me and playing silly call centre games with me.

Vodafone is a loathsome company and I'll be glad to leave.

Any advice you guys might have on dealing with this situation would be much appreciated.

DUTR

JoeS132 wrote: »

Latecomer - I know, I just don't understand it. The two times I spoke to them I kept saying "why is the charge ex. VAT £82 for 166 minutes of calls?! That works out as about 50p a call" - but then they just repeat themselves about the total minutes, number of calls, the £82 etc.

But the plot thickens - I just spoke to them again... I had to pin the guy down again and again and eventually I got him to address the issue of £82 for 166 minutes and all of a sudden he says he'll discount the bill by £57.66 - essentially making it £0.29 per minute for the extra 166 minutes.

He gave me this long thing about how if I want the bill recalculated it has to take 5 days but he can do it instantly. He dodges the question as to where the original £114.14 came from. I thank him and explain that although it's helpful that I'm now being charged the "correct" amount, I still object to being charged so much for a load of 1 second calls and I ask if I can appeal the whole bill and pay the £15 per month I always pay.

He repeats himself RE the 5 days it usually takes to re-calculate a bill. A bit of pushing on my question later, and he suggests that he refunds £29 more. I say ok and he confirms £79 balance on my account.

I repeat my question and he eventually says I should go to a Vodafone store.

Is that truly the best thing to do or should I write a letter? If a letter, to whom? I would like to 1) contest by bill and argue it should be the £15 as usual 2) complain about the customer service 3) find out why the wrong amount was taken from my bank account 6 days ago and 4) find out why it took me 3 long calls to have a representative admit that the bill was wrong and refund some of it - and 5) whether if I hadn't have wasted so much time I would have had the incorrect charges refunded at all! Which is surely plain theft!

This has really been a bizarre experience. The phone operatives are surreal - I can't tell uif it's a poor grasp of the English language or it's smoke screens and mirrors - they seem to make it up as they go along. It's so amateurish and worrying that they can just play games with money by picking numbers out of the air. Especially since the billing/charges on the online account system are so opaque. No figure for total call time?! And these people have my bank account at their hands!

This is on top of a nightmare I had when I took out the contract - when I was blatantly mis-sold my contract and then had about 11 hours of my time thrown away by "customer services" representatives not helping me and playing silly call centre games with me.

Vodafone is a loathsome company and I'll be glad to leave.

Any advice you guys might have on dealing with this situation would be much appreciated.

In an earlier post you or somebody already explained the annomoly to you

http://www.vodafone.co.uk/consumer/groups/vodafoneukonline/documents/assets/vftst071329.pdf

which includes

All standard UK call charges including voicemail within your minutes allowance are charged by the second with a one minute minimum call charge. The charges below will apply once you exceed your monthly Your Plan allowance or your allowance doesn’t include any of the services listed.