Anomoly with CellC call charges

chrisc

Honorary Master
Joined
Aug 14, 2008
Messages
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Location
Cape Town
According to CellC, my prepaid package is the "Easychat All Day". The tariff on the websites give the rate as R 1,50/m to a CellC phone, R 2,85/m to Telkom or other cellular phones

My balance on 08/12/2011 at 08h50 was R 122,10

Calls made on 08/12/2011 are listed as 021-787423X, duration 92 seconds, the cost should have been R 5,70
Then to 084636222X (I think a CellC number, it may have been ported, so lets assume it was charged at the increased rate) duration 133 seconds, cost R 8,55
Then to 076111424X, duration 16 seconds, cost R 2,85
Then to 083533902X, duration 55 seconds, cost R 2,85

No SMS were sent

This gives a total of R 19,95

The available balance should be R 102,15. right?

Instead, the balance is R 88,75, a difference of R 13,40


I queried this with Cell C and received the following excuses

1 - You must have an automatic debit that comes off at the end of the month (no lady, no debits, and yesterday wasn't the end of the month, plus this is a phone, not a bank account)
2 - You have automatic SMS (sent to who, my sent items box is empty)
3 - We have no control over who you phone (true, but I didn't ask that question)
4 - You are on a different tariff (you mean there are more expensive ones, I didn't know)
5 - Someone else is using the phone (I doubt it, since it lives in my pocket all day, there are only 2 of us living here and the cat and dog don't make calls and I don't work)
6 - You must have made a mistake (yes, I mis-read the call log which only shows 4 outgoing calls to those numbers with the duration)
7 - Best of all - you need to change to a contract, then this cannot occur (maybe it is true, but 8 years ago, when I was on holiday in the US for 3 weeks with the phone in my safe here at home, MTN charged me R 1333,00 for "diversions" on one day when the phone was switched off. It took over 18 months to get a refund, and this was "ex-gratia".
 
According to CellC, my prepaid package is the "Easychat All Day". The tariff on the websites give the rate as R 1,50/m to a CellC phone, R 2,85/m to Telkom or other cellular phones

While this doesn't resolve your query, the website states it's R1.50 to all networks and Cell C during peak times for all day and R2.85 if on the per second rate. Billing is AFAIK 60/30 if you're on all day. See here and click on compare.
 
Must say it is very convoluted, often the call centre contradict themselves about the rate. I had this rate chosen for me, I didn't specially request it. Made 1 call today lasting 88 seconds and R 4,35 came off, so it looks if I am paying the R 2.85 rate for the first minute, then R 1,50 for the second.
 
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