Complaint against Vodacom

[DJ...]

No DJ, that's not what I said or implied. And you know that.

Iffy, but let me rephrase then: it seems to be up to the customer to educate themselves in favour of Vodacom spending money on preventative measures...

I was talking to myBB members who (like you) have been a member here for 5 years.

On this username. And even I still don't understand the ins and outs of your products...

All contract subs are asked for an ALTNUM in the shops and are explained the processes and tools available. Every new subscriber get 3 (THREE) letters explaining how to prevent bill-shock, use the tools, etc.

Which is great for those new contract subscribers. Prepaid customers don't get the luxury. Nor do old subscribers. I was a Vodacom subscriber for many years and never once in all of my data usage and OOB shocks did I ever get any notifications, letters or even advice from the call centre on the subject. Maybe things have changed, but then again I was using bundles purchased from USSD codes up until 2 months ago. At no point between sale, use and OOB did I receive anything in the way of information relating to OOB whatsoever, and the notifications for "you have 3MB left" were sometimes delayed by a good few hours. The Vodacom website wasn't much help either...

Recently a sub complained to me about bill-shock and promptly sent me all the communication he got from Vodacom. When I pointed out he got all the welcoming letters showing him how to do ALTNUM, etc. he admitted he never read them.

Having never seen one of these communications I can't really comment on this...

Like the horse said; You can take a human to water, but you can't make him think

I agree. And that works both ways, especially when customers, current or ex, attempt to provide feedback based on their own experiences. You cannot just wash your hands of the situation because you sent out 3 letters. At the end of the day, if OOB shocks are still commonplace, then something is amiss and needs to be addressed on your end. In fact screw commonplace - if they are even still a possibility...

As much as you guys like to attack Vodacom on this, we go out of our way to try and educate subs on ho to manage their bill.

I'm not attacking Vodacom, let's just be clear. I've made a point of referencing all networks in my posts but in this case, Vodacom are the OP's network in question. I'm glad you've PMd her though - great stuff. I'd prefer to see something more proactive done on Vodacom's side.

See this standard vs advanced baloney has to go. Your costs are static (in terms of comparing the two). So one can only assume that the reason for there being two different playing fields and costings is a forecast one. Vodacom forecast OOB usage income. Which further highlights that you are trying to milk customers for going out of bundle. Unless you dont, in which case you would agree that doing all you can to prevent these is the only option. I believe this sort of penalty is ludicrous and predatory. Predatory in the sense that this income is made off non tech-savvy customers of yours who have no idea what all of this malarkey is about, but will have to pay when the day comes.

Then we have various methods of notification for OOB, which appear to be failing. Now you can either continue passing the blame on to your customers or you can accept some responsibility here to change things. See you use the 8ta one as an example, and I can see your argument being along the lines of wasting data having a download cancelled mid-way. This is easily resolved by having a notification pop up each time you open a new session, showing your balance and a warning to ensure that you have sufficient data for your browsing and downloading session. Simple solution to what you're trying to turn into a very complex problem. No need for 20 different types of notifications that sometimes work and are often delayed.

We then have contract data restrictions being set by default to ridiculously high amounts. Why? If you're aware of the problem, why are you not doing something about this? The few people who do use those large amounts of OOB data would surely prefer to be blocked and call Vodacom to be told their balance and how to better use data without being ripped a new one. The others who are okay with OOB bills of R10k+ are in the absolute minority. It really is a win-win for you to set your limit far lower and eliminate this shock-bill nonsense. Seems almost illogical to NOT do so, unless you're forecasting this revenue. In which case shame on you and your predatory tactics.

For the record, I am an equal basher for all consumer rights. It just appears that I fight Vodacom more often than not because you choose to engage with us, which is a great thing and thanks for that...

[craigfza]

See this standard vs advanced baloney has to go.

Actually, this I agree with. Broadband Advanced was initially introduced when Vodacom launched 7.2Mbps speeds and one had to pay extra to take advantage of the "new" high speed access. Now that both Broadband Standard and Broadband Advanced use the same speeds (device dependant), I think it may be time for Vodacom to think about combining the two into one broadband offering. Not sure how they are going to work the OOB charges however. It would be nice to keep the Broadband Advanced OOB charges across the board.

[Jola]

It would be nice to keep the Broadband Advanced OOB charges across the board.

Yes, but I can't see them doing that.

Even if they did, they would still be behind many countries in Europe where uncapped mobile internet is common.

Eg, giffgaff in the UK (based on O2) has an uncapped mobile phone bundle for GBP10 per month (also includes free texting, many phone minutes, etc). I always use this when in the UK.

[DJ...]

Here in Singapore uncapped mobile internet costs the equivalent of R70 for a week. In Malaysia it costs half that. I can see how the same can't be introduced in SA yet - you really do need a developed broadband market to introduce that sort of product - but it puts things into perspective a little...

[undesign]

Called TopUp. I intentionally made the 1,2 and 3GB promos available on TopUp to help with this.

And most of these are in place. You get notifications (delayed on contract - busy fixing it), we put a system in place if you need to get them on your mobile and not the modem or router (called Alternate Number) and we put a soft-lock in place called Call Limit Lock.

So it's all there.

If a subscriber did all the above (as in the welcome letters they get) and they still get bill-shock, I'll sort it. AS soon as blu mal me, I can check where the process failed for her.

So, for the record, I don't want sub to run up silly bills. So the tools are there, we try and educate people to use them, but clearly it fails for some.

You must also remember, I have around 12 million data users. You don't see posts here from 11 999 990 saying they did not get bill shock. By definition, you only going to see the posts from those that got stung. Now it's not good that a single person gets a higher bill than desired but we cannot put blanket rules in place. So it's up to each sub.

Jannie, I get all that, but it seems so arcanely absurd, does it not? You can measure and manage pre-paid data to the kilobyte, but can't do the same for contract? What is incomprehensible to me, and what I've never heard properly addressed, is why the convoluted process to avoid OOB is even necessary, why not completely eliminate the risk by introducing something as simple as Keeper's suggestion?

Jannie, is it possible to set your internet to just stop when going over your bundle?
Or why not just point the user to your website at least, where the user has to click "OK" to continue surfing?

A simple tool to all but eliminate OOB surprises, how difficult can it be to implement? It is 2012, what possible reason can there be to not implement it?

because if vodacom can't do that, you have to agree that the system is designed to cash in from general users deliberately.

And, as it has not been implemented, again it is very difficult to not come to this conclusion.

[Beri]

An honest question; when the 8ta screen pops up and you were busy with a download,; what happens to the download session?

If it is important you click continue and then you know it is going to cost you extra. But you know. If it is a big file and you know it will cost you R2000 to download you can stop it. Like i said vodacom always send you an sms after they used your money. I am on topup 300 after converting some to data i will have acouple bucks left. Every time vodacom will take that money as well. Never telling me i am over until it is to late. Why is it posible for 8ta to do this.

[jannievanzyl]

If it is important you click continue and then you know it is going to cost you extra. But you know. If it is a big file and you know it will cost you R2000 to download you can stop it. Like i said vodacom always send you an sms after they used your money. I am on topup 300 after converting some to data i will have acouple bucks left. Every time vodacom will take that money as well. Never telling me i am over until it is to late. Why is it posible for 8ta to do this.

No, it's more a detailed technical question, not so much the commercial aspect.

If you're busy doing a download yo've got active TCP sessions open. These will have timeouts on them, so they'll break if no traffic flows for say 60 or 120 seconds (that's when you get the typical 'download failed' message).

If you run out of bundle and you were in the middle of a download and you get stopped, those downloads will break. Especially if I redirect your HTTP traffic to a landing page where you will sit until you click on a button.

So the question is how is 8ta handling this? Do they break the download session, do they let it run independently of the web-redirect, etc? What happens to non-HTTP traffic, FTP for example?

BTW, on TopUp the notification SMS's are in real time and you get SMS's BEFORE your bundle is depleted.

[R13...]

No, it's more a detailed technical question, not so much the commercial aspect.

If you're busy doing a download yo've got active TCP sessions open. These will have timeouts on them, so they'll break if no traffic flows for say 60 or 120 seconds (that's when you get the typical 'download failed' message).

If you run out of bundle and you were in the middle of a download and you get stopped, those downloads will break. Especially if I redirect your HTTP traffic to a landing page where you will sit until you click on a button.

So the question is how is 8ta handling this? Do they break the download session, do they let it run independently of the web-redirect, etc? What happens to non-HTTP traffic, FTP for example?

BTW, on TopUp the notification SMS's are in real time and you get SMS's BEFORE your bundle is depleted.

Why do you worry about customer being in the middle of a download? You have no problem cutting off the poor prepaid guy in the middle of his download.

[Keeper]

jannie, have you ever heard of Free Download Manager, GetRight or uTorrent? Those Downloads will resume.
Even firefox will resume downloads on most sites, including file hosting sites like MediaFire.

And if it can't resume, users will most probably rather cancel a big 1200MB download, even if it's at 50%, because that 600MB OOB cost could buy you almost 2 x 2GB Bundles.

stop suggesting users are afraid of a download canceling mid way.

[Beri]

No, it's more a detailed technical question, not so much the commercial aspect.

If you're busy doing a download yo've got active TCP sessions open. These will have timeouts on them, so they'll break if no traffic flows for say 60 or 120 seconds (that's when you get the typical 'download failed' message).

If you run out of bundle and you were in the middle of a download and you get stopped, those downloads will break. Especially if I redirect your HTTP traffic to a landing page where you will sit until you click on a button.

So the question is how is 8ta handling this? Do they break the download session, do they let it run independently of the web-redirect, etc? What happens to non-HTTP traffic, FTP for example?

BTW, on TopUp the notification SMS's are in real time and you get SMS's BEFORE your bundle is depleted.

I call BS on that. When i get my sms it is to late and the cash is gone. Do not worry about my download. If i am out i am out. My problem. But vodacom only thinks about the cash comming in.

[DJ...]

Cancelling mid-way through a big download is already commonplace on the Vodacom network. Not sure why it would possibly now become an issue? I've been bitching about it for years already. To be fair, it is an issue on MTN as well, but they didn't make the argument...

[marco]

You people all miss the point. The NCA states quite clearly that Co's MUST check if the account holder can afford the payment.
If they cannot then they CANNOT not allow the contract.
The OP has recourse to this.

[jxharding]

it is VERY suspect that Vodacom cannot offer a proper way to immediately stop bandwidth usage on their contracts once a cap is reached - I asked for a immediate cap and they said it is not completely possible - it is possible to go way over the cap even with a specific limit in place. Others can do it (e.g. 8ta, cell c), but not Vodacom. (or as someone else has said you lose the night owl option)

This, together with the reluctance to inform/remind users that their contracts expired and that they will be continued charged more than 200% of the original costs (whilst offering better deals at the same time) makes me feel that Vodacom are pathetic and hence I am moving my business away from them. But they can spam you 10 times a month for other useless information - no problem! There's really no difference between dealing with a dodgy car salesman who is extending payments, and Vodacom.

Only thing good about Vodacom in JannieVanZyl and Ockie - respect for your help.

[jannievanzyl]

Why do you worry about customer being in the middle of a download? You have no problem cutting off the poor prepaid guy in the middle of his download.

Because it's the way it worked from day 1. If we change something we try to ensure customers get the same, or better, experience.

And as much as you won't believe me, we get subs that get peeved off because they ran into their CLL and were in the middle of a download. so, if I stop all subs at bundle-end we'll get a flood of complaints, trust me. Many from this very forum.

[jannievanzyl]

I call BS on that. When i get my sms it is to late and the cash is gone. Do not worry about my download. If i am out i am out. My problem. But vodacom only thinks about the cash comming in.

I call BS on your BS call

You get a 50%, 70%, 90% and 100% SMS in real-time.

But I'll PM you to send me the MSISDN and I'll check what's going on.