Callquest is inaccurate - users beware.

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mc721221

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Callquest is inaccurate - users beware.

I used over 85MB this weekend and callquest says I've used 1MB.

Allocated 858,993,459
Used 1,065,842
Carried Over 0
Available 1,065,842
 
Lucky you....

According to Callquest and 16202 I have only 0.55MB left of my 100MB, which is cr*p because my phone says I have only downloaded 12MB....

So I think that anybody who has PSD data bundles loaded should watch their billing carefully.

Simon
 
How do I get callquest

Never mind inaccurate. How do I even get get it to start with? I would dearly love to have some place where I can find out what's potting on my account.

I did a "callquest" search at the MTN website. The response was the usual MTN "duh...dunno what you talking about". I refuse to spend 20 minutes on the phone just to have some dumb bunny at the call centre tell me the same thing.
 
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I have escalated this to CallAudit/CallQuest

Awaiting feedback.

I'll advise ASAP.

Thanks Clive
 
The response I've received is as follows


There was a problem on the billing system with the new GPRS bundles, but was fixed 2 weeks ago 18/04/2005. Client's will be credited automatically if there were any incorrect charges.

Thanks Clive
 
jpretorius said:
Never mind inaccurate. How do I even get get it to start with? I would dearly love to have some place where I can find out what's potting on my account.

I did a "callquest" search at the MTN website. The response was the usual MTN "duh...dunno what you talking about". I refuse to spend 20 minutes on the phone just to have some dumb bunny at the call centre tell me the same thing.
Click to expand...

There is sometimes confusion between MTN as the network operator and MTN Service Provider . MTN the operator provides independent wholesale services to all the service providers and they in turn sell contract subscriptions.

Details on the Service Providers are found at

http://www.mtn.co.za/?pid=9946

MTN Service Provider has retail customers. They provide a value-added service called Callquest which is for online billing for its own customers. That is why the service is available via www.mtnsp.co.za and information is provided by phoning 808 (from an MTN handset). That is also why MTN SP is qualified to answer questions about Callquest whereas I will be able to answer general MTN questions.

Our MTN call centre is not trained on all the retail services of each Service Provider.

This retail model is the way that the cellular industry was set up in South Africa with all the operators.

Of course the source call records and the access to Callquest from MTN are MTN's responsibility.
 
My attempt at Callquest

I didn't really catch all the fine points of that gobbledegook, but I thought never mind I've got the web address "https://callquest.mtnsp.co.za/" courtesy of good buddy ScrnScrm, and that's really all I needed to know anyway. Not so?

I logged on. You need to fill in the form - who are you, where you from, whose your grandma, whada whada and away we go. Cool. Just one small hitch, we need 48 hours to verify that your phone is not stolen or something or other, so come back in 2 days time. OK, so we can't let a bit of red tape spoil our fun can we? I'll sommer wait.

So today, 48 hours later (to the minute) I log on. Eager anticipation - now I'm going to see in great detail how extravagant I've been, and whether I need to bond the farm to pay for my new toy, right.

Wrong!

Some new Nazi tells me that I'm a no good rat because "Your cellphone is not a MTN SP number". OK, so now I recall something in the above explaination about how you are a MTN customer, but you might not be a REAL MTN customer or some such. I suppose that's me. I subscribe to MTN through Autopage. I never claimed otherwise, and if being an Autopage client makes me the lowest form of life, I'm really sorry - the fact that their "service centre" is even worse than MTN's should have alerted me.

So let's start again. Can anyone tell me how I can get to see the details of my usage?
 
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Line item explanation of call quest

Got this data from callquest (line items a to h):

Q1) how do I know how much I have left on my 100MBbundle? By the way I only bought one bundle, but there seems to be two entries below; c and d

Q2) what does line item b mean? I think it may be out of bundle data calls?

a) 2005/05/11 SHORT MESSAGE 9.75
b) 2005/05/11 PACKET SWITCHED DATA CALLS 45.57
c) 2005/04/23 PACKET SWITCHED DATA 100MB BUNDLE 52.63
d) 2005/05/11 SERVICE FEE PROCALL 300 464.91
e) 2005/05/11 CALL LINE IDENTITY MONTHLY FEE 6.40
f) 2005/05/11 SERVICE FEE ITEMISED BILLING 15.09
g) 2005/05/11 INSURANCE 7500 90.35
h) 2005/05/11 PACKET SWITCHED DATA 100MB BUNDLE 87.72
 
Kompete said:
c) 2005/04/23 PACKET SWITCHED DATA 100MB BUNDLE 52.63
h) 2005/05/11 PACKET SWITCHED DATA 100MB BUNDLE 87.72
Click to expand...

Note the dates - you are billed in advance for the bundle and as you took it on the 23rd of April after the billing date (11th) you paid pro rata for the bundle from 23/04 to 10/05

Simple

And I can't believe you let yourself in for the daylight robbery on the insurance!!! Hell, I pay R37 for my 6630!
 
CDR's

Hi All:

Call Quest is a system based on Call Data Records (CDR), these CDR's are updated daily in most network instances. The problem comes in that all data traffic is recorded on a Cisco PSD type infrastructure, this infrastructure is then redundantly placed in multiple locations, and then periodically synchronized (Double Billing: The origination there of.) to the central billing handles. At this point it reflects on the data warehouse infrastructure, they then create the CDR's based on the data sets that exist in the data warehouse. Its a lot more technical than described here.

But there often is a time delay to these CDR's being submitted to an application like Call Quest or Data missing periodically in the CDR's due to the external billing mechanisms (Roaming Calls & International Calls) not completing there sync in time.

But one thing is for sure, they will never lose those CDR's.

Moral of the story, call quest should be a rough guideline !!!!
 
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