Vodacom billing shock from Google Play Store

[Cius]

My 12 year old nephew managed a 10K bill on clash of clans once not fully understanding what he was doing. My sister contacted supercell and they were willing to reverse the charge when the situation was explained to them. Nephew even got to keep the gems.

 

[isie]

Ek dag goeie bergrypers het 'n halwe woord nodig? Maar ek gaan nie 'n "Swa" met jou begin nie ...

Don't post on a public forum if you don't want any one to disagree with you.
Honestly dude why are you guys so but hurt , I called him out on his BS and he didn't like it, not sure why you getting Eina here on a different thread.



The guy is irresponsible with his work phone , and racks up a bill, it's no one else's fault but his own.
OP is a nice boss but seriously he is very Naive.

I said what if Gupta, Gupta and Gupta decided to adopt a carrier billing system. Meaning - anybody with nefarious intentions.

Do you even know how Googles Carrier billing works?
It's not like how Wasps operate.
You literally need to set this up on the phone and so even if some one with nefarious intentions sets this up - you need to register for their service first then activate carrier billing.

**** you must be one of those people that blames everyone elses for their own stupidity!

Seriously you don't want people to call you out on BS but you talk ****!

 

[biometrics]

@MetalBasher, any luck?

 

[Thor]

I'm 100% with OP on this one. Vodacom should never allow for such a high limit on in app purchases its absurd.

 

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Don't post on a public forum if you don't want any one to disagree with you.
Honestly dude why are you guys so but hurt , I called him out on his BS and he didn't like it, not sure why you getting Eina here on a different thread.



The guy is irresponsible with his work phone , and racks up a bill, it's no one else's fault but his own.
OP is a nice boss but seriously he is very Naive.




Do you even know how Googles Carrier billing works?
It's not like how Wasps operate.
You literally need to set this up on the phone and so even if some one with nefarious intentions sets this up - you need to register for their service first then activate carrier billing.

**** you must be one of those people that blames everyone elses for their own stupidity!

Seriously you don't want people to call you out on BS but you talk ****!

Rather amusing to see how fast you are to attack "WTF has this got to do with the Guptas.", then when people point out your idiocy, suddenly they are butt hurt. But I see slowly the penny drop as to what I said as you edited your post.

Do you even know how Googles Carrier billing works?

Exactly. Why should anybody have to when they as a business owner have no interest in it. But by your own convoluted all-embracing wisdom, you have toopt-out of it (including whatever "Gupta, Gupta and Gupta", "Somebody & Else" ... perhaps even Isie wants to allow via Vodacom).

But then again your all-embracing wisdom should perhaps look at default opt-out by the business owner as traditional wisdom says.

Anyway, since I do not feel like your kuk arguments ... just blocking you since I'm here to have sincere discussions, not clevuhnesses ...

 

[isie]

Rather amusing to see how fast you are to attack "WTF has this got to do with the Guptas.", then when people point out your idiocy, suddenly they are butt hurt. But I see slowly the penny drop as to what I said as you edited your post.

You brought them up ,It was a question not an attack , WTF does it have to do with the Guptas?
Nothing. Honestly if you feel attacked now, just hold on I have not even started.
You the one talking about Swa , shame you feeling Eina for him.
I edited my post to add in the part about you talking BS - i posted at 1541, you come pass at 1753 , trying to say what i change

Exactly. Why should anybody have to when they as a business owner have no interest in it.

so many settings and services available that are not business related. You want them to take blame if employees stupidly use them all.
A business has no use for wifi tethering,thats available, the employee could have set up his phone as a wifi hotspot and then used his phones internet for his home use , will you blame vodacom for that?


A business should have decent sense to set up a maximum bill amount and should actually check bills instead of waiting who knows how long to check.

Carrier billing has been available for long now on different providers ,I remember back in nokia symbian days they had it available , samsung has it for the galaxy store apple for Itunes etc. The carrier has to provide for it (not all do for all services) and you need to activate it, is not something that happens by mistake.

But by your own convoluted all-embracing wisdom, you have toopt-out of it (including whatever "Gupta, Gupta and Gupta", "Somebody & Else" ... perhaps even Isie wants to allow via Vodacom).

No have you bothered to read what i said? I guess not because I said, You need to activate it per service ,It is not something that's on by default, so not opt out for it you need to log in to the play store and activate it (or whatever store it is) - so he(the employee) had to have done this, how is this vodacom's fault.

But then again your all-embracing wisdom should perhaps look at default opt-out by the business owner as traditional wisdom says.

I ask again , Why in the hell would any one activate carrier billing on their company phone , honestly its a dismissable offence
I guess only @Sollie will do it and blame the SP and claim he was hacked.

Anyway, since I do not feel like your kuk arguments ... just blocking you since I'm here to have sincere discussions, not clevuhnesses ...

Shame cant have decent conversation, just because some explains what you don't understand,makes you feel Stupid = seems like the only one who can't have a decent discussion.

People saying Vodacom should not allow such high bills, agreed - but at the same time why did a business not put measures in place to prevent such high bills.

At the end of the day I still see the employee is at fault as he was the person who activated a service

 

[bixt]

Will the Google Family suggestion touted here work, if say the employee signs out of that, and signs in with their personal Google account, and then proceeds to activate carrier billing? (which wasnt activated before)

 

[AstroTurf]

I would quote @isie But that would just involve a lot of deleting crap (no offence, just not relevant to what I am saying).

Basically just want to say that my boss got hit with a lot of content bills as well as vodacom movie bills. He never opted into any of it and I am really unsure how it happened...

 

[AstroTurf]

Will the Google Family suggestion touted here work, if say the employee signs out of that, and signs in with their personal Google account, and then proceeds to activate carrier billing? (which wasnt activated before)

Good question, I have my daughter on family but still get subscribed to WASPS and such from her in game whatever on my primary internet account at random, even though I have stopped and blocked all. Luckily it's a prepaid type account so no harm done.

 

[WAslayer]

Will the Google Family suggestion touted here work, if say the employee signs out of that, and signs in with their personal Google account, and then proceeds to activate carrier billing? (which wasnt activated before)

Good question, I have my daughter on family but still get subscribed to WASPS and such from her in game whatever on my primary internet account at random, even though I have stopped and blocked all. Luckily it's a prepaid type account so no harm done.

Unfortunately not.. it's linked via whichever Google account is added to the main account as a child account..

Depending on the phone manufacturer and how they modified android, you could setup a restricted profile that would allow access to specific apps only and should disable access to settings like adding additional Google accounts..

 

[isie]

I would quote @isie But that would just involve a lot of deleting crap (no offence, just not relevant to what I am saying).

Basically just want to say that my boss got hit with a lot of content bills as well as vodacom movie bills. He never opted into any of it and I am really unsure how it happened...

I had nothing to do with the content charges I swear
Odd thing i noticed on my wifes vodacom, a wasp subscription was active although it said R7 a day - she didn't lose any airtime.
i deactivated it anyway

 

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

I would quote @isie But that would just involve a lot of deleting crap (no offence, just not relevant to what I am saying).

Basically just want to say that my boss got hit with a lot of content bills as well as vodacom movie bills. He never opted into any of it and I am really unsure how it happened...

This is exactly my point. On a business contract where the company gives out devices for work purposes, the company should not care about whatever other potential services is possible on a cell phone - the default should be off.

In these things you have 4 parties:
a) The company who takes out the contract, for the use of
b) the employee, where the contract is with
c) the mobile provider.
d) Is the app provider.

(d) has no agreement with (a). Why should (b) be able to enable a billable service at (d) without the permission of (a). Why more should (c) allow it?

By what right can (d) claim from (a), unless via (c) who profits and allows any junk to be enabled by (b), knowing full well (a) is the contract holder? Also consider there are many (d)s. (a) can impossibly expected to know about all the (d)s. He is not a cell expert like (c), he is an expert at his business. If this were true he'd be forever running around looking after cell phone contracts and have no time to focus on what he should be doing.

The default setting should be disabled and only (a) can enable it. Common sense becomes and oxymoron when money is to be made. Saw something like this the first time in the early 90's, prime numbers on landlines, rapidly taken up a bit later on cell phones, big boo-haa later each was blocked. Nobody learns.

 

[isie]

This is exactly my point. On a business contract where the company gives out devices for work purposes, the company should not care about whatever other potential services is possible on a cell phone - the default should be off.

In these things you have 4 parties:
a) The company who takes out the contract, for the use of
b) the employee, where the contract is with
c) the mobile provider.
d) Is the app provider.

(d) has no agreement with (a). Why should (b) be able to enable a billable service at (d) without the permission of (a). Why more should (c) allow it?

By what right can (d) claim from (a), unless via (c) who profits and allows any junk to be enabled by (b), knowing full well (a) is the contract holder? Also consider there are many (d)s. (a) can impossibly expected to know about all the (d)s. He is not a cell expert like (c), he is an expert at his business. If this were true he'd be forever running around looking after cell phone contracts and have no time to focus on what he should be doing.

The default setting should be disabled and only (a) can enable it. Common sense becomes and oxymoron when money is to be made. Saw something like this the first time in the early 90's, prime numbers on landlines, rapidly taken up a bit later on cell phones, big boo-haa later each was blocked. Nobody learns.

You ignoring me but none the less I can let those not ignoring see my response

You made some very good points, Why is an employee allowed to activate or deactivate a service? - So in that aspect I can agree with you. But it is not correct to take responsibility of this away from an employee.

A responsible adult will know not to activate this service, let alone use it to such an extent.

If you have a company credit card (a vodacom contract falls under a credit service as well if you think about it) and only meant for work spend , and you use it for personal items - is it the card companies fault that you did this?

 

[ld13]

Vodacom and Google deny any responsibility. Has anyone else had this happen to them?

What did Google tell you?

Have you looked at the order history on the cellphone in question? https://play.google.com/store/account/orderhistory
This should tell you a better story and enable you to request a refund.

 

[MetalBasher]

As a followup..... I have a reference number EC-1RCC-3NEOC6 which was logged on the 14th January 2019 to deactivate carrier billing on my company account. The request was not complied with. We were then told the onus was on the cell phone user to deactivate the service. The employee in question then took it apon himself to request that the service was deactivated on all company phones. I discovered this afternoon that vodacom billing was not working on my phone. I phoned customer care at 14:00 08/09/2019 and spoke to Brenda Khoza who informed me that as it is a company account I cannot activate vodacom billing, I queried that and stated that I had previously had the service. She said that perhaps the company had blocked it. I asked how and was given the procedure, which had previously followed. And thus I think I can say that I have been lied to by Vodacom. The request should have been complied with in the beginning. They should have taken responsibility.

 

[isie]

As a followup..... I have a reference number EC-1RCC-3NEOC6 which was logged on the 14th January 2019 to deactivate carrier billing on my company account. The request was not complied with. We were then told the onus was on the cell phone user to deactivate the service. The employee in question then took it apon himself to request that the service was deactivated on all company phones.

Is this employee somehow responsible for all company contracts?

I discovered this afternoon that vodacom billing was not working on my phone. I phoned customer care at 14:00 08/09/2019 and spoke to Brenda Khoza who informed me that as it is a company account I cannot activate vodacom billing, I queried that and stated that I had previously had the service. She said that perhaps the company had blocked it. I asked how and was given the procedure, which had previously followed. And thus I think I can say that I have been lied to by Vodacom. The request should have been complied with in the beginning. They should have taken responsibility.

You asking about vodacom billing or carrier billing?
The question may sound stupid but to a customer service rep if it is in the script the answer is no.

 

[MetalBasher]

Is this employee somehow responsible for all company contracts?



You asking about vodacom billing or carrier billing?
The question may sound stupid but to a customer service rep if it is in the script the answer is no.

The employee is not responsible for company accounts. On Jan 14th we deactivated all carrier billing / vodacom billing on Google play store. I have not just being dealing customer care. I have also been in contact with the CEO and the KZN head office. This afternoon I have given contradictory information to what I was given before.

 

[maumau]

Aren't you the company owner? How dare an employee give VC an instruction to deactivate carrier billing on all phones?

 

[MetalBasher]

Aren't you the company owner? How dare an employee give VC an instruction to deactivate carrier billing on all phones?

vodacom seemed happy to do it, completely contradicting previous statements.

 

[MetalBasher]

vodacom seemed happy to do it, completely contradicting previous statements.

The point here is that when I requested that they deactivate they did not, leading to a massive bill. When my employee requested they deactivate they did.