Are we being ripped off?

[semiautomatix]

All for 79c?

I received my cellphone bill last week and I always go through to see where the additional costs are incurred. I have a Talk 150 and 100 SMS bundle, with CLI and itemised billing comes to about R400. So I check anything above and beyond that. Usually this cost is and 3G/GPRS connections made during the month.

I viewed and amount under "mobile-to-other-networks" for R2,37 and thought this was rather odd. I went through the bill and their are three calls for 0.00 time units costing 79c. These are not special numbers, in fact one is my mother's phone number and the other a buddy of mine. Why am I being charged for 0 second phone calls, especially when I have in the region of 250 minutes still available?

Now, I did some calculations and, being with MTN, I figured if there are 4 million contract subscribers and each subscriber is charged R2,37 (an amount people will hardly query) then:

4 000 000 x 2,37 = 9 480 000

That means MTN is skimming almost R10 million a month off subscribers who remain unaware!

Whats the story?

 

[JK8]

The 0.00 time for 79c is peak sms costs.
Your mom and buddy are on other networks, correct?

 

[ebudae]

Calls marked at 0.00 time at 79c are smses.

 

[xrapidx]

He has an SMS bundle.

They do it to me too (MTN), so from now on, I phone 808, request a refund, they give me a reference number and promise to get back, they don't. I log a complaint on hellopeter, they promise to get back, they don't. I continue to log complaints, they eventually pass credit, although I suspect they didn't, so I'll log another complaint when I get my next bill.

I already see issues comming with my next bill considering they charged me almost R500 for my 2GB bundle, and they charged me for data from the previous billing period, that should of been part of my previous periods data bundle.

MTN really should revamp their billing and accounting system, it makes so many mistakes. Actually, they probably won't cause its all in their favour.

 

[semiautomatix]

The 0.00 time for 79c is peak sms costs.
Your mom and buddy are on other networks, correct?

I'll have a 0.00 second call which costs 79c and then a 23 second call which costs nothing, one after the other. These are not SMSs - which are already covered in the bundle. Besides, I have a call type analysis which seperates SMS and MOBILE TO MOBILE (same network to same network) as seperate charges (despite the fact these calls were to other networks MOBILE TO MOBILE OTHER NETWORK).

Something is not right here. Something else: before each call there is a 0 B call to mymtn...

 

[semiautomatix]

He has an SMS bundle.

They do it to me too (MTN), so from now on, I phone 808, request a refund, they give me a reference number and promise to get back, they don't. I log a complaint on hellopeter, they promise to get back, they don't. I continue to log complaints, they eventually pass credit, although I suspect they didn't, so I'll log another complaint when I get my next bill.

I already see issues comming with my next bill considering they charged me almost R500 for my 2GB bundle, and they charged me for data from the previous billing period, that should of been part of my previous periods data bundle.

MTN really should revamp their billing and accounting system, it makes so many mistakes. Actually, they probably won't cause its all in their favour.

Definitely discrepancies... I have arranged my bundle to not cost me except for data and special numbers. I never use everything and, ergo, should not be charged.