Contract

[alicec-crowley]

Dear Community

Beware Android ISC users and accessing your hotmail account via the standard Email Exchange Service on Google phones, there is a bug in the application that chews phone battery and data. Optus forum has a post about this already as do many other Android, Google and phone forums around the world.  

I have a Samsung Google Nexus which i bought through Vodaphone on the $59 plan in February 2012 and have not had any data problems and am quite tech savvy never having had a problem of excessive data usage before.

I have continued my complaint in this forum hoping to get some technical expertise to comment on this problem as I have no confidence in the customer service line. I find that the customer service technical and billing people are not properly trained to deal with calls of this nature regarding mobile data usage. You are presumed guilty of being a technical idiot or lying about not actually using the data, there is no desire to determine what has actually malfunctioned or what may have happened.

How i discovered this issue: After having regularly checked my usage i discovered that only 4 days into my account i was at the time showing a $30 overspend although my phone calls were not high and the data usage hadn't updated. I turned mobile data off to be safe so i could call Vodaphone in the morning. By the time i checked in the morning the usage was $100 over and when i finally talked to Vodaphone it was $700 due to the lag time in data usage updates. I had not changed my habits, downloaded anything new or been using the internet service beyond facebook, yahoo email and skype (which i monitor and use regularly as my partner is overseas so know the data usage and how long i get roughly each month). So was very confused. 

I was first told nothing could be done until the end of the billing cycle by a very pleasant representative, so I was satisfied and went about talking to the tech team to uncover what had happened so it didn't happen again, obviously there was something wrong somewhere. The person on the tech team had no real technical expertise to diagnose what had happened beyond "you have automatic updates on" "you used your phone as a modem" "you watched videos" "you downloaded applications". Automatic updates and application downloads would hardly out of the blue add up to 5.3GB in 4 days, the average game app is 20MB and these have a wifi symbol next to them to remind you about their size, so thats roughly 250 large game apps I downloaded in 4 days???? I don’t think so and not a very sensible suggestion from a technical support line. Then I suggested we go through my phone settings to see what had been using the data and make sure things were ok, this seemed to phase the person and they wanted to get me back to the customer service line which is what happened, i was left without any real tech support.

The next customer service person seemed to think there was something that could be done now and offered a 3 way conversation between them and the tech team but unfortunately I was at work and had a meeting. The woman offered a call back for this service which i happily accepted. I missed the next call, then i tried to call Vodaphone the next morning but now my query was in the hands of this other person so i had to wait for their call, which i did. I finally answered the call from the person who said he was calling me back because the line had dropped out on my previous call. This was not true. The person had not prepared to talk about my case nor had any resolution and seemed to miss the point i was making about the usage and offered me a 30% discount on the $720 charge. I was not going to accept this because as far I was concerned there was something wrong somewhere and i shouldn’t have to pay these exorbitant charges. I was escalated to the floor manager who admitted the person before had not provided her with the correct story and believed my charges were from a plan change confusion. She realised this was not the case, tried to talk to me about the problem but escalated me to her manager who had no more skill in dealing with my concerns/problem and much less customer service ability using a condescending tone and trying to “win” the conversation offering me the same standard 30% discount. I said no one has offered to help me discover what is wrong and I will take the case to the ombudsman. This prompted the manager to offer me an investigation into the usage to determine if it was valid usage, I asked what constituted valid usage which couldn’t be answered. I was told to now wait until the bill is generated (7 May) and then another 5 working days for the investigation. I was then told by this top manager to “have a great day”. Please Vodaphone this is not the way to end every conversation, number one it was night-time (9pm in Canberra), I had spent 1 hour on the phone with 3 people with no resolution and I was facing a $700 charge. This was simply rude and coming from a manager this reflects poor training and human compassion.

So after having no resolution or assistance from Vodaphone i took matters into my own hands. I found out on the Samsung Google Nexus in the menu there is “data usage” which very nicely sets out what applications have been using data and when. So simple. I see that Exchange Services (the standard built-in Samsung/Android email application) had used 5.3GB of “background” data in two days while the next closest application was Skype (as expected) at 400 MB. I use the standard email application on the phone (which you cannot uninstall) to occasionally check my yahoo and hotmail email accounts on-the-go. I remember checking Hotmail for a specific purpose around 8 April. I also doubled checked I didn’t have any large emails, even though I was on wifi when i checked hotmail, and i had nothing out of the ordinary. This is not normal, it was not the first time I had used the application and it is a very standard and widely used app.

So my investigation continues, i Google Exchange Services Android Data Usage type queries and then i find that I am not the only person in this situation and that many people have had their battery and data chewed by a bug in the application causing problems with ICS phones. You can check XDA developers, Google Groups, Android forums and even the Optus forum has a post on this. Check out:

https://community.optus.com.au/t5/Mobile/GB-s-used-by-Exchange-Services-app-on-Nexus-ICS-4-0-2-and-d...

A simple investigation showed that was has happened to me was not my fault or doing and that other people were in the same situation as victims. Does Vodaphone not have any techy people keeping track of issues with phones they supply to customers and providing warnings about bugs in standard applications or issues with phones? Am I supposed to trawl through forums everyday to chase developments that may lead to excess data charges?

Whats more Vodaphone has NO options for people to receive text messages or limit data usage, there is open credit on the phone, i have seen other people with $2000 charges . Telstra currently has an alert system for data and is looking to limit and shap data on mobile phones. Whats more i get a text message a day later from Vodaphone saying please call us you have spent $741 in excess of your plan. Luck i avidly check my usage and caught this problem 24 hours and probably $700 earlier. Is this really the limit that vodaphone warns customers with? A bill like that to most normal people is extreme, alerts should come at maximum $100. This seems like very lax controls by Vodaphone. Its like banks and fraudulent usage of credit cards, banks monitor usage or abnormal behaviours as part of the customer safe guards. Surely Vodaphone has some responsibility to its customers in this regard, especially when no supporting documentation is required for the “credit check” before taking out this apparent large credit line.

Surely Vodaphone cannot leave the customer to bare the brunt of a malfunction of standard applications on phone Vodaphone themselves supply? If there is no resolution on this i will definitely go to the Telecommunication Information Ombudsman as there is a consumer protection issue here.

At least now i feel i have somewhat done Vodaphone’s job and warned those that check this forum that there is a problem with an ICS application. Maybe some of the other posts about excess charges relate to this problem as well. Hopefully i can help others avoid this stressful and overall unpleasant experience with Vodaphone; a company until recently that i had defended to my friends who wanted to switch because of poor reception.

Controls on mobile data usage will now be one of the factors i will use to choose my next mobile phone provider, which will not be Vodaphone unless they make some changes in this area.   

[Maddie]

Beware Android ISC users and accessing your hotmail account via the standard Email Exchange Service on Google phones, there is a bug in the application that chews phone battery and data. Optus forum has a post about this already as do many other Android, Google and phone forums around the world.  

Hi Alicec-crowley,  

This definitely sounds unusual and I’m going to need some more information from you and our devices team to investigate this further. To do this I’ll need to take our conversation private. I’ve sent you a Private Message advising how and what information to send through. You can access this message by clicking here. 

I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Maddie 

[KYWN]

The same thing just occured on my account, though with my mobile broadband pocketwifi. A call to the customer service line did nothing to help. I'll be leaving a forum post too.

[Nick]

Hi KYWN,

KYWN wrote:

The same thing just occured on my account, though with my mobile broadband pocketwifi. A call to the customer service line did nothing to help. I'll be leaving a forum post too.

I have replied to your other post regarding this matter, here.

Cheers,

Nick

[Joyleen]

Alice
I've had the EXACT same thing happen to me with the same phone, please let me know how it turned out for you. I have just posted in this forum and this ordeal is stressing me out so much...I keep reading about other customers who are in the same boat but I'm not seeing any real rectifications taking place, just customers being blamed for "leaving apps running in the background" :-/

[James]

Hi Joyleen,

Joyleen wrote:
Alice
I've had the EXACT same thing happen to me with the same phone, please let me know how it turned out for you. I have just posted in this forum and this ordeal is stressing me out so much...I keep reading about other customers who are in the same boat but I'm not seeing any real rectifications taking place, just customers being blamed for "leaving apps running in the background" :-/

I've replied to your query in another thread, here.

I look forward to you getting back to me.

Kind Regards,

James. 

[stupid]

The same thing happens to my account, some days you wake upto to 25 unread messages that have been read before. they just repush through as unread.

annoying

[ksabee]

Same happened to me,but just once so far since the update

[Sarah_C]

Hey there,

stupid wrote:

The same thing happens to my account, some days you wake upto to 25 unread messages that have been read before. they just repush through as unread.

annoying

I can certainly imagine that receiving unread messages that you have already read must be annoying, and I can help you fix this.

So that I can have a better idea around how you use your phone, can you please let me know if you are using a third party messaging application, or the standard messaging application on your phone? If it's a third party messaging application, the TXT messages may be pushed through to your standard messaging application once you close or delete the third party app.

I noticed in a previous thread you mentioned your phone was an HTC Legend, is this still the phone you're using? This will be helpful to know so that I can run through the appropriate troubleshooting with you.

Is your phone's firmware up to date? Performing an update on your phone can eliminate issues such as these. You can view the current firmware available by selecting your device make and model here. 

Once I know a bit more information about your phone and how you use it, I'll be able to look in to this further for you.

Regards,

Sarah.

[EDIT: content]

[sandhu2211]

I have the same problem. 2 Gb data downloaded in just 2 days. Seems like a bug in ICS. Luckly i have noticed this and disabled mobile data