Vodacom billing shock from Google Play Store

quovadis said:
To be blunt. Discipline the employee and leave Vodacom out of it. The actions of your employee are your responsibility and not Vodacom's. You authorised the employee to use the device, he or she then used it accruing charges you had not envisaged. If you don't have a mobile device policy in place for employees you should implement one to cover non-work related activities.
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Indeed. There was no hacking of google account, it's linked to the SIM. There was no fraudulent SIM swap, employee still has working SIM.
 
MetalBasher said:
So it seems I asked Vodacom to deactivate the service on the 14th January 2019.
Ref :EC-1RSI-28IEA8. Nothing was done and my Book keeper thought the account seemed in line with other cell phone accounts the company has.
I know that this seems silly that I did not notice this, but it slipped through the cracks. The amounts are trivial in relation to other company expenses. My position is that I was never made aware of the ramifications of carrier billing, and that I never authorized it, I have just had a long and unhappy conversation with Vodacom where they confirmed that an employee may make no changes to my vodacom account without authorization, but that they can enable vodacom billing on the google play store with my say so.
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You need to speak to somebody at Vodacom Business. At our company, everybody that gets a contract cellphone signs an agreement with Vodacom, and the company only pays a fixed amount (the nominal contract value). Everything above that value (extra calls or data) is deducted by Vodacom directly from the employee's bank account. So basically the employee takes out the contract with Vodacom, and the employer pays a fixed amount. That way they can still benefit from the better contracts the business can get and the employers liability is fixed. Not sure how easy it is to get this in place and if you need a minimum number of contracts, but it is worth finding out.
 
MetalBasher said:
So it seems I asked Vodacom to deactivate the service on the 14th January 2019.
Ref :EC-1RSI-28IEA8. Nothing was done and my Book keeper thought the account seemed in line with other cell phone accounts the company has.
I know that this seems silly that I did not notice this, but it slipped through the cracks. The amounts are trivial in relation to other company expenses. My position is that I was never made aware of the ramifications of carrier billing, and that I never authorized it, I have just had a long and unhappy conversation with Vodacom where they confirmed that an employee may make no changes to my vodacom account without authorization, but that they can enable vodacom billing on the google play store with my say so.
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did you ask the employee what did he think will happen when he activated carrier billing on play store?
 
MetalBasher said:
The employee claims his Google account was hacked.
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I'm not sure if the same applies to Vodacom, but with Telkom Mobile Google Play Billing, payments can't be made without the sim being present in the device the purchase was being made.

If that's also the case with Vodacom, your employee is lying to you.

Carrier billing is a great feature of both networks, provided you're in control of what you're doing.
 
Totempole said:
I'm not sure if the same applies to Vodacom, but with Telkom Mobile Google Play Billing, payments can't be made without the sim being present in the device the purchase was being made.
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This is an odd one. I had this long thing typed out about how one is not able to purchase stuff without the SIM being present in the phone blah blah blah, as I tested it with my wife's phone a few months ago.

As in, I put a Vodacom sim in her phone, set up carrier billing, plopped back the original MTN SIM and - no go. Some error I cannot exactly recall. It would not allow me to select the payment method. Just checked now - the payment method shows, but with an error message about "Your device is not provisioned for carrier billing. Contact your mobile operator. "

Before I posted my whole long story I thought I would check if my phone did the same... and it did not. I just tested it now.

I set up carrier billing on my android phone for 3 vodacom contract sims quite some time ago. The test phone does not currently have a SIM in it at all. It is still has the google account on it that I used to activate carrier billing. Was able to purchase two items from the play store using the Vodacom payment method for SIMx as well as SIMy (google play does not differentiate between the different "Vodacom" payment methods, but simply lists them all as Vodacom). SIMx was in another active android phone using the same android account and SIMy was not even in a device and is sitting on the desk next to me.

This is obliviously 110% unscientific and does not prove or disprove anything.
 
ld13 said:
This is obliviously 110% unscientific and does not prove or disprove anything.
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Well it proves (on Vodacom at least), that it is actually possible to use carrier billing on the Play Store without the actual sim being present on some devices.
 
Best solution. Use an Apple phone and MTN contract
 
although very usefull, i am trying to figure out how to protect yourself against this?
in a "family business" setup , where father buys contracts for the whole family, how canhe control what payment methods the children selects on playstore :? :? :?

and yes - they will obviously spend hours on the phone, and if small enough, will probably not even know what they are doing when presented with a working payment method.

Nope sorry , although convenient, i will avoid carriers that allows this uncontrolled.
@MetalBasher - thank you for sharing your experience with us. hope you get Vodacom to remove this from company phones.
 
Neo_X said:
although very usefull, i am trying to figure out how to protect yourself against this?
in a "family business" setup , where father buys contracts for the whole family, how canhe control what payment methods the children selects on playstore :? :? :?
Click to expand...
Top up contracts or prepaid
 
Neo_X said:
although very usefull, i am trying to figure out how to protect yourself against this?
in a "family business" setup , where father buys contracts for the whole family, how canhe control what payment methods the children selects on playstore :? :? :?

and yes - they will obviously spend hours on the phone, and if small enough, will probably not even know what they are doing when presented with a working payment method.

Nope sorry , although convenient, i will avoid carriers that allows this uncontrolled.
@MetalBasher - thank you for sharing your experience with us. hope you get Vodacom to remove this from company phones.
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See an earlier reply of mine.. Google offers Google Family, which has master accounts that can delegate access for various things, including payment methods, verification of payments before purchase by 'child' account as well as a shared payment method if you so wish..
 
WAslayer said:
See an earlier reply of mine.. Google offers Google Family, which has master accounts that can delegate access for various things, including payment methods, verification of payments before purchase by 'child' account as well as a shared payment method if you so wish..
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Here is the problem: Why do I sign a contract with Vodacom, then have to go to Google and whoever else may use carriers for billing. What about Gupta, Gupta and Gupta if they decide to launch such a model. Did we not learn something from WASPs? By default these things have to be opt in with the contract owner.

I could equally say the OP and Google has no agreement, yet the OP is the contract owner. I'm sure a good lawyer would have a field day with this.

All I wanted was a phone, ended up having to pawn my farm ...
 
Sollie said:
Here is the problem: Why do I sign a contract with Vodacom, then have to go to Google and whoever else may use carriers for billing. What about Gupta, Gupta and Gupta if they decide to launch such a model. Did we not learn something from WASPs?

All I wanted was a phone, ended up having to pawn my farm ...
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What the hell does Gupta have to do with this..??

Its been mentioned so many times on this thread, carrier billing is opt-in only.. this scenario does not happen unless you told Google to activate Carrier billing and upon purchase choose carrier billing as a payment method..

The only problem here is, employer who is not properly handling access to these things for his employees..
 
Sollie said:
Here is the problem: Why do I sign a contract with Vodacom, then have to go to Google and whoever else may use carriers for billing. What about Gupta, Gupta and Gupta if they decide to launch such a model. Did we not learn something from WASPs? By default these things have to be opt in with the contract owner.

I could equally say the OP and Google has no agreement, yet the OP is the contract owner. I'm sure a good lawyer would have a field day with this.

All I wanted was a phone, ended up having to pawn my farm ...
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Unlike Wasps where they subscribe people without any option - you literally have to go choose to activate this - it isn't offered to you
WTF has this got to do with the Guptas.
The contract owner trusted his employees not to be an Idiot.
The employee is making **** up about being hacked - he made the purchased knowingly or left his child to play with his phone who racked the charges up - either way he is responsible.

Like i said the OP employee should say what the hell was he thinking will happen when he activated carrier billing
 
WAslayer said:
What the hell does Gupta have to do with this..??

Its been mentioned so many times on this thread, carrier billing is opt-in only.. this scenario does not happen unless you told Google to activate Carrier billing and upon purchase choose carrier billing as a payment method..

The only problem here is, employer who is not properly handling access to these things for his employees..
Click to expand...
I said what if Gupta, Gupta and Gupta decided to adopt a carrier billing system. Meaning - anybody with nefarious intentions.

Sure you can opt out of Google's model if you know about it. But what happens when another company, let's call them "Some & Else" to not offend sensitivities here. :rolleyes:

The issue here is the contract owner has no say in what is allowed, only the user. Sure an opt-out is available, but it should have been opt-in by the contract owner.
 
isie said:
Unlike Wasps where they subscribe people without any option - you literally have to go choose to activate this - it isn't offered to you
WTF has this got to do with the Guptas.
The contract owner trusted his employees not to be an Idiot.
The employee is making **** up about being hacked - he made the purchased knowingly or left his child to play with his phone who racked the charges up - either way he is responsible.

Like i said the OP employee should say what the hell was he thinking will happen when he activated carrier billing
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Ek dag goeie bergrypers het 'n halwe woord nodig? Maar ek gaan nie 'n "Swa" met jou begin nie ...
 
Sollie said:
I said what if Gupta, Gupta and Gupta decided to adopt a carrier billing system. Meaning - anybody with nefarious intentions.

Sure you can opt out of Google's model if you know about it. But what happens when another company, let's call them "Some & Else" to not offend sensitivities here. :rolleyes:

The issue here is the contract owner has no say in what is allowed, only the user. Sure an opt-out is available, but it should have been opt-in by the contract owner.
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The contract owner from Vodacom perspective could have not provided unlimited spend contracts to employees... Use prepaid and have employees claim back at the end of the month or top up contracts..

This control alsl already exists from Google's perspective and would have saved OP's butt as well..

The is really no excuse here or blame to be placed anywhere but on OP..
 
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