Vodafone charging for fictitious calls on my landline

Ollie1969

This is my issue with vodafone:

I have a landline phone but only use it so I can have vodafone broadband.
I have not actually used the landline in 4 years.
My bill is paid by direct debit for years.
I never really kept an eye on the bills until last month when I noticed that I was being charged more than the flat rate for the broadband.
I checked my bill.
I couldn't believe it when I discovered that I was being charged for calls that were never actually made.
The calls were all less than a minute and made to mobile numbers that are actually on my phone e.g. a call from the landline to my own mobile number at 9.01 for 40 seconds followed by a call to other random numbers for similarly short time frames in the succeeding minutes.
All these calls appear to be haphazard and limited to 5 or 6 calls, for 3 or 4 days per bill.
The amount of the extra charge per bill was always relatively small; between 2 and 7 euro extra per bill.
I can prove the calls were never made as I have already checked the phone records of some of the numbers that were supposedly called.
I called vodafone.
They told me that they would send my query to a customer care team and get back to me within 5 working days.
They never got back to me.

I can't believe that I have trusted vodafone for so long, letting them charge my bank, trusting that they would only charge for calls made only to find that they have been charging for ' fictitious calls' that were simply never made. The money is not large in the scheme of things. It is more the principal of being systematically charged for calls that were never made.

Can anyone offer me advice about this?
What is the best course of action to take?
Should I ask vodafone not only for a refund but also for compensation?

Any advice gratefully received. .

TheDriver

The only advice I can give is that you complain then formally complain and then email comreg. Then my case got solved

colm_mcm

Does your mobile show any calls from your landline?

Seems odd that they're numbers that are on your phone.

Do you have Vodafone for your mobile?

Jayop

I was overcharged by Vodafone very heavily back at the beginning of the year. Called customer services a load of times and they were useless. Eventually I went onto the forum on Vodafone's site and posted my issue. The guy from vodafone replied a day later and he got it sorted for me. It took ages to sort but they refunded that entire bill for me, not just the amount they over charged me.

Ollie1969

colm_mcm wrote: »

Does your mobile show any calls from your landline?

Seems odd that they're numbers that are on your phone.

Do you have Vodafone for your mobile?

Yes. I have vodafone mobile. I haven't had a land phone in the house since 2011 when it broke and I never bothered to replace it as I never used it anyhow.
I checked my mobile call log, fully confident that there would be no call received from the landline. There was indeed no record of a call being received from my landline. Then again that was no surprise to me as I know for a fact that the land phone has not been used in years. Quite simply there has been no land phone in the house so it would have been impossible anyhow.
The pattern of the numbers is very strange too.
No call lasted more than 60 seconds and I would have say, 7 calls in a row, the first at 9.01, the second at 9.02, the third at 9.03 etc.
It's almost like they were generated at random by a computer.. or maybe a crooked employee?!!

Jayop

I doubt it was anyone out to get you or to purposely add to your bill. I'd imagine it's some sort of a systems error and TBF that's why they email you a bill so you can check if the charges are as they should be.

Go on the vodafone forum and ask them nicely. They'll sort you out but it might take a few weeks.

Ollie1969

Jayop wrote: »

I doubt it was anyone out to get you or to purposely add to your bill. I'd imagine it's some sort of a systems error and TBF that's why they email you a bill so you can check if the charges are as they should be.

Go on the vodafone forum and ask them nicely. They'll sort you out but it might take a few weeks.

Yeah. I obviously don't think that anyone is out to get me but I don't understand why and how such a system error can occur... what if it is happening to even 2 percent of customers. Then that could add up to a substantial amount of money.. if you think about it, this is a very serious issue. Vodafone is in a position of trust. They are given permission to take money from my account. They have breached my trust in that privilege by charging for calls that were never made.. I don't see why I should be "asking nicely" and waiting for weeks to get it sorted.
I would be polite in any case as the vodafone employee on the other end of the phone is not to blame.
If you think about it, it's quite scandalous. ...
It's one thing being charged in error but it's a whole other element to discover that a false or manufactured record of calls has been produced

Jayop

Ollie1969 wrote: »

Yeah. I obviously don't think that anyone is out to get me but I don't understand why and how such a system error can occur... what if it is happening to even 2 percent of customers. Then that could add up to a substantial amount of money.. if you think about it, this is a very serious issue. Vodafone is in a position of trust. They are given permission to take money from my account. They have breached my trust in that privilege by charging for calls that were never made.. I don't see why I should be "asking nicely" and waiting for weeks to get it sorted.
I would be polite in any case as the vodafone employee on the other end of the phone is not to blame.
If you think about it, it's quite scandalous. ...
It's one thing being charged in error but it's a whole other element to discover that a false or manufactured record of calls has been produced

My experience of dealing with low paid customer service people is that if you do ask nicely and play the game your issue will be resolved quicker and to your satisfaction. I you go in kicking a screaming it's really not going to help you in the long run.

Of course being billed wrong is bad, but people should be checking their bills every month.

ItHurtsWhenIP

Ollie1969 wrote: »

...
I never really kept an eye on the bills until last month ...

This is your problem and not Vodafone's to be honest. I know we are all busy and reading every bill or bank statement is usually a thankless task, but it's still our responsibility to do so and highlight discrepancies.

Years ago I was contacted by a German company I used to have a service from (I had cancelled it 3 or 4 months prior). I had not noticed but the DD on my account had not been collected in nearly 18 months, but they suddenly did and were quite anxious to collect. I asked a solicitor buddy if I could tell them to stick it, but he suggested that they could mount a case (even though the failed DD was their fault), so I negotiated and got the figure down by 30%.

I now tend to read/scan every bill and bank statement to look for anomalies. I actually prefer getting them in snail mail, as I then have the action to read them before filing them. With on-line billing I find it a little bit more hassle (probably because of my crappy internet connection). :P

Ollie1969

Jayop wrote: »

My experience of dealing with low paid customer service people is that if you do ask nicely and play the game your issue will be resolved quicker and to your satisfaction. I you go in kicking a screaming it's really not going to help you in the long run.

Of course being billed wrong is bad, but people should be checking their bills every month.

Yes Joyop I agree with you about how to deal with customer service staff. I also agree about my responsibilities in relation to keeping an eye on my bills. There is no question that I have my own responsibilities. This does not allow vodafone, as a service provider, to abdicate there own duties in relation to billing and charging. The responsibility lies on both parties but the one who has been incorrectly overcharged was me... so I am obviously the aggrieved party in this case. If the tables were reversed, I'm under no illusion as to how vodafone would deal with me.. do you see what I mean or do you feel that I'm being unreasonable?

irishgeo

I move to simply broadband as well. They disconnect the phone line and you'll only have broadband. Cheaper too.

bk

Do you perhaps have a Sky Box, Fax machine or monitored alarm system?

If you do and any of these are connected to your phone line, they could be "dialling" out to transfer data.

Good advice from irishgeo, if you really aren't using your phone line (including monitored alarm, etc.) then switching to Simply Broadband will save you money.

ED E

Ollie1969 wrote: »

The calls were all less than a minute and made to mobile numbers that are actually on my phone e.g. a call from the landline to my own mobile number at 9.01 for 40 seconds followed by a call to other random numbers for similarly short time frames in the succeeding minutes.

Its a monitored alarm! How did vodafone not cop that. Eircom nuked the fixed line SMS service recently, now SMS transfer attempts are being treated as calls.