Excessive GPRS billing on MTN

V

VMS

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I recently got a 6680. Basically using the telephone a lot for MSN chat and occational browsing and emailing.

Got my bill for last month. I was billed R90 (i.e. 45MB) for GPRS. My total counter value reached 10MB for about 30 days (bill was for about 20 days, so I estimate that the R90 is not the whole story).

On my bill it shows that I have had session where I downloaded in continuous stretches of up to 38 minutes at the maximum theoretical GPRS speed of 57 000 bits/s (while I was sleeping).

Autopage told me that they cannot help me and that I have to phone MTN. MTN says it has nothing to do with them and that my SP must sort it out.

So there can be a few reasons fot this mess:
(1) I am actually using up the bandwidth and my 6680 data counter is faulty(which is unlikely as my Vodacom 3G account normally sits at 30MB per month when only doing a amount of emailing and MSN)
(2) The 6680 connects by itself and downloads chunks of data going nowhere.
(3) MTN/Autopage are screwing me. Billing me big time for only a few bytes used.

I have stopped using my MTN GPRS since the 9th of December as I am too scared to use it. The R90 doesn't scare me that much. The fact that Autopage/MTN can turn around and state that I have used 1GB or more freakes me out. Also the fact that no one wants to help me also freaks me out. The lady at Autopage got bitchy with me and demanded proof that I did not use data stated. How can I prove it?


Anybody else having the same problems?

VMS
 
R90 and you moaning? Or am i missing something? My GPRS usage is sitting on over a grand according to my counter
 
Freshy-ZN said:
R90 and you moaning? Or am i missing something? My GPRS usage is sitting on over a grand according to my counter
Click to expand...
According to him, he is paying R90 for 10mb = R9 per mb so your well over a grand would be :
if you paying R499 per gb = you have used over 2gb and at R9 per mb that well over a grand is well over R 18000! so you WOULD*BE*MOANING!
 
Cell-C bill in 20kbit blocks which are rounded up and maybe MTN have caught on and are billing in a similar crooked style? ;)
 
The helpdesk (data helpdesk, those guys with the black berries) says they bill in 5kb increments. Though my account states differently.

It appears that the integration of the various sp's and MTN as a network has been extremely poorly implemented.

I am glad that I went with MTNSP. Even if they are so obviously lacking in service excellence...
 
...hmmm yeah.

I have suspected this for quiet a while now but have been too lazy to check and follow up on my usages/charges.

I too have had GPRS charges for around a R1000 but doubt my usage / counter (6680) will match up to this.

Time to do some auditing!!! Perhaps if other/more people do the same then it will be more difficult to get the "we cannot help you, that's your problem, you shouldn't be surfing so much high resolution porn on your phone anyway!" treament.
 
I have a 350Mb data bundle. I mainly use it for connectivity from my laptop, and for an email application on the phone (which is very light on bandwidth).

While the data-counter on 6630 has always been inaccurate, I have double checked usage reported by my laptop ( in the dialup connection status windows when disconnecting) with that is getting billed for the session on MTN CallQuest / MTN Active, and it checks out.

As far as I know, MTNSP bills in 1 byte increments, rounded up per session to the nearest R0.01
 
Same here

Also going through my Mychoice 150 airtime pretty quickly even though it is not being reflected on the counters.
 
This is a valid gripe

What do the SPs have in place to show the usage billed is valid... like itemised calls is to phone usage. This is why per meg billing is a bad idea... it is too easy to chalk up a huge bill - especially on an xp based pc with a mass mailing worm.
 
There definitely seems to be something wrong with their billing - I bought a 10Mb bundle just to try it out, and even though I've used about 800Kb so far my balance (via *141#) is now sitting at 8.3Mb left :-(

I thought the mtn bundles might work out better than vodacom, since they work out to R1/MB rather than vodcom's R2, but if they're billing me for double my usage then it's not going to work.

But how can they get away with such blatantly incorrect billing?!
 
EdRobinson said:
This is why per meg billing is a bad idea... it is too easy to chalk up a huge bill - especially on an xp based pc with a mass mailing worm.
Click to expand...

Whats the alternative? Time-based? bleh.....
 
Why don't you guys stop coplaining and buy a gprs databundle from mtn that is what I did and it also doesn,t cost that much
 
Cathryn you must remember that you are paying for the data you send as well as the data you receive that is why your bundle is lower than you thought. I made the same mistake the day I bought my GPRS Modem
 
Hmmmm.. I've been using my i-mate and gprs for the past few weeks - better double check that bill when it arrives to darken my doorstep! :) Can the i-mate tell me how much data has been transferred so that I can compare with what the network's reading is?
 
Ignac said:
Cathryn you must remember that you are paying for the data you send as well as the data you receive that is why your bundle is lower than you thought. I made the same mistake the day I bought my GPRS Modem
Click to expand...

Thanks, but I'm well aware of that :-) The figures I quoted were for total usage, up and down.
 
Ha!

Ignac said:
Why don't you guys stop coplaining and buy a gprs databundle from mtn that is what I did and it also doesn,t cost that much
Click to expand...
What has this got to do with the problem Ignac?
I have a data bundle from MTN. But if they can't prove to me that I have used 100Mb or 1Gb of my bundle, what use is it to me? How do I know that they are billing me (or depleting my bundle) fairly? Surely they can give me a breakdown per domain that has been contacted - i.e. 200mb for x.mtn.co.za and 100mb for x.mybroadband.co.za etc. I know it may be long because of all the MS rubbish that travels across the wire - like the prisoner.iana.org DNS calls etc, but just an email breakdown or an online breakdown will do me fine. Believe me - when you wake up 3-10Gb down the line to find out that you have had a trojan operating without your consent (and don't tell me that an antivirus will prevent this - I have seen too many clients be the first to discover a trojan - before an AV update comes out), then you will cry foul, believe me.
Time based billing is no answer either, but at the very least, an itemised DNS query list would be helpful... or... how about NO CAP? It is possible to be the first you know MTN?
 
MaD said:
Hmmmm.. I've been using my i-mate and gprs for the past few weeks - better double check that bill when it arrives to darken my doorstep! :) Can the i-mate tell me how much data has been transferred so that I can compare with what the network's reading is?
Click to expand...

The Imate cannot tell you - u need to download 3rd party software that will tell u..
the best i found is SPBGPRS monitor which gives you the data rates according to different bundles of different networks sand tells u what u sipposed to be paying - in and out of bundle etc and gives u reports of a date to a certain date...very useful software..search for it on google.
 
My problem is still that I have been billed for sessions while I was asleep in bed. The Autopage bill clearly states that I downloaded data at the theoretical maximum speed of 57000 bits per second for about 38 minutes. Where did my cellphone store this data? Why did the built-in counter not pick this up? This all on IM+ (MSN net messenger) on my 6680 connected to nothing else.

I am using Vodacom 3G and (when it works) I double check my usage with DU meter and it is usually spot on.

So either my cellphone and software is suspect or I am being billed when not online. I have stopped using GPRS on MTN since Dec the 9th. I will check my next statement before preparing a case against MTN/Autopage. It seems that these excessive traffic is billed hours before or after I have used it. Thus it is a possibility that no traffic will show up from the 9th. If I find anything suspect I will post my methods used so that the rest of you can check your bills as well.

I will also keep a detailed log(after the next statement), for a month, when I went online, for how long and the amount of data transferred. If I find anything I will let you know.



VMS
 
VMS said:
My problem is still that I have been billed for sessions while I was asleep in bed. The Autopage bill clearly states that I downloaded data at the theoretical maximum speed of 57000 bits per second for about 38 minutes.
Click to expand...
16MB? Is there even that amount free on your phone? Can they tell you what site you were 'connected to or downloading from'?
 
Mayb a trojan

My guess. Or just a trojan billing system... but the real issue is that they probably can't tell you what was happening for that session.
 
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