Vodafone scam
On September 6th, I upgraded my outmoded Vodafone to something a little more cool.
My husband already has a pay as you go phone, but I decided in addition, to buy a new battery for my old phone and take out a pay as you go contract for it. This of course entailed having a new number.
On the way home, I made two calls, one to my new phone in my handbag (on the old number) and one to home to tell my husband to put the kettle on as I was on my way (My son, Rich, is not the only tea addict in our family)
This phone is only intended as a spare, in case we lose one, or the battery on one goes down when we need it
As such, we have not given the new number to anybody at all, therefore we have received no calls or texts from friends or family. Indeed, apart from those two test calls, we have made no calls either
Imagine my surprise, then, today, when I found that of the £20 which I had paid into the phone, only £17 remained.
As I happenned to be in Swansea today, I called into the Vodafone shop to ask for an explanation.
"Oh yes, it's quite plainly all your texts" was the glib explanation.
"But I have not sent any texts!" was my reply ……
But… there on the screen was a list of incoming texts @25p or 10p each…. ALL FROM VODAFONE (the only people, of course, who know the number) together with two more incoming texts @ £1 each. These latter were timed at around midnight so, I was told, these could not have been from Vodafone as they wouldn't have sent niussance texts at that time of the night
Despite the comprehensive record of 'My' operations, no source was available for these £1 texts, which, remember were to a number which was unknown to anybody other than Vodafone
Now, to be milked of £3 may not appear to be a big deal …. but it was only because I can be absolutely certain that I WAS milked, that this came to light.
How many people are using pay as you go Vodafones, and being systematically drained on a regular basis in this way, who have no idea that it is happenning? How many parents are supplying their kids with phones, for securiy reasons, and being ripped off and blaming the kids?
Grrrr! Time to get out my Grumpy T-shirt again!
April 28th, 2007 at 10:43 am
[…] This reminds me of the item I posted some time ago about the way Vodafone were found to have charged me when they sent me messages on a phone which was never used and whose number was never disclosed to anybody. (It is simply an extra phone for emergencies.) […]