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Vodafone customer? Check your current usage
Especially if you are due to have a DD taken out soon!
I woke up this morning to a text on my phone saying they had noticed high usage on my device so it had been suspended ,and to call 41150. I called it and was told by an automated message that there were £210 of out of bundle charges on my phone, and that I needed to make a payment to lift the suspension. Now I'm a big user - I have 4 phones (for the family) and 2 data tariffs on my account. I also work away a lot, and do on occasions hammer the data so, whilst I thought it was pretty high, I though 'well I'll pay some off and check it later', so I made a payment of £150.
I connected up to wi-fi and thought I would look at my account online. That showed a grand total of £2.61 out of bundle charges. I then fired up my Vodafone app and that showed...drumroll..£845 of charges!
With my phone blocked I couldn't call Voda from my mobile - even though they have since told me I should have been able to. Luckily I was at home, so I pinched my wife's phone and called them on that. Bit odd though - it's on the same account so should, by rights, have been blocked as well.
The lady at Voda was very helpful in telling me that she had received a few calls along the same lines, that she would lift the restriction, and that it had been caused by a billing upgrade that had 'gone wrong'.
I asked if the upgrade had been tested before deploying, and 2 very important questions - if they had already had calls about it and therefore knew it was an issue ,why had they not blanket lifted restrictions so as not to impact customers (or at least sent a follow up text to explain). The more important question (imho) is, given that the billing data source should be the same, why were the automated message, app and website all giving wildly different figures.
I have not yet got a full answer to any of the questions, only that they are 'working on it'. And they are correct. Things have certainly changed! As we stand at the moment, the website is currently showing out of bundle charges of...and I hope you are sitting down... £4720.31! looking at the breakdown of 'real' charges showing on the account, it should be a far more reasonable £20 or so. Luckily my bill isn't due to be produced until 14th Oct, but if yours is due to be billed in the next day or so please check - especially if you are a DD customer
Sorry for the long post, but it's a bit of a worry
I woke up this morning to a text on my phone saying they had noticed high usage on my device so it had been suspended ,and to call 41150. I called it and was told by an automated message that there were £210 of out of bundle charges on my phone, and that I needed to make a payment to lift the suspension. Now I'm a big user - I have 4 phones (for the family) and 2 data tariffs on my account. I also work away a lot, and do on occasions hammer the data so, whilst I thought it was pretty high, I though 'well I'll pay some off and check it later', so I made a payment of £150.
I connected up to wi-fi and thought I would look at my account online. That showed a grand total of £2.61 out of bundle charges. I then fired up my Vodafone app and that showed...drumroll..£845 of charges!
With my phone blocked I couldn't call Voda from my mobile - even though they have since told me I should have been able to. Luckily I was at home, so I pinched my wife's phone and called them on that. Bit odd though - it's on the same account so should, by rights, have been blocked as well.
The lady at Voda was very helpful in telling me that she had received a few calls along the same lines, that she would lift the restriction, and that it had been caused by a billing upgrade that had 'gone wrong'.
I asked if the upgrade had been tested before deploying, and 2 very important questions - if they had already had calls about it and therefore knew it was an issue ,why had they not blanket lifted restrictions so as not to impact customers (or at least sent a follow up text to explain). The more important question (imho) is, given that the billing data source should be the same, why were the automated message, app and website all giving wildly different figures.
I have not yet got a full answer to any of the questions, only that they are 'working on it'. And they are correct. Things have certainly changed! As we stand at the moment, the website is currently showing out of bundle charges of...and I hope you are sitting down... £4720.31! looking at the breakdown of 'real' charges showing on the account, it should be a far more reasonable £20 or so. Luckily my bill isn't due to be produced until 14th Oct, but if yours is due to be billed in the next day or so please check - especially if you are a DD customer
Sorry for the long post, but it's a bit of a worry
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