Astronomical costs for 3G dongle (R70k +) PLEASE HELP!!!

[T-Rex66]

My company has been happily paying it every month since December. They only brought it to the managers attention yesterday who informed me. You can imagine my shock!!

 

[Pitbull]

My company has been happily paying it every month since December. They only brought it to the managers attention yesterday who informed me. You can imagine my shock!!

What line of work are you in?

 

[Paul Hjul]

did the company acquire the dongle directly from Vodacom or is there a middle man provider involved
something I've noticed is that quite a few of these bigger amount OOBShark issues involve business accounts where an intermediary service provider is involved so the company has "advise" from sales people who put them onto these OOB ready accounts

Vodacom seriously needs to introduce a lock mechanism but even with a lock mechanism if my hunch that the company has an intermediary service provider is right this sort of problem could have arisen even with a locking mechanism

 

[T-Rex66]

I work in sales for a transport and industrial company

 

[T-Rex66]

Im not sure if our company uses a middle man or not. I literally was given the dongle and that was that - no further communication until now. FML.....

 

[GoofySmurf]

OP

Did the boss tell you that you will be charged an OOB once your 1GB ran out, did they explain the package that you were on properly when they handed the dongle to you. If they did not do so in wiritng then they cannot claim from you as its easy to assume that you will be cut of once the 1GB is used.

Simple as that if you were not aware of the exact package that you were on and explained about the OOB then the company is liable.

Just dont agree to paying the money ... it will effect your relationship with your boss though.

 

[etienne.cpt]

OK, its not as simple as OOB rates.
a similar thing happend to a user at our office.

this is what happened.
on the statement - check the times and dates that the data has been used - lookout for times and dates you know you have not used.
infact - hand the dongle over to your boss and request that the usage be monitored.

what happened to one of our users was that his SIM got duplicated (dual sim) now both sims cant run at the same time however the culprit with the copied sim uses at say 2am in the morning daily until about 6am.
So by the time he used his sim for official work his none the wiser...

do this!

 

[Pitbull]

I work in sales for a transport and industrial company

Do you have a quote/invoice system that you need to work on while at clients?

 

[Pitbull]

OP

Did the boss tell you that you will be charged an OOB once your 1GB ran out, did they explain the package that you were on properly when they handed the dongle to you. If they did not do so in wiritng then they cannot claim from you as its easy to assume that you will be cut of once the 1GB is used.

Simple as that if you were not aware of the exact package that you were on and explained about the OOB then the company is liable.

Just dont agree to paying the money ... it will effect your relationship with your boss though.

I think this is pushing the issue a bit. I would rather owe R 70k and have the opertunity to pay it back while working at the company. As opposed to being fired and still owe R 70k

 

[T-Rex66]

Do you have a quote/invoice system that you need to work on while at clients?

All quotes/invoices are done simply via email or word doc so there is no computer programme used as such.

 

[bwana]

Why the people monitoring the account didn't request an increase in your bundle size after the first month is my first question.

 

[T-Rex66]

OP

Did the boss tell you that you will be charged an OOB once your 1GB ran out, did they explain the package that you were on properly when they handed the dongle to you. If they did not do so in wiritng then they cannot claim from you as its easy to assume that you will be cut of once the 1GB is used.

Simple as that if you were not aware of the exact package that you were on and explained about the OOB then the company is liable.

Just dont agree to paying the money ... it will effect your relationship with your boss though.

Nothing was explained. Nothing was said. I was just sent the 3G card from our branch in Cape Town to my branch in Durban and I satrted using it. Nothing was signed, no documents where ever passed to me about anything.

 

[Electric]

The company cannot hold op responsible if they have not informed op correctly.
It won't get you fired by pushing back.
Otherwise your company will expect you to pay it which naturally benefits them.

Paying R70k back is hectic regardless of if you're working there or not.
I would never agree to pay that amount of money back.

 

[T-Rex66]

Why the people monitoring the account didn't request an increase in your bundle size after the first month is my first question.

Im not sure why but they have been paying it monthly with no questions asked until now. This is the first time im hearing about this

 

[Shi]

OK, its not as simple as OOB rates.
what happened to one of our users was that his SIM got duplicated (dual sim) now both sims cant run at the same time however the culprit with the copied sim uses at say 2am in the morning daily until about 6am.
So by the time he used his sim for official work his none the wiser...
do this!

:wtf:

 

[Bona Botse]

The company are fully entitled to expect payment.
It's the responsibility of the laptop user to not abuse the system.
If you're unaware of what abusive behavior is then you should have asked your IT dept.
If you have not abused it and it is all update related then there should be no problem here and it is up to your company to deal with Vodacom.
They should have installed a decent data management system for you.

Why didn't the company set a limit? If the company did set a limit, why didn't Vodacon enforce it? The company also received a few bills of R12k-R16k over some months, why didn't alarm bells ring sooner?

My company does expect me to cough it up. Im assuming that there is an extremely high credit limit on the dongle as its company owned. Im sure if it was my personal dongle, the credit limit would be much lower? So now I sit with a bill of R70k plus maybe getting fired over this and I had NO CLUE what was going on. I tried to inbox Jannie but it said that either he has opted to not receive inbox messages or he is not allowed to receive them. Is there anyone who can alert him to my thread?

Jannie always shows up in (or is at least aware of) Vodacon related threads, just say "Vodacom" 3 times and he'll appear.

^this.

You should know the risks of using company equipment for personal use.
I know it is a really terrible situation and I honestly feel for you but you must realize that in business there is very little time for emotions especially when dealing with such a large amount.

Adding to that we actually don't know the full story here.
I am not trying to discredit your story but you would have used the dongle numerous times, how could 1gb have been enough?
Are you trying to claim that you did not know 1gb would be used up this fast?

Most people don't even know what a gigabyte is or that YouTube defaults to HD on 3G. You're assuming that everyone is as tech savvy as you. OP's company is at least partly to blame for having crappy systems that, firstly, didn't set a usage limit on the line, and secondly, didn't pick up the first R10k+ invoice from Vodacon.

 

[Venomous]

The company are fully entitled to expect payment.
It's the responsibility of the laptop user to not abuse the system.
If you're unaware of what abusive behavior is then you should have asked your IT dept.
If you have not abused it and it is all update related then there should be no problem here and it is up to your company to deal with Vodacom.
They should have installed a decent data management system for you.

This thing that is confusing....

Why did the OP's company only moan now. Dec bill should have been obvious by end Jan/Feb already
IMO They should carry part of the responsibility, as this could have been resolved months ago.

From what has been written here: Should the OP get dismissed The CCMA would welcome this. The company would get fried for dismissing a pregnant person.

OP,

get hold of jannievanzyl here. Ask for his help in a bill reduction, then ask the company to assist as well and then see what remains.

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

This is terrible.

Your company should have stated clearly when giving you the device that you are liable for Out of bundle (OOB) costs if you go over your cap. They should have also mentioned how much it would cost so you were aware.

I don't have the full picture but from what you've told us it sounds like the company was negligent supplying you with the device and not making all this very clear.

Also, does your employment contract contain anything in it to regard to a scenario like this?

 

[rrh]

My company has been happily paying it every month since December. They only brought it to the managers attention yesterday who informed me. You can imagine my shock!!

Sounds as though your company has pretty lax financial controls.

Most companies require that all accounts - especially cell - be approved by management before they are paid, i.e. your boss should have picked up on excessive use after month #1.

Given that this didn't happen my guess is that the over-expenditure was picked up when the departmental budget was exceeded, at which stage an investigation would have launched.

I don't know if it helps at all but your employer should be required to answer as to why you were allowed to run up such a high bill. Or is this type of bill 'normal' for those with company laptops ?

Maybe you should ask around ...

 

[Pitbull]

All quotes/invoices are done simply via email or word doc so there is no computer programme used as such.

Nasty, just a small calulation:

R 12 000 / (R 2.00 per MB) = 6000 MB's (5.85 GB's worth of data) + (Bundle 1024 MB's [1GB])

This means you used at least 6.85 GB's worth of data per month.

Normal YouTube if done without ss it would stream at 720p. About 3 hours worth of watching will run you about 1GB. So you would have had to view youtube for about 18 hours per month more or less. So unless you downloaded big files I would say it's pretty easy for you to figure out if you spent at least 40 minutes or so per day watching YouTube.