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!
5 Comments
I am amazed at how many scams Vodafone are operating. This one where we have to pay for SMS messages received is very widespread. What do Vodafone think they are playing at? Do they really want to lose customers? It will be a long time before I consider being a client of theirs again. They used to be such a good, professional company. now they are just awful.
I am a new user of Vodafone India……..who operate exactly the same scam there. It is even worse. They generate fake SMSs from your mobile to a premium number and charge 3 rupees for each message. Vodafone = a global company without ethics.
This one is an Australian vidafone scam -
Watch out for this one - when trying to recharge prepaid sim via vodafone
website, you may find that the transaction fails with the recommendation
that you try again shortly. If you do you WILL be chaged again and so on. I
have been charged 4 times for the one transaction due to a vodafone syatem
fault and now have to wait 4 to 6 weeks to get the refund!
Another unethical way to make money especially of people don’t check their
transactions.
J
Vodafone overcharging scam!
Has anybody else had this experience?
**************************************************
BEWARE WHEN YOUR VODAFONE PAPER BILL SUDDENLY STOPS.
YOU MAY HAVE BEEN SCAMMED!
**************************************************
You get a call from Vodaphone to renew your contract.
You ask for the existing contract to be continued.
Next month you don’t get the paper bill in the post.
You check your bank statement. You been grossly overcharged.
You ring Vodaphone. They acknowlege it’s a mistake and it will be sorted out, and
a refund at the next billing point.
The following month the same thing happens again!
You check your bank statement. You been grossly overcharged.
You ring Vodaphone. They acknowlege it’s a mistake and it will be sorted out, and
a refund at the next billing point.
… a few months later you notice you are still being grossly overcharged.
You phone Vodaphone … this time they read back some inflated price package. They
say there is nothing they can do about it! You need to write to them.
You write to them. No action.
You write to them again. No action.
You write to them again. No action.
You write to them again. No action.
You write to them again. No action.
You write to them again. No action.
You write to them again. No action.
You write to them again. No action.
You write to them again. No action.
You write to them again. No action.
You write to them again. No action.
You write to them again. No action.
You write to them again. No action.
You write to them again. No action.
You write to them again. No action.
How many stamps is that?
… etc … etc … etc …
This scam is going on even now on December 2009.
I bought a new phone £10 traffic plus £10 top-up, a single 30 seconds metropolitan call cost me £4 … what the f@$%&
The customer service told me I sent a text at £0.40 (my plan says £0.20 btw)
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[...] 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.) [...]