Charged twice for 2gig Bolt-On

[porn$tar]

It's physically impossible to load 2x 2gig bolt-on data bundles to your contract.

Why then was I billed for 2?? vodacom3g, can you shed some light on this?

I activated it around the 7th of May. The way i understood it, eg. you get invoiced for calls made and data used during the month, at the end of that month and then pay for it at the end of the following month. As with the SMS bundles.

There's no logical reason I should get charged for 4gigs of data when I only used 2gigs. As usual, I can't get any help from Vodacon.

 

[vodacom3g]

It's physically impossible to load 2x 2gig bolt-on data bundles to your contract.

Why then was I billed for 2?? vodacom3g, can you shed some light on this?

I activated it around the 7th of May. The way i understood it, eg. you get invoiced for calls made and data used during the month, at the end of that month and then pay for it at the end of the following month. As with the SMS bundles.

There's no logical reason I should get charged for 4gigs of data when I only used 2gigs. As usual, I can't get any help from Vodacon.

No idea. Billing stuff-up probably?

I can obviously only help if I have all the details.

 

[porn$tar]

Thanx, what info do you need? I have the e-bill.

 

[Thndr_strck]

I have noticed that Vodacom are billing from 30th to the 30th of each month, so if you down laod like 600mb on the 30th or last day of a month it registers on the following months billing. And because your cap only gets refreshed on the 1st, they suddenly pick up that u don't have any cap available, so charge you for 600mb out of bundle usage.

I am considering taking legal action against Vodacom, and forcing them to review my account for the past 3 years, and that of every other 3G contract subscriber.

 

[vodacom3g]

I have noticed that Vodacom are billing from 30th to the 30th of each month, so if you down laod like 600mb on the 30th or last day of a month it registers on the following months billing. And because your cap only gets refreshed on the 1st, they suddenly pick up that u don't have any cap available, so charge you for 600mb out of bundle usage.

I am considering taking legal action against Vodacom, and forcing them to review my account for the past 3 years, and that of every other 3G contract subscriber.

I've got lots of people here scratching their heads at your statement. Please PM me the details on where you saw this together with all your contact details and we'll immediately pick it up resolve.

If you're at 'taking legal action' already, I can only assume you've logged this with Vodacom (numerous times) and have not had a reply yet. Please pass me the relevant call numbers and I'll follow up what's going on.

 

[Thndr_strck]

PM sent

 

[vodacom3g]

PM sent

Thanks, got it. But you gave no account info or contact details at all.

And we can't find a "Thdr_strck" on our billing system.....So, I won't be able to follow for you.

Also, I need the call numbers you got when you logged this with Vodacom. Or the dates, times and numbers used to call, if you spoke to them, so I can check up on the calls. I'm obviously worried that you are at 'taking legal action' stage, so can only assume you've exhausted all other means.

 

[Dolby]

And we can't find a "Thdr_strck" on our billing system.....So, I won't be able to follow for you.

hehe

 

[vodacom3g]

I have noticed that Vodacom are billing from 30th to the 30th of each month, so if you down laod like 600mb on the 30th or last day of a month it registers on the following months billing. And because your cap only gets refreshed on the 1st, they suddenly pick up that u don't have any cap available, so charge you for 600mb out of bundle usage.

I am considering taking legal action against Vodacom, and forcing them to review my account for the past 3 years, and that of every other 3G contract subscriber.

If you don't mind I'm going to post some details about your usage. If you feel uncomfortable, I'll remove it, but I think it's a nice case study, not just to answer your questions but also as general comment on how the billing systems work.

Below the feedback I got on your query.

MAY07

If you refer to the May07 sheet, you will see that he utilised 1,024 megs of data for which he was not charged as he had a 1G bundle. This up to the 19th April.

Thereafter, you will note that he utilised a further 1,908 megs of data for which he was charged at OOB rates, with the last call just after 1pm on the 30th April.

JUNE07

In the June07 sheet, you will see that there are a further few calls for the 30th April starting at about 8:30pm and terminating at about 11:30pm. These were also charged at the OOB rates as the customer had utilised his entire April bundle allocation of 1G. The reason why these calls only appeared in his bill dated 3 June, is that the billing system does its month end at about 9pm on the last day of the month. (The sub increased his bundle to 2G on 1 May). Only 1,195 megs of data were used up until 30th May.

JULY07

In the July07 sheet, you will note that there are also a few calls that relate to the 31st May, with data usage of 47 megs which were not charged for as he had only utilised 1,195 megs for May (up until 30 May). Therefore his usage for the 31st May (that will appear in his bill dated 3 July) will not be charged for.

So basically the data usage is calculated according to the bundle you bought and used (from the first day to last day), while your account may reflect different time periods. But, importantly, you got charged according to the data you used.

A bit like being paid every 25th of the month, even though your contract states you get paid for a full calender month.

 

[Thndr_strck]

Sorry to hijack this thread.
Ok, that explains a lot, but why was I not automatically upgraded to the 2gb bundle on the 1st of April as advertised on TV, radio, print media ??

And for the MAY account what would my OOB rates have been ?

 

[Syndyre]

Sorry to hijack this thread.
Ok, that explains a lot, but why was I not automatically upgraded to the 2gb bundle on the 1st of April as advertised on TV, radio, print media ??

That policy was changed at some stage so that instead of being automatically upgraded you'd stay on your existing package at the lower price and would have to manually upgrade.

 

[Thndr_strck]

Syn - I know that now, but nobody notified me that I would have to manually upgrade. I have only now received the first statement of my account in the last 3 months. I have checked my e-mail archives, and there is no e-mail notification. These is also no postal notification (my current postal address is up-to-date).

I am using the USB modem with VMC Lite interface, so no sms's can be received (as far as I know), and none have been received.

 

[ic]

Sorry to hijack this thread.
Ok, that explains a lot, but why was I not automatically upgraded to the 2gb bundle on the 1st of April as advertised on TV, radio, print media ??

And for the MAY account what would my OOB rates have been ?

I don't remember the specifics of Vodacom's price-reduction advertising campaign in March 2007, but are you absolutely sure that the advertising stated that your data bundle size would automatically be increased from 1GB to 2GB?

Personally, I think that Vodacom made a mistake by changing its stance from automatic to manually increasing data bundle sizes - it should have been manual from the start, but we all know that hindsight has perfect vision.

If you can get hold of any of that advertising, and show that you reasonably expected your data bundle size to increase from 1GB to 2GB on 2007-04-01, then I think you should demand a refund for any OOB charges below 2GB.

 

[Thndr_strck]

I will contact SABC marketing and Times media for original runs. I might be able to get it in writing from a Vodacom rep as well.

And yes it definately did say "all existing 3g contract clients will be automatically upgraded to next higher bundle.

 

[vodacom3g]

I don't remember the specifics of Vodacom's price-reduction advertising campaign in March 2007, but are you absolutely sure that the advertising stated that your data bundle size would automatically be increased from 1GB to 2GB?

Personally, I think that Vodacom made a mistake by changing its stance from automatic to manually increasing data bundle sizes - it should have been manual from the start, but we all know that hindsight has perfect vision.

If you can get hold of any of that advertising, and show that you reasonably expected your data bundle size to increase from 1GB to 2GB on 2007-04-01, then I think you should demand a refund for any OOB charges below 2GB.

The initial idea was to do an automatic upgrade but some legal stuff prevented this. Not sure when the decision was made to not do it. Definitely after I posted the 'automatic upgrade' here, but maybe before the ads went out.

It was in my sig till a few days ago.

 

[vodacom3g]

I will contact SABC marketing and Times media for original runs. I might be able to get it in writing from a Vodacom rep as well.

And yes it definately did say "all existing 3g contract clients will be automatically upgraded to next higher bundle.

Please do get them. I was part of the team that approved the ads and can't remember they stated this.

But you're so sure, I'm obviously mistaken. So would love to see the ads stating "all existing 3g contract clients will be automatically upgraded to next higher bundle".

 

[ic]

The initial idea was to do an automatic upgrade but some legal stuff prevented this. Not sure when the decision was made to not do it. Definitely after I posted the 'automatic upgrade' here, but maybe before the ads went out.

It was in my sig till a few days ago.

Please do get them. I was part of the team that approved the ads and can't remember they stated this.

But you're so sure, I'm obviously mistaken. So would love to see the ads stating "all existing 3g contract clients will be automatically upgraded to next higher bundle".

The thing is that info posted here cannot be viewed as marketing or advertising info - only actual adverts in the printed [magazines & papers etc] or viewed [TV & online ad banners] or heard [radio] media can be seen as actual advertising, but truth be told I don't pay a whole lot of attention to adverts, so I really don't know what was in Vodacom's adverts that did go out - although someone might have taken a photo of one of the paper adverts and posted a link to it somewhere on the forum, which I would have looked at .

What I'm saying here, is that no one should even consider holding you responsible for the info that you had at the time if it was from the forum that they heard that bundle sizes would automatically be upgraded, besides you have always gone to great lengths to ensure that forumites have the correct info, and you certainly did let us know the moment the automatic to manual upgrade policy change happened - I even linked to that post of yours in a 'price reductions' announcement at the top of this forum which was active for quite a while - just think I needed to post that before copies of the actual adverts become available.