Massive Vodacom data bills

@R2 a meg an anti-virus update will cost you two months' salary with Vodascum and Empty N. Cell C ftw
 
garp said:
I can't believe that so many people are seemingly outraged that an ISP does not have readily available detailled records of your browsing activity! Are you people serious? You actually WANT your ISP to log every website you visit and what you transfer on the Internet? ISPs should only ever have usage records available, that is to say connection times and how much traffic you sent and received.

Do you not realise that it is PUNISHABLE by up to 10 years in jail to intercept and monitor your actual traffic without a court order? They generally do have global logs available somewhere securely that could be used for forensic purposes but these do not feed into their billing services and are not identified directly by user but by the ip address of your session which means that they would have to extract your session ip's. Normally, only a handful of people would have access to these logs and would never look at them normally, and if they did they wouldn't have much meaning as they would not be identifiable to a specific user. These logs will normally be compressed and rotated periodically and often discarded after six months anyway.

Please think about what you are complaining about, people. Do you really want some anonymous helpdesk or billing person to have access to your browsing activity and even packet level data including what actual data you sent and received (including passwords and credit card numbers)??? Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
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I think he was referring to connection times and total usage, not specific instances. I think you raged prematurely.
 
@Pavan - nope, I don't think I did:

frailty said:
How can they not give you information regarding YOUR browsing?, But why if you download something you shouldn't...hehe, they can send you a detailed email with exactly what you downloaded etc etc?.

BS, If they expect you to pay a sheit load of money for internet, You would think that you would get some sort of "service" from them.
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gizmoza said:
So if I can see the sites accessed eg. updates.microsoft.com then I will know that it was updates or if it is a dodgy site then I will know it is a virus...
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And rapidx also seems to think they should be keeping your detailed browsing history as well..
 
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I gather garp is complaining about people who posted before me? I don't remember being outraged that an ISP doesn't have my detailed records readily available. I just want to prove that I'm not responsible for paying the bill they've sent me.
 
garp said:
@Pavan - nope, I don't think I did:



And rapidx also seems to think they should be keeping your detailed browsing history as well..
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Ah,ok, I was just referring to the OP's post.

But it is an interesting point you raise. Obviously you dont want anyone to monitor your every move, so all the ISP can really do is monitor your connection times and overall usage per connection right. So in the case of the ISP vs. You, the ISP will always win as even if their 'logs' are incorrect, it's the only information they have! So essentially, ISP's can bill you whatever they like and back their case up with THEIR logs? Yaasis...
 
Mbuzi said:
@R2 a meg an anti-virus update will cost you two months' salary with Vodascum and Empty N. Cell C ftw
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Either you're not earning much or you have bloatware for AV considering a ballpark pattern update at 20Mb. :p

All the mobile providers post-paid systems have the same problem. None of them have real time billing or a true hard-cap when you hit your limit. Even the contract users of the Cell C data promotion get hit with OOB costs albeit at a much more reasonable 39c/Mb.
 
xrapidx said:
Why not? If its the clients data - isn't it the same as providing them with an itemised billing listing the numbers they called?
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Agreed!! my view exactly..and my understanding of ECT act is they HAVE to maintain that database for 5 years...same as SMS communication logs! - care to comment VodacomREP.
 
morkhans said:
Welcome to the wild world of unlimited credit for post paid contract users. Convert yourself to a top-up contract or go pre-paid.

I believe there should be a case for reckless lending in all these situations, but someone with deep pockets will have to prove that in court.
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After re-reading this thread, I'm going to my VC SP this weekend to change to Top-Up. Its means I have to upgrade to a MyMeg500 from a MyMeg300, but that extra R50 a month is my insurance till the contract expires in December.

Currently I've got the modem running on my wifes work PC and using the power of LINUX it, I check the bandwidth to make sure she does not go over the cap. Even though this system works, there is no guarantee that VC billing system does.
 
Pavan said:
Obviously you dont want anyone to monitor your every move, so all the ISP can really do is monitor your connection times and overall usage per connection right. So in the case of the ISP vs. You, the ISP will always win as even if their 'logs' are incorrect, it's the only information they have! So essentially, ISP's can bill you whatever they like and back their case up with THEIR logs? Yaasis...
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Not quite. Since ISP's do theoretically have the information it is possible for them to retrieve it if they have legal cause to do so. So if the user disputed his account through legal channels then they could legitimately extract the data.

I am, however, very disturbed by people who seem to think that Vodacom (or any ISP) is somehow deficient in that they don't have this readily available or as part of their billing, and haven't thought through the implications of having all your detailed Internet traffic identified to you.

It's not about "browsing sites you shouldn't", it's fundamentally about security and privacy. Do you know what scam artists can do with some basic information - like simply being able to see what bank website you use and that you shop at kalahari.net or that you're looking for a new car?

And as for privacy, we're living in an era where we need to safeguard those freedoms and privacy that we have more than ever, and having a bunch of people demanding that Vodacom keep their detailed Internet logs is the perfect excuse for the establishment to further erode our freedom and impose yet another intrusive and bureaucratic burden on us (as if FICA/RICA etc are not enough).
 
wordhog said:
I'm in the process of trying to sort out a problem with Vodacom, whereby they have billed us over R14,000 for our monthly data usage. We know that this is completely impossible*.

On mentioning it to some friends via Facebook, it seems that we are far from alone with this situation - one mentioned she had to pay R6k when Vodacom "proved" that she had overused on her data allowance, another paid over R2k, another R17k (I think that might have been voice roaming rather than data). All three dispute that they used the data/made the calls, but Vodacom insisted that they must have either had a virus or someone else had used the data/phone. My friends gave up and paid.

I'm not going to give up because I KNOW I'm right. But I'm worried now - has anyone ever taken Vodacom on about something like this and WON?

* Proof that it's not possible:
We are a wireless internet provider. It's a MyMeg500 contract and we only use it rarely as a backup when all the ADSL lines go down (it's attached to our load balancer as a failover). Last month, the ADSL lines all went down for approximately approximately 20 minutes on one day. Only one of our customers is configured to use the failover and they are aware they must only use it for email - they were alerted to this at the time as a reminder. The rest of the time, the 3G modem was not in use - we have logs to show the data usage was less than 100Mb during the ADSL outage. Nobody has removed the 3G modem and borrowed it - it would be a sackable offence. According to Vodacom, it was used for around 2 hours on a Saturday (this is BS - it hasn't been used at all at a weekend) and 9Gb was downloaded in that time. Again this is BS - where we live it isn't physically possible to squash 9Gb down the line within 2 hours - and there is no record of this kind of throughput on our logs.

Despite all this I'm worried that Vodacom will force us to pay to retain the service - pay now and we'll sort it out later, that kind of tactic. But more than that, I'm outraged that Vodacom can bully customers into paying for something they didn't use. If we were not a service provider, we wouldn't have the means to prove our innocence. I am a freelance writer and I'm seriously considering writing an exposé on this. Stories and perspectives welcome...
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Hi Wordhog

I had a look at the history of the data usage and found that the connection started just before the night owl period on the 25th Feb. The connection than ran into 27th and stopped at around 8pm. That particular connection used over 12gigs of data.
 
Hey VD, just out of interest - is there anyways that Vodacom's logs are incorrect? If not, does wordhog stang any chance in proving his case?
 
VodacomData said:
Hi Wordhog

I had a look at the history of the data usage and found that the connection started just before the night owl period on the 25th Feb. The connection than ran into 27th and stopped at around 8pm. That particular connection used over 12gigs of data.
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Dude pay it , you cant go up against a billing system that is used globally and cost millions/billions to create..
MTN/CELLC/(correct me if am wrong) uses the same system
 
etwylite said:
Agreed!! my view exactly..and my understanding of ECT act is they HAVE to maintain that database for 5 years...same as SMS communication logs! - care to comment VodacomREP.
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Getting access to URL information is not impossible but very very difficult , as garp says there are a host of legalities surrounding it.

For Contract (Post-Paid) Customers, the data billing principle is very simple, namely that volume of billable data a subscriber consumes over the network is rated, and billed. The network validates the subscriber, sets up and maintains the session, and counts the usage (volume); the billing system rates, bills and reports.
During the above we authenticate the subscriber (essentially the SIM) and the session (network connection) and then simply count the volume (of data used).
We don’t interrogate the device (as Customers are free to use their SIM in any device they wish), nor do we know who the User is (the Customer is free to give their SIM and/or device to whomever s/he wished) nor are we concerned with the content (sites visited, type of content, duration of session, etc), as all of the former are irrelevant to the billing, outside of our control, and confidential to the Customer.
URL information thus does not inform or impact the usage and billing calculations and is irrelevant to the billing accuracy and completeness.
 
I think Vodacom needs to really work on an automatic cap on data usage on postpaid unless the user explicitly raises it. This happens so frequently.

Even when people try to be aware of their data usage, they can get caught out.

How's this for a gotcha scenario? With iPhone tethering users often go out to meetings, coffee shops, airports, etc with their laptops and browse with their iphone on USB using tethering. Unless you specifically switch off tethering on the iPhone it STAYS ON. They get home, plug the iPhone back into the laptop to charge/sync itunes and happily surf for hours not realising that their primary internet connection is now the iPhone tether using 3G and not their normal local connectivity. In fact, for those with 384kbps ADSL or slow connections they suddenly think their internet connection is so much faster (because it's actually on 3G) so they download way more than normal... and then a month later the bill arrives for that 2GB internet session...
 
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VodacomData said:
Hi Wordhog

I had a look at the history of the data usage and found that the connection started just before the night owl period on the 25th Feb. The connection than ran into 27th and stopped at around 8pm. That particular connection used over 12gigs of data.
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Ouch! :cry:
 
garp said:
I think Vodacom needs really work on an automatic cap on data usage on postpaid unless the user explicitly raises it. This happens so frequently.

Even when people try to be aware of their data usage, they can get caught out.

How's this for a gotcha scenario? With iPhone tethering users often go out to meetings, coffee shops, airports, etc with their laptops and browse with their iphone on USB using tethering. Unless you specifically switch off tethering on the iPhone it STAYS ON. They get home, plug the iPhone back into the laptop to charge/sync itunes and happily surf for hours not realising that their primary internet connection is now the iPhone tether using 3G and not their normal local connectivity. In fact, for those with 384kbps ADSL or slow connections they suddenly think their internet connection is so much faster (because it's actually on 3G) so they download way more than normal... and then a month later the bill arrives for that 2GB internet session...
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this happened to you ?
 
etwylite said:
Agreed!! my view exactly..and my understanding of ECT act is they HAVE to maintain that database for 5 years...same as SMS communication logs! - care to comment VodacomREP.
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I'm not sure how long they're required to keep the data, however, the same act contains serious penalties (up to 10 yrs jail) for intercepting or monitoring the actual traffic beyond bulk usage stats required for billing, unless they have a court order. Please think very carefully if you want any ISP helpdesk or accounting person or who knows who to have access to details of your actual browsing data.
 
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