Im going to keep this as short and to the point as possible.
In December 2014, I took my wife to a resort in Mauritius for some much needed time away. Whilst there we decided to not use our international roaming as we were given free wifi at the hotel.
On the second last day of our stay I attempted to switch my roaming on to check any voicemails or text messages that I may have received.
When I did this I was not able to check my voicemail and I did not receive any text messages. Hence, I was under the impression that I was not connected to any cellular infrastructure.
At 5:39am, as we were about to board our flight I received a plethora of messages/notifications within the space of a minute from Vodacom. These messages were to notify me of R2, 000 incremental spends on my device. These messages amounted to R46, 000 in total.
Refer to the attached picture of these notifications.
- Why did Vodacom not block the account when such a high bill was being tallied? If banks in South Africa can block illegal or suspicious transactions on your credit card, then why cant your mobile network?
- I did not receive any notifications notifying me of any data roaming expenditure until I was about to board my flight!
“We want you to stay in control of your data roaming spend when you’re abroad – so we offer a data spend alert system that notifies you at R2000 increments of data spent. You don’t have to do anything – we’ll text you for free.”
If this is true, then why did I receive these so called "notifications" only on the last day of my stay? Simple really, there clearly must have been a problem with the connection to the infrastructure whilst overseas and whose fault is that? Well, mine of course.
The call centre agent expressed to me that it was solely my responsibility to ensure that I received the notifications sent by Vodacom.
- Vodacom also expressed that the billing was in fact true and correct... Heres the shocker... Vodacom charged me at a rate of R138 per megabyte. It works out to a data usage of just over 300mb whilst overseas. Really?
When this happened at the beginning of the year I tried absolutely every avenue to have this resolved. From email, social media, over the phone to driving to Vodaworld in Midrand. The conclusion was that Vodacom could not assist me and they thereafter blocked my account. I was left with no other option but to proceed with a payment plan which I have since resolved.
We don't as the consumer have a voice.
Contact: mail@kylewhite.tv
