David.R.Gilson

What is a megabyte worth?

Aug 3

Personal David 3 Comments
3g, charges, data, expenses, mobile, tariffs, vodafone

Last week I wrote about my week without broadband, and I mentioned that I had used a Vodafone mobile data connection. Well, I’m sad to say, this lead to quite a drama.

The 3G modem I used was a free gift with my current laptop, over three years ago. It wasn’t a proper retail pack so there wasn’t proper documentation. All I knew, by word of mouth, was that you paid by the megabyte, but I didn’t have a document stating the charge. I’m also having a mass clear out of my house at the moment, so having gone through all my paper work, I can definitely say there wasn’t an old letter put away and forgotten about! I didn’t use the card at all, I just kept it as a back up for if my home internet ever went down.

Therefore, on Saturday the 11th of July, I had to start using the modem. But it wouldn’t work, so I called Vodafone and found out it had been deactivated due to age. The account was in credit too, deactivated with over £40 of credit! Anyway, the modem started working after the phone call. However, soon after the call had ended, I had a d’oh moment. I hadn’t asked the data charge, and I certainly had not been told the charge.

I called Vodafone, but was asked to call back on Monday as their computer systems had gone down. Well, I called back Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, it took until Thursday evening to get through to someone. The other days I kept getting a recorded message telling me my call couldn’t be taken and to call again later. The Vodafone website was no good as they neither show real-time usage or tariff information for old accounts.

When I spoke to Vodafone, not only was I told I’d only used approximately 250MB, but I was also told my bill was going to be £526+VAT !!! This was based on a charge of a whopping £2.37+VAT per Megabyte. If you’re reading from outside the UK, VAT is Value Added Tax, our version of sales tax and is currently 15%.

The woman I spoke to at the time spoke to a colleague and said the best they could do for me would be to write off that charge and transfer me onto an upto date data plan which would cost me £15 per month, for a minimum of 12 months! That would be £180, just because I transferred 250MB data across their network.

We’ll fast forward the story a few days. Suffice to say that I didn’t agree, and I subsequently was bounced around several unhelpful call centre people. So I submitted a letter of complaint via their “Contact Us” page, twice, and had no response either time. I eventually mentioned my case to people I know at CNET UK, who were able to get me in touch with Vodafone via their PR firm. At first I was contacted by someone from Vodafone Web Relations, who looked to be as helpful as the call centre people.

A few more days later, just when it seemed like I couldn’t get anywhere, I got a phone call from the director’s office. Where the gentleman I spoke to apologised for the situation, stated that I had not been dealt with satisfactorily, and that he would write off the charge (of course with the caveat “this time only”). That was a great relief, it still is.

Now, why am I telling you about this unfortunate episode? Because I’d like you to be more aware than I was at the time. In this situation, I believe Vodafone were at fault for a number of things.

1. There is no automatic upgrade review cycle for old legacy accounts (i.e. no house-keeping of old accounts).
2. There was no alert that my tariff was not economical at the time of my reconnection.
3. There is no way of checking your real-time usage on their website.

All that said, they did do the right thing in the end, so credit to them there, but I had to go to the press before my case was brought to the attention of someone with sufficient authority to rectify the matter.

So please, if you have an old mobile account, be very careful before you start using it after a long time, and if circumstances allow, consider getting a whole new deal rather than insisting on using your old account.