vodafone am i stupid

suimhneas

hi all posted a while back abot my first bill from vodafone for one of those mobile broadband stick thingies. anyways got a mail from them this morning a week after med asking them for a better brakdown of the bill as i didnt understand it. now they tell me that ""On your first bill your have been billed line rental from the 3rd of
July to the 7th of July and from the 8th of July to the 7th of August

can someone explain what the line rental is? reason i didnt go with eircom was the line rental, i thought with this memory stick thingy that was it, how am i renting a line?

Paulw

You're renting a line of signal.

As far as I'm aware, such a charge is generally used to subsidise the cost of the items (dongle, etc).

I would guess that all mobile providers charge some form of "line rental".

Kensington

Maybe "line rental" is what they class your broadband service subscription under? Does the cost of this line rental roughly match your monthly broadband subscription?

suimhneas

not sure what the cost of it is as its not listed anywhere on the bill as "line rental" see the poblem i had in the first place is i was supposed to pay by direct debit, they have all the bank details and all that, but for some reason on the bill it says direct debit rejected, i contacted my bank the problem is not on my/my banks side. so my invoice consists of direct debit 23.31 reject DD 23.31 and invoice 23.31 so i owe 43.29 instead of the 19.99 which is what i signed up for. AGGh maybe im just dumb but i dont get it at all

foggy_lad

you are charged for the upcoming months service in your bill but in the first bill you are also charged for the service from the day you signed up, that is why there is charges from 3rd to 7th july.

by line rental they mean your subscription because the mobile broadband is billed the same way as if it was a bill-pay mobile phone with a €19.99 call plan a 10GB limit.

my invoice consists of direct debit 23.31 reject DD 23.31 and invoice 23.31 so i owe 43.29 instead of the 19.99 which is what i signed up for.

this looks like they are just informing you of the initial charge and how that was not paid due to a direct debit issue and they are now invoicing you for payment(by cheque, post or other method) of the €23.31 (€19.99 for your current month and €3.32 for the period 3rd-8th july)? there should be an invoice total and this will be the amount you are expected to pay.

krudler

suimhneas wrote: »

not sure what the cost of it is as its not listed anywhere on the bill as "line rental" see the poblem i had in the first place is i was supposed to pay by direct debit, they have all the bank details and all that, but for some reason on the bill it says direct debit rejected, i contacted my bank the problem is not on my/my banks side. so my invoice consists of direct debit 23.31 reject DD 23.31 and invoice 23.31 so i owe 43.29 instead of the 19.99 which is what i signed up for. AGGh maybe im just dumb but i dont get it at all

"line rental" is essentially what you're paying for every month at 19.99, you were billed pro-rata which means if you signed up on the first of the month and your billing period ends on the 1st or 2nd, you'd be billed for the month you've just used and the upcoming month as well as you pay or it a month in advance , its quite simple really

jor el

suimhneas wrote: »

now they tell me that On your first bill your have been billed line rental from the 3rd of July to the 7th of July and from the 8th of July to the 7th of August

They align all bills to specific periods, so the first bit is a partial monthly charge, to bring you to the billing date of the 8th of every month, then the 2nd part is the full month going forward. You'll be billed for 1 month in advance, every month, on the 8th.

suimhneas wrote: »

i thought with this memory stick thingy that was it,

It's called a modem.

suimhneas wrote: »

how am i renting a line?

Vodafone call it line rental, even though there is no actual line. It's just your monthly charge.

Jip

Why not just call them and have it explained/cleared up ?