Misery with Vodafone, again and again and again....

spiro

As soon as you change country VF will send a text to the phone detailing the cost of using it. Your son will have received said text but has either not understood it or chosen to ignore it. If you wanted to ensure his spending did not exceed £13pm you should have put him on a capped tariff like the one Tesco offer which stops this sort of thing happening.

As other have said you are lucky its only £240, if he had been in a none EU country it could easily have been a lot higher.

Sorry but you have learnt the hard way that children and uncapped tariffs are not a good mix.

Silk

Theres lots of question marks here
Firstly regarding older son it's unfortunate but these things happen and highlites the drawbacks to contracts when circumstances change ....not realy Vodafones fault though

pint6x wrote: »

The best they could offer was that he could pay £3 a day and use his UK contract abroad. Of course, daddy's picking up the tab here so they seriously thought I would pay over a thousand pounds a year so my son can use his mobile phone abroad.

With Euro Traveller it's £3 a day and the £3 a day is only triggered when you make a chargeable call text or internet
so the days he doesn't use it theres no charge
Theres no charge for recieving calls or texts either so with a bit of frugal use and wifi spots voip etc it wouldn't be the doom and gloom you portray

As far as younger sons situation a few things are open to question too

My son spent August in Italy with relatives. What I didn't realise was his phone had been enabled to be used abroad, and he proceeded to run up £240 worth of phone bill in August.

Why would you send your 13 year old son to a foreign country with a contract phone without enabling usage ?
Regardless of who he was travelling with as a safety aspect I would have been more concerned to ensure he could contact me and vice versa ?
Did you not speak to your son for the month he was there and him tell you it was enabled ?
Did the relatives you sent him with not tell you he was able to use the phone ?
Who was he able to text/speak to on the phone when he was there did they not tell you ?
Did you not ask Vodafone when it was turned on ?

Firstly, I know because a) I used to work in IT for Vodafone many years back

Taking that statement into consideration I'm rather surprised you are laying blame on Vodafones doorstep !

JethroUK

pint6x wrote: »

.....

They DO monitor usage, I know, so why didn't they do something when it became clear his monthly spend was approaching twenty times what it is normally?

.....

They do know - They all know - I think its only a matter of time before they legislate that all companies send notice of abnormally high usage (keep customer informed)

Why haven't they notified you? Thats easy - they get paid more money if you dont know it's escalating out of control - they have no company ethics (morality that isn't law), AT ALL

hence why the law needs to step in - and they will

spiro

JethroUK wrote: »

They do know - They all know - I think its only a matter of time before they legislate that all companies send notice of abnormally high usage (keep customer informed)

Like they sent to son to say how much it was going to cost him if he used his phone when he arrived in Italy. If your are responsible adult use a contract phone, if you are not then get a capped plan or stick with PAYG.

Vodafone

Hi pint6x,

It's just a quick post to acknowledge this thread and to confirm that my colleague Heidi has replied to you following your post here.

Thanks,

Lee

Web Relations Team

Vodafone UK

robbies_gal

you told them it was your sons phone-sorry but who pays the bill thats all theyre concerned with not who u choose to give it to

Herongull

You had a contract phone and you allowed a 13 year old to use it unsupervised?

You even allowed the child to take your contract phone abroad when you were not with him.

How irresponsible is that?

You are soooo lucky your bill was a mere £240.

Children and contract phones don't mix! Don't let your son near your phone again.

pint6x

Herongull wrote: »

You had a contract phone and you allowed a 13 year old to use it unsupervised?

You even allowed the child to take your contract phone abroad when you were not with him.

How irresponsible is that?

You are soooo lucky your bill was a mere £240.

Children and contract phones don't mix! Don't let your son near your phone again.

Erm - not sure you've a) read my original post or b) understood it - try again!