Vodafone's pay-as-you-go: extortion and concealment in one

Dionysus

So, I came home and my Mam was asking me to help her with her Vodafone pay-as-you-go phone where the €20 she had put in was gone in 40 minutes. I went on the Vodafone website to look at her call history. Guess what? Vodafone does not provide call history for its pay-as-you-go customers. I searched the entire website to find where her credit went, but there was nothing. The only thing was a "top up history" section, which listed her top up history since 24 October 2011, and no earlier. In other words, Vodafone is not being open about where her credit was spent. I couldn't find out how much she was spending a month on her phone, and where that money was going. Why is Vodafone allowed to get away with such a lack of honesty?

And so much for promoting its website as the source of information, rather than annoying them by ringing them up! Their website is a masterpiece in subterfuge and obscurantism.

So, I rang them (cost: 15 cent). The Vodafone representative told me that yes, she was paying 50 cent per minute to ring all non Vodafone customers during the day. Words fail me. The Vodafone representative also confirmed what I had discovered: they do not display where all that money has gone by offering a 'Call History' feature on the Vodafone.ie website. With such extortionate prices, it's easy to know why Vodafone is hiding this information. The Vodafone representative said, however, that if we would like that information we could get it by paying them €6.35 to post it to us. Brazen bastards: they robbed her and then want to charge her for the details of the robbery.

Needless to say, she will not be topping up with Vodafone ever again. I hope other people here keep an eye on elderly relatives and friends who are being robbed like this by mobile phone companies. :mad::mad::mad:

/rant over

vicM

Call them and ask for all the details over the phone, they are obliged to provide it and I think not to happy to do so.
I think it should be made mandatory to display previous chargeable calls online, o2 and meteor do it so don't know why vodafone and three cannot

surfdudette

I was until recently on the same Vodafone plan, which had not bothered me much in the past as I made very few calls. But once I started using the phone more, my credit would be gone very quickly (sometimes a single fairly short phone call would cost me 5-10euro!), and on top of that was paying EUR1 a day for data use. I have now moved to Tesco and only spend about a third of what I spent with Vodafone per month (including data use), for pretty much the same service (they just don't have webtext yet, not sure about call history but I can live without both for the price )

Dman001

Dionysus wrote: »

So, I came home and my Mam was asking me to help her with her Vodafone pay-as-you-go phone where the €20 she had put in was gone in 40 minutes. I went on the Vodafone website to look at her call history. Guess what? Vodafone does not provide call history for its pay-as-you-go customers. I searched the entire website to find where her credit went, but there was nothing. The only thing was a "top up history" section, which listed her top up history since 24 October 2011, and no earlier. In other words, Vodafone is not being open about where her credit was spent. I couldn't find out how much she was spending a month on her phone, and where that money was going. Why is Vodafone allowed to get away with such a lack of honesty?

And so much for promoting its website as the source of information, rather than annoying them by ringing them up! Their website is a masterpiece in subterfuge and obscurantism.

So, I rang them (cost: 15 cent). The Vodafone representative told me that yes, she was paying 50 cent per minute to ring all non Vodafone customers during the day. Words fail me. The Vodafone representative also confirmed what I had discovered: they do not display where all that money has gone by offering a 'Call History' feature on the Vodafone.ie website. With such extortionate prices, it's easy to know why Vodafone is hiding this information. The Vodafone representative said, however, that if we would like that information we could get it by paying them €6.35 to post it to us. Brazen bastards: they robbed her and then want to charge her for the details of the robbery.

Needless to say, she will not be topping up with Vodafone ever again. I hope other people here keep an eye on elderly relatives and friends who are being robbed like this by mobile phone companies. :mad::mad::mad:

/rant over

Vodafone do quote that it is 45 cent a minute to other Irish mobiles which is a colossus amount, I never knew it was so high. I know this is no help to you now OP, but I'd avoid the big two networks (Vodafone and O2) in Ireland like the plague, there is nothing competitive about their prices whatsoever and are nothing short of a complete rip-off.

Kristopherus

Have to agree with you there Dman. Their loss would be Tesco's gain, imo, but both Three & Meteor have upped their game and posted new offers on their websites. Things are defo hotting up:)

Dman001

Defo agree with Three and Meteor upping their game. I moved from Vodafone to Three because I'd get twice as much for the same price from them, and I've never looked back. Saying that I never had a problem with Vodafone. Even eMobile is shaping up to be a great Network too.

sue_1512

sorry to hear that voda c***s fleeced your mam but thats what they are like! underhanded slimy gits!i was under the impression that calls to other networks were 38c a min, not 50c! lets start a porting over from vodafone campaign! might teach them a lesson

CaSCaDe711

vicM wrote: »

Call them and ask for all the details over the phone, they are obliged to provide it and I think not to happy to do so.
I think it should be made mandatory to display previous chargeable calls online, o2 and meteor do it so don't know why vodafone and three cannot

Surely this would never work properly for Vodafone, as they'd need to get the existing website stable first. Can't imagine that happening anytime soon :rolleyes: