Vodacom data pricing

[Bosmanp]

How does Vodacom bill their data clients?

I have paid R7794.37 more in October for my 3Gb Vodacom data contract than usually. The money has already been deducted from my bank account and I have queried Vodacom about it. According to their EDR report, the total usage on the account was 23534781797 bytes (22227.45198mb) of which 16244621754 bytes (15342.25187mb) was out of bundle. The out of bundle rate is R1/mb, but the bill does not add up to R1/mb. It seems to be closer to 45 sents per mb. Apart from that, I paid R7794.37, but according to the EDR, the bill should be R6837.17. I have spoken to multiple people at Vodacom, but nobody could tell me how the bill amount was calculated. It is so frustrating because nobody can help me. They just kept on telling me the bill is correct. Does anyone know how they calculate it?

 

[Chunk]

R6837.17 is the amount excl. VAT. Including VAT it amounts to R7794.37. Quite simple actually...

 

[Gulio]

3GB package is 50c including vat out of bundle.

 

[Bosmanp]

Okay thank you. That was stupid of me, but how do they get to that amount from the 15342.25mb if the out of bundle rate is suppose to be R1 per mb? According to this, I get 2.24mb per R1, or pay 45c per mb, which does not make sense.

 

[Bosmanp]

...or actually 50.312 cents per mb including VAT and not 50 cents. It looks like they are over charging me 0.312 cents per mb in that case. This makes a difference on 15Gb and if they are doing this to everyone, they are stealing a lot of money.

 

[Terencek]

Bosmanp's data bill is astronomical! Surely it would have made more sense and would have been MUCH cheaper, if you know in advance you are going to exceed your bundle, to buy prepaid bundles (if necessary on a different SIM)?

A prepaid Telkom Mobile deal, for example, works out at something like 5c/MB, against the 50c/MB or so he was billed.... CellC has cheap prepaid bundles too, and even the Vodacom prepaid bundles are far cheaper than the extortionate OOB rate.

 

[Bosmanp]

I did not use the data. I am still not sure what used the data. I never exceed my 3Gb bundle (with 3Gb Night Owl) and I am busy negotiating with Vodacom about the bill. The negotiations is painful. They say that they are unable to tell me where the connection was made to, but as part of the "good will gesture" that they are offering me, I have to sign to agree that I used the data and that if it happens again, Vodacom will not offer me a reduced tariff again and that they (Vodacom) has helped me to understand how the problem was caused in order for myself to ensure that it does not happen again.

I have been dealing with Customer Care Escalations through their generic e-mail address ([email protected]) without having a way of contacting anyone directly. After I started asking questions about how the billing works, they stopped responding to my e-mails. Does anyone know who I can contact directly?

 

[krieg]

Convert your package to a top up to ensure you don't get a surprise again. You will lose the night owl portion.