Vodacom ordered to stop BMW competition

milomak said:
As i've stated before, once contract customer spending patterns were say 10%-20% above the normal levels on the back of the competition, Vodacom should have sent out at the very least an SMS/email/call to make the subscriber aware.
Click to expand...

Why bother - they aren't bothered with contract data user's usage. It is more money to be made for whatever quest they take on in future. Maybe an animated Ivy to replace Meerkat:eek:

Attention 101: Prime time ads on TV - just ignore it. They are trying to sell you something you do not need, with easy payments to convince you. Or a load of bull.
 
The cellphone companies is perhaps the only companies that actually ABUSE the poor people for the sake of the rich and get away with it.

If you purchased one of that BMW's from Vodacom on contract you would pay for example R100 000 but if you buy the same BMW from them because your income is not enough to get a contract you must pay R300 000.

All over the world you get DISCOUNT for cash and pay MORE for credit but with the cellphone companies it works the opposite way where people that's employed and financial strong enough to get a contract pay FAR less than those that cannot get a contract.

Have money = Free Phones + cheaper fees on contract (higher risk)
No money = Pay for phone + higher fees on prepaid (no risk at all)
 
The Problem With The Competition

Promotional competitions in SA are governed by the provisions of the Lotteries Act, Regulations for Promotional Competitions issued in terms of the Lotteries Act and the provisions of the WASPA Code of Conduct.

PROBLEM 1 - In terms of the definition of a 'promotional competition' there must be an element of chance (i.e. lucky draw). The daily Vodacom competition had an element of chance because the winner was randomly selected, but not so the weekly 'competition' where the winner was the person with the most entries (the person who spent the most money). No element of chance here, therefor not a promotional competition and thus illegal ito the Lotteries Act.

PROBLEM 2 - Both the abovementioned Regulations and the WASPA Code states that the 'cost to enter a promotional competition must be clearly stated'. It is also illegal to 'hide' the competition costs in the costs of an sms required to enter of to buy so-called credits. Only standard sms costs may be charged to enter a competition.

According to the 2007 Annual Report of the National Lotteries Board:

"As the industry watchdog, the National Lotteries Board is becoming aware of more illegal lotteries, many of which are conducted through cell phones. The Board is not opposed to companies promoting their goods and services through competitions, provided that all legislation is adhered to. It has come to the attention of the Board that there are some companies who under the guise of competitions are in fact running illegal lotteries. Many of these are conducted through cell phones. Participants are charged rates higher than the normal cell phone charges. In terms of the Act this is not allowed and it is the intention of the Board to clamp down on these competitions and the public has been advised through media releases and interviews that participation in such lotteries is illegal. The Department of Trade and Industry has recommended that the section on promotional competitions in the Lotteries Act and the regulations on promotional competitions be incorporated in the Consumer Bill. This has been drafted and published for comment and might become law in the next year. The Board, however, continues to police the operations of promotional competitions by taking appropriate legal action against offenders that conduct unlawful competitions."

Vodacom's continued claim that the competition is (was) in fact legal, makes them look like the fools they probably are. Then again, admitting they violated the law may result in thousands of Vodacom subscribers claiming there money back... either way a PR mess...

See how Vodacom subscribers fume on HelloPeter: http://www.hellopeter.com/comp_comment.asp?cid=357

Regards,

Reinhardt Buys
 
And don't forget about the SPAMMING.

I never asked, opted-in or whatever to receive rubbish from Vodacom but they ignored it like hell and continue to spam everybody with sms'es.

It's is illegal to send spam sms'e so what gives Vodacom the right to send such sms'es to people that don't want it and in fact already CLEARLY stated they don't WANT it.

Based on above I never send any sms but hope like hell that each and every person that send a good amount of sms'es claims their money back so that it can become a relative expensive exercise in customer abuse.
 
Prometheus said:
Sorry for have to be saying this but when someone sends sms's don't they know they will be running up a huge bill.
Click to expand...

I agree, and it's worse than that even --- the costs are made VERY VERY clear, in fact the very first SMS you receive after entering spells out the costs precisely, so I don't see how anyone can claim the costs weren't clear or that they "wrongly" entered this competition, unless Vodacom has invented a mind control device that makes peoples fingers type SMSs and hit 'send' against their will. Illegal or not, people made stupid decisions and now they're crying for the nanny state to make it right.
 
Last edited:
Frankc said:
And don't forget about the SPAMMING.

I never asked, opted-in or whatever to receive rubbish from Vodacom but they ignored it like hell and continue to spam everybody with sms'es.

It's is illegal to send spam sms'e so what gives Vodacom the right to send such sms'es to people that don't want it and in fact already CLEARLY stated they don't WANT it.

Based on above I never send any sms but hope like hell that each and every person that send a good amount of sms'es claims their money back so that it can become a relative expensive exercise in customer abuse.
Click to expand...

Just as a matter of interest, I opted out after the 2nd sms about this "competition" and never received another sms from VC!
 
Frankc said:
The cellphone companies is perhaps the only companies that actually ABUSE the poor people for the sake of the rich and get away with it.
Click to expand...
That's mainly because of a long-standing cartel / price-fixing situation and government protection from competition.
 
JK8 said:
2 good ads was the Opel ad where the Opel was driving on the golf course and the ad said better than golf.... if VW didnt complain theres no problem with the ad, same like the BM ad where its flying arounds bends and the ad said better than "bends" If Merc didnt complain theres nothing wrong with it.
But this is far of comparison to this topic... its a different campaign altogether.
Click to expand...
Both ads were withdrawn as competitive advertising is not f*n allowed in South Africa. ;)
 
Last edited:
As reported in the media, the main problem was the part of the competition that said the person sending in the most SMSs for a certain week would automatically win a BMW.
Click to expand...

It's not only about the cost of the sms but also because above in a sense indicated you can "bid" per sms on a BMW. The one with the most sms'es (highest cost) for a certain week would automatically win a BMW.

R50 000 for a BMW is a cheap deal isn't it?

Unlike an auction where the winner get the BMW for R50 010 the other 100 or 1000 or 10 000 people that "bid" on this BMW for R50 000 each must simply cought up and pay.

Surely as hell those that send hundreds of sms'es was catched with this "initiative" because they believed nobody else in his/her right mind will spend R50 000 on sms'es and they will therefore automatically win a BMW, which is a bargain and justified "your" logical decision over and over again.

That's the MIND CONTROL behind this scam.
 
Just reading some of the complaints on Hello Extortion. It sounds like after the National Lotteries Board declared the "competition" illegal, VC still sent out another sms encouraging punters to send more sms's.

If that is true there must surely be consequences?

Can the National Lotteries Board no lay a charge against VC for contravening the act?

CRbuys?
 
crbuys said:
No element of chance here, therefor not a promotional competition and thus illegal ito the Lotteries Act.
Click to expand...

Unless you know what the highest current bid is there is very much an element of chance. But that's not to argue for or against the fact that the competition may be illegal.
 
I wasn't a participant in this ' competition' so am a bit in the dark.

How much do 100 BMWs cost and were they to be funded in full by participants sms entrys ?
 
Then they should focus on these pain in the butt ads on TV as well, specifically the one charging R20 per SMS and then you can win some rare Tanzanite stone of Kazillion carats. Load of crap ... and I always wonder if there is actually someone out there winning in these competitions ...
 
daveza said:
I wasn't a participant in this ' competition' so am a bit in the dark.

How much do 100 BMWs cost and were they to be funded in full by participants sms entrys ?
Click to expand...

How does that matter? If the game wasnt popular Voda would have had to buy it, right?
 
I've sent a trusted PM to crbuys. Hopefully, based on the information I have sent, he can clear some of the confusion.
 
ic said:
.......which unfortunately for Vodacom backfired due to some customers that appear to have gambling addiction tendencies and totally disregarded the fact that each SMS entry costs ZAR10.00. Should Vodacom have imposed credit limits on those contract customers? - IMO yes, Vodacom is at fault there.
Click to expand...
This is where I'm a bit confused and I urge rpm to get formal clarification on this point.

My understanding is that people who overspent were contacted by Vodacom and in cases their accounts were suspended.

What I've not seen discussed anywhere (and I know the info was given to the press) is that in many of the cases people actually put huge amounts into their pre-paid account to play or they actually paid the contract bills when they got suspended so they can play again.

Case in point: one of the high-profile cases (where people had to be 'bailed out') is not as clear-cut as presented in the press.

Specifically, the subscriber in question ran up a bill (a few K), got suspended, paid his bill, ran it up to a few K again, got suspended again (and got called in both cases), paid his bill again and this time knowing that the billing engines have got a lag of a few hours, ran up a bill of around R40K before being suspended again.

And then complained bitterly.

This is not a comment on the legality (or not) of the whole saga. That's being sorted out. Rather just a comment on this perception that Vodacom allowed people to run their accounts way past their credit limits.

But, as I said, it would be good for an impartial entity (such as rpm) to verify (or not) the above.
 
Last edited:
ic said:
If credit limits were enforced, then Vodacom|VSP was not negligent and IMO cannot be held accountable in those cases where some customers abused a billing [or other associated] system lag-time limitation to knowingly run up a huge bill sending hundreds if not thousands of SMS entries before they got yet another call from the billing department.

Also, if one is continually sending SMSes [hundreds of them one after the other], would one even notice or pay attention to any incoming SMSes? - i.e. those people that claim Vodacom|VSP was exercising SMS-delivered mind control over them to get them to send even more SMS entries at ZAR10.00 an SMS...

IMO there is one thing that Vodacom does need to do, and that is introduce realtime usage updates for contract-based services, i.e. remove the lag-time to prevent similar incidents in the future - obviously it's not an easy thing to do, but it does need to be done - everything should be realtime as it is for pre-paid systems.
Click to expand...

Now why did I know you'd pick up on the non-real-time contract billing point. ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X