Vodafone change in contract June 2010

gtolan

Did anyone contact Vodafone on their change to contract for June 2010?

the EU regulations stipulates that your current contract can be withdraw from without any penalties.
I am currently in talks with Vodafone on this and they are somewhat delaying giving me my rights as a customer under the EU reg's - see below the text posted on Vodafone’s site.

Customer notifications

Under Regulation 17 of the European Communities (electronic communications networks and services)(Universal Service and Users’ rights) Regulations 2003 an operator shall, not less than one month prior to the date of implementation of any proposed modification, notify its subscribers to that service of the proposed modification in the conditions of the contract for that service, and their right to withdraw without penalty from such contract if they do not accept the modification.

If you wish to exercise your right under Regulation 17 please contact Vodafone on 1907 (postpay ) or 1850 228787 (prepay) within 30 days of the notice. The continued use of this service after the effective date of the change is deemed acceptance of the change.
Notice to Vodafone Pay Monthly Customers – 1st June

Vodafone Perfect Choice Access Plus

Please note this shall only apply to customers who signed up to one of out Perfect Choice Access Plus Plans prior to 25th March 2010

Due to a re-assignment of various access point names (APNs) in our Perfect Choice Access Plus plans, with effect from 1st July 2010, Clause 8 of the Terms and Conditions of Vodafone Perfect Choice Access Plus will be removed and replaced as follows:

“A Customer may use the monthly allocation of data to access Vodafone Live. Any unused allocation cannot be carried over to the next month.”
In view of the above change to these terms and conditions, please contact us within 30 days if you wish to terminate your account without penalty. See the full contractual terms.

Blackdragon

There is an ongoing thread on this over on the Vodafone forums that might be worth a read.
http://forum.vodafone.ie/index.php?/topic/3944-change-in-tcs/

gtolan

I phoned Vodafone yesterday and seems like you can get out of your contract if you signed before March, but only if you move operator and not stay as a customer of Vodafone?
Have you heard of any other way that Vodafone are letting you out of the contract as a result of this change and being able to stay as a customer without a contract..?

Blackdragon

I have to get back in touch with them today but was advised yesterday that I can cancel and remain on the network.

It's worth pointing out that if you signed up before march with an iPhone you can opt out, if after this point, you would have agreed to the new terms and conditions.

However, if you signed after March with say a Nokia or.desire or something like that, you would have been signing up to the general Perfect Choice access plus terms and conditions which were not amended with the new changes (and still have not been) so you would have a case to void the contract on those grounds.

I'll let you know how I get on

oleras

Blackdragon wrote: »

I have to get back in touch with them today but was advised yesterday that I can cancel and remain on the network.

It's worth pointing out that if you signed up before march with an iPhone you can opt out, if after this point, you would have agreed to the new terms and conditions.

However, if you signed after March with say a Nokia or.desire or something like that, you would have been signing up to the general Perfect Choice access plus terms and conditions which were not amended with the new changes (and still have not been) so you would have a case to void the contract on those grounds.

I'll let you know how I get on

Please do, why would it be different for a non iphone handset ?

edit: had a read of the vodafone forum and it explained it. The threat of killing your number if you cancel cant be right, can it ?

Blackdragon

Perfect choice access plus has different sets of terms and conditions. Only the set of iPhone terms were updated after march 22nd, the general ones were not

gtolan

I am not sure if this exclusively only relates to iPhone users, you might want to check that.

I got two options
1- get out of contract and lose number
2- move operator when I like without charges

They have not given me a 3rd option re: move out of contract and move on to a month by month agreement.

To be honest the customer service on this issue is totally crazy.... and not customer focused at all!.
NOT HAPPY!

gtolan

Just to note the terms of the regulation point out “without penalty” if Vodafone cancel / terminate your number that is a penalty for exercising your right as a customer whos contract is being amended!

Blackdragon

I have checked it out.

The change applies to all users on the perfect access plus plans.

The notification on vodafones website stated that this change will not effect those who signed up after March 22nd as they would have signed up to the new terms.
This is not entirely true.

Anyone who signed up on an iPhone after this date would have agreed to the new terms as stated in the iPhone perfect choice access plus terms and conditions, however, if you signed up on some other device to the same plan, you are agreeing to the general t&c's of the plan, not the iphone version and the general terms were not amended with this change so you would have the same grounds to void the contract as those who signed up prior to March.

Hope I'm making sense

oleras

Blackdragon wrote: »

I have checked it out.

The change applies to all users on the perfect access plus plans.

The notification on vodafones website stated that this change will not effect those who signed up after March 22nd as they would have signed up to the new terms.
This is not entirely true.

Anyone who signed up on an iPhone after this date would have agreed to the new terms as stated in the iPhone perfect choice access plus terms and conditions, however, if you signed up on some other device to the same plan, you are agreeing to the general t&c's of the plan, not the iphone version and the general terms were not amended with this change so you would have the same grounds to void the contract as those who signed up prior to March.

Hope I'm making sense

That is spot on from my reading also, non iphone contracts have the option to withdraw from their contract.

gtolan

Blackdragon

When you say void the contract do you mean that you can void the remaining contract time and also stay as a customer on Vodafone? If so did you confirm that with Vodafone?

Blackdragon

I was able to get confirmation that I could remain as is, drop to prepay or port.

I'm still waiting on confirmation regarding canceling as I signed up in April with a Desire so I'm disputing signing up to these new terms and conditions as they only applied to iPhone users.

The terms and conditions I signed stated (and still do state) that i could use the live, isp, hs and office APN's

gtolan

Blackdragon

Your last post is very interesting as I was told by Vodafone yesterday (22nd June) that I could not get out of my contract and move to pre pay - clearly there is some miss guidance from Vodafone on this - I will phone them again this evening and ask them to re look at this...

The only option I currently have is to get out of remaining time in contract, move to a new operator without charges and keep my number (which I think is a standard 'Port')

Blackdragon

gtolan wrote: »

Blackdragon

Your last post is very interesting as I was told by Vodafone yesterday (22nd June) that I could not get out of my contract and move to pre pay - clearly there is some miss guidance from Vodafone on this - I will phone them again this evening and ask them to re look at this...

The only option I currently have is to get out of remaining time in contract, move to a new operator without charges and keep my number (which I think is a standard 'Port')

Id say try again so mate.

First time i called i was advised that i would forfeit my number so it seems that not everyone is aware of the info regarding the change of access points etc etc.

Ensure that it is clear that you want to cxl due to the change in data access points as posted to the notifications section of the Vodafone website on June 01st.

The front line agent should then transfer you to some other department who are pretty up to speed on everything.

oleras

Blackdragon wrote: »

Id say try again so mate.

First time i called i was advised that i would forfeit my number so it seems that not everyone is aware of the info regarding the change of access points etc etc.

Ensure that it is clear that you want to cxl due to the change in data access points as posted to the notifications section of the Vodafone website on June 01st.

The front line agent should then transfer you to some other department who are pretty up to speed on everything.

If only this was true, i spent over half an hour explaining why my contract was changing and because of these changes i was entitled to cancel, she was having none of it, kept repeating it does not effect me, i still have 2gigs through the live! apn, only affects pre 25/3 etc etc, back and forth between being on hold or either getting the most annoying static pushed down the phone line, very strange...she got tired i think at the end and said she would look into it and get back to me...that was 7pm...:rolleyes:

Blackdragon

Ouch, yea i spent 15 minutes on my first attempt before being transferred.

The info the staff have available to them is that the change is for the office APN only and only applies to pre March 25 so their is no reason why it would affect anything else.

You will have to make it clear that there is more than one set of terms and conditions for perfect choice access.

Section 8 of the Terms and conditions for those who signed up with iphones after March 25 states

A Customer may use the monthly 2Gb allocation of data to access Vodafone Live. Any unused allocation cannot be carried over into the next month.

Section 8 of the Terms and conditions for the same price plan for non iphone users states

A Customer may use the monthly allocation of e-mail and web browsing to use Vodafone 360, Push, Vodafone Live!, Office, ISP, WAP and HS Access Point Names (APN’s) which provides access to email and external third party websites. No carryover of a remaining balance into the next month is allowed.

So regardless of when a non iphone user signed up, they signed up to a contract allowing access to Live, Office, ISP,and HS.

As the terms and conditions have still not been amended, i would imagine if someone bought an N97 Mini today and signed up to a 12 month contract, they would have grounds to void it tomorrow after learning of the change going ahead in July.....am i wrong?

oleras

Blackdragon wrote: »

Ouch, yea i spent 15 minutes on my first attempt before being transferred.

The info the staff have available to them is that the change is for the office APN only and only applies to pre March 25 so their is no reason why it would affect anything else.

You will have to make it clear that there is more than one set of terms and conditions for perfect choice access.

Section 8 of the Terms and conditions for those who signed up with iphones after March 25 states



Section 8 of the Terms and conditions for the same price plan for non iphone users states


So regardless of when a non iphone user signed up, they signed up to a contract allowing access to Live, Office, ISP,and HS.

As the terms and conditions have still not been amended, i would imagine if someone bought an N97 Mini today and signed up to a 12 month contract, they would have grounds to void it tomorrow after learning of the change going ahead in July.....am i wrong?

Thats what i was trying to explain, i signed up for perfect choice access plus, not pcap for iphone, 2 different t and c as you state in section 8, im like a dog with a bone now, i can understand they dont want to lose a contract, but dont go changing then, there must be a reason they want all accounts to go through the live! apn in the future.

edit: the funny thing is, after the 18 month contract is cancelled, i cant see any reason to leave them , i will stay on a rolling 30 day one, vodafone are really the only provider that has a half decent 2g signal, but it is nice to have options after all !

blaz

oleras wrote: »

there must be a reason they want all accounts to go through the live! apn in the future.

It is about tethering. The iPhone is configured to use Live APN for web access from the phone, while for tethering it uses Office APN. Previously according to the contract both were included in the 2GB of data, so you could tether "for free". By changing the contract they can charge extra for tetherning, so while this might seem like a minor change it is actually a substantial change of contract. Vodafone definitely don't want you to know about this, so spread the word.

oleras

I stuck a post in the "Talk to..." fouum, http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055949963 , basically agreeing that we have the option to cancel our contracts, i just wish the next person i speak to understands this...:rolleyes: