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
Yip, it's the same with their data packages. They let you burn off all your data and all the airtime that you have loaded (at out of bundle rates)...then many hours too late they send you all your notifications at once. Dodgy business.
ReplyDeleteNever ever use roaming. Not for data nothing. Perhaps try the consumer tribunal, and use the fact that you did not get the smses and that they did not inform you the rate that you will be charged at. In future buy a simple card in the country that you visit with 2GB of data and call home using WhatsApp. Then you get them back at their own game...
ReplyDelete"Simple card" is supposed to read "sim card"
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DeleteI had the same
ReplyDeleteDEC & JAN was billed R6,000 consecutively and told them to disconnect the line while they figure out what the problem was as at the peak of launching my business i was using my hotspot and my bill was R3600 on average. after the disconnection the continued to bill me R2000+ and still have not resolved it….
Post ur difficulties on HELLOPETER. You wil most definitely get an answer quickly
ReplyDeleteYou are right Vodacom does not care (And so are MTN and CELLC alike). There are no avenues in South Africa for the consumer to pursue bad or even devious business practices. Even though the charges are so-called legitimate, I believe because they did not send you the SMS reminders timeously that they are to blame. There is no excuse for them to say that you were not connected and could not receive the SMS messages. You obviously were because they charged data fees. I just think they do this on purpose to exploit their customer base.
ReplyDeleteWhy not just lodge a complaint with the Consumer Protection Commission?
Deletehttp://www.thedti.gov.za/agencies/ncc.jsp
I had the same problem. I went over seas and used all the hotspots for free data ,on my arrival i have been billed 8000 and this happend in June and still no solution.
ReplyDelete