Contract

[turnaturn]

Hello,

My sister also having problem with this "overcharge internet data usage" 

currently on $59 cap with no data include and yes from time to time she uses the internet on the phone when she is on the go, just like many of us do.

As an example, we've spotted this on the current bill 

07/05/2012 15:31:32 PKT Internet   55513Kb 00:00:00 All Day $12.32 $12.32

07/05/2012 07:22:24 PKT Internet 102401Kb 00:00:00 All Day $22.72 $22.72

07/05/2012 07:07:45 PKT Internet 102401Kb 00:00:00 All Day $22.72 $22.72

07/05/2012 06:52:34 PKT Internet 102401Kb 00:00:00 All Day $22.72 $22.72

07/05/2012 06:44:23 PKT Internet 102401Kb 00:00:00 All Day $22.72 $22.72

07/05/2012 06:33:43 PKT Internet   95498Kb 00:00:00 All Day $21.91 $21.91

07/05/2012 06:09:10 PKT Internet 102401Kb 00:00:00 All Day $22.72 $ 1.29

The phone is iphone4 (got the $59cap with blackberry) and the strange things are:

1. How could 100s MB of data was used when the person was actually sleeping? (usually wake up time is after 8am)

2. The main computer uses unlimited 4G usb dongle internet, so we are smart enough to download all things using the computer instead of the phone.

3. Reception in our apartment was not that good in a way that it can manage downloading 100MB in 10mins anyway.. so can forget about extreme facebook-ing or watch HD youtube clips or even downloading apps in such a short time..

So... rang customer service Friday 08JUN12 somewhere between 5-6pm-ish and unfortunately the customer service person was quite rude and not willing to understand the FACTs.

Moreover, it was also mentioned that  he finds it hard to believe that we are good customer of vodafone because of our number(s) were ported from 3 // not sure if that has anything to do with this overcharge thing but I am surprised that if 5 of our household are on vodafone and this is not good enough for mr customer service person then I dont really know what he expect from a customer.. really..

That aside.. he then said will put $50 AUD on the account as credit and for us the pay the rest of the amount... which I find it unaceptable. When a customer call to report potential problem, one would expect a sensible answer and possible solution, not just patch it up with $50 credit (which is not even half of the overcharge amount)

Please, if a rep is monitoring this thread I would love to discuss this issue with someone who is more sensible and understanding

Best Regards

turnaturn

[Charlotte]

Hi turnaturn,

You've come to the right place for help and I'd love to work with you to find out what on your sisters phone is using the data.

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turnaturn wrote:

My sister also having problem with this "overcharge internet data usage" 

currently on $59 cap with no data include and yes from time to time she uses the internet on the phone when she is on the go, just like many of us do.

The phone is iphone4 (got the $59cap with blackberry) and the strange things are:

1. How could 100s MB of data was used when the person was actually sleeping? (usually wake up time is after 8am)

When did your sister sign up to the $59 plan? The reason I ask is our current $59 plan includes 1.5GB of data a month to use so I just want to check how much your sister would have. We want her to feel comfortable using the mobile internet when on the go as this is how many smartphone users like to keep connected.

So just to confirm, she has an iPhone 4 however originally had a Blackberry? iPhone's are constantly doing things in the background and using small amounts of data. Are you able to ask your sister if she closes her applications after she uses them? Also, has she downloaded any new applications this month and if so which ones?

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turnaturn wrote:

2. The main computer uses unlimited 4G usb dongle internet, so we are smart enough to download all things using the computer instead of the phone.

3. Reception in our apartment was not that good in a way that it can manage downloading 100MB in 10mins anyway.. so can forget about extreme facebook-ing or watch HD youtube clips or even downloading apps in such a short time..

Whereabouts do you live, suburb/postocde and I can check the service in your area? 100MB isn't a lot of data to use, does she use the mobile internet at all when at home? 

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turnaturn wrote:

So... rang customer service Friday 08JUN12 somewhere between 5-6pm-ish and unfortunately the customer service person was quite rude and not willing to understand the FACTs.

Moreover, it was also mentioned that  he finds it hard to believe that we are good customer of vodafone because of our number(s) were ported from 3 // not sure if that has anything to do with this overcharge thing but I am surprised that if 5 of our household are on vodafone and this is not good enough for mr customer service person then I dont really know what he expect from a customer.. really..

I'd like to assure you that we value you as a loyal customer coming across from 3 Mobile and we certainly don't want you to feel otherwise. This isn't the experience we want for our customers and I hope I can turn this around for you. 

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turnaturn wrote:

That aside.. he then said will put $50 AUD on the account as credit and for us the pay the rest of the amount... which I find it unaceptable. When a customer call to report potential problem, one would expect a sensible answer and possible solution, not just patch it up with $50 credit (which is not even half of the overcharge amount)

If you could please let me know the above information I'll then be able to help and work with you and your sister to find out what has been using the data and we can take the appropriate steps to stop it from happening again.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks,

Charlotte

[turnaturn]

Dear Charlotte, 

Thankyou so much for your reply, answers as follow:

1. My apologies about the $59 Plan, it does include 2GB of data per month

2. Yes we are aware that iPhone 4 drinks a lot of data on idle, mainly uses instagram, facebook and check emails and yes she closes the apps + log off after finished all the time.

3. Resident address is [personal detail removed] Melbourne VIC 3000, the unit is on 25th Floor, in which data reception can get a bit sloppy unless you are standing right next to the window. when I mentioned 100s of MB i was referring to the following example

07/05/2012 07:22:24 PKT Internet 102401Kb 00:00:00 All Day $22.72 $22.72  <-

07/05/2012 07:07:45 PKT Internet 102401Kb 00:00:00 All Day $22.72 $22.72  <-

07/05/2012 06:52:34 PKT Internet 102401Kb 00:00:00 All Day $22.72 $22.72  <-

07/05/2012 06:44:23 PKT Internet 102401Kb 00:00:00 All Day $22.72 $22.72  <-

07/05/2012 06:33:43 PKT Internet   95498Kb 00:00:00 All Day $21.91 $21.91  <-

07/05/2012 06:09:10 PKT Internet 102401Kb 00:00:00 All Day $22.72 $ 1.29   <-

as you can see, the time interval of data usage sessions are mostly within 10-15 minutes of each other, I tried to download 15MB app from market in the apartment and it took around 6-7 mins to manage that 15MB, so I can be very positive that it is impossible for one to use that 100MB of data in each session within that short amount of time frame.

PLUS, the person was not even awake during the time frame above + in the bedroom the data reception also drop more because of the wall, so we really find it hard to believe that the phone it self will use that much data during idle when nothing is set to auto sync. 

Your assistance is much appreciated

turnaturn

[bigwombat]

It's a shame Vodafone Customer Service didn't get back to you again. Did you get this resolved? I have had the exact same issue.

Today I was informed via text message I had spent $566 for this month, and advised to call the customer service line so I didn't get suspended. As soon as I saw the message I called the customer service line and was advised that my bill was now over $800, and was told that I couldn't be told why or have the situation remedied until after I'd received my bill. I was also advised my data would be suspended.

That afternoon, I discovered I could not make phone calls and I had received a message saying calls were barred on my handset - something which customer service had not advised me of, and despite having $200 phone credit left.

I went to a Vodafone store where the storeperson logged on to my account and showed me my data usage. The bulk of the usage (hundreds of MB) had been from the past two days. Around 100MB had been downloaded, often only 10 minutes apart, many times over the past few days, including between 4-5am when I was sleeping, when I was at a farm out of range, and when I was at work and my phone was in a locker.

Just in case I already knew this wasn't my doing, I find this thread and I have the exact same data history as you. PKT Internet 102401Kb charging me $22 a pop. It is obviously not a coincidence that we are both getting the same false charges.

And no, Vodafone, before you try and blame this on me having apps running "in the background", I did not have anything running or on autocheck, I was either out of range or on wi-fi (sleeping) when this mysterious downloading supposedly occurred, and I have not varied my usage patterns or downloaded any new apps recently (my data has always been under my limit for the last 2 years, so it would be extremely difficult for me to suddenly change my habits so extremely). Also, there is no way that I could download 100MB in 10 minutes with the speed of my data connection.

Would be grateful to anyone who can help me sort this out.

[Bruno]

Hi bigwombat,

bigwombat wrote:

Today I was informed via text message I had spent $566 for this month, and advised to call the customer service line so I didn't get suspended. As soon as I saw the message I called the customer service line and was advised that my bill was now over $800, and was told that I couldn't be told why or have the situation remedied until after I'd received my bill. I was also advised my data would be suspended.

That afternoon, I discovered I could not make phone calls and I had received a message saying calls were barred on my handset - something which customer service had not advised me of, and despite having $200 phone credit left.

I can imagine that getting a bill like that was certainly quite a shock. I'm keen to find out why this has happened and what I need to do to get it sorted out and make sure it doesn't happen again in future.

Calling our care team is always a good first step to find out exactly what is happening with your service, though it sounds like the experience you had certainly wasn't what it should have been. There is a lot that we can look at to determine the most likely cause of usage spikes like this and a lot of steps and resources that we can suggest to prevent these situations.

My priority is to get this sorted out for you quickly and easily, so I'd like to get some more specific information so that I can fully understand the situation. Can I please start by confirming the type of phone that you're using? This will help me to identify some likely causes and also to give you more specific advice.

Have you recently installed any new applications or updates your phone software? Applications and software updates can significantly change the ways that your phone uses data, even with no applications open in the back ground. Knowing any recent changes to the setup of your handset will also help me to identify why this may have happened.

bigwombat wrote:

I went to a Vodafone store where the storeperson logged on to my account and showed me my data usage. The bulk of the usage (hundreds of MB) had been from the past two days. Around 100MB had been downloaded, often only 10 minutes apart, many times over the past few days, including between 4-5am when I was sleeping, when I was at a farm out of range, and when I was at work and my phone was in a locker.

Just in case I already knew this wasn't my doing, I find this thread and I have the exact same data history as you. PKT Internet 102401Kb charging me $22 a pop. It is obviously not a coincidence that we are both getting the same false charges.

The good news here, is that your data session are supposed to be billed in 102401kb sessions and that this is normal behaviour for our billing system. There's a great article on our support page that is certainly worth reading and explains this much better than I can, you can get to it by clicking here

What is not normal behaviour, is the spike in usage that is causing so many of these packet sessions on your bill. 

I'd really like to take a closer look at your data usage and see if this is data that is being downloaded (sent to your phone) or uploaded (sent from your phone), as this will help to provide the biggest clue as to what is causing this elevated usage for you.

I'll need to get some more specific information to do this for you, so I've sent you a private message with my contact details. You can get to your private messages by clicking here.

In the meantime, I strongly recommend installing a data monitoring application. There are a few to choose from on most mobile platforms and they will show you exactly which applications/operations are using up your data (and how much they are using).

There's also a great support article on our website with advise on how to troubleshoot high data usage on smart phones. It's got some great information on what to look out for and it's definitely worth a read. You can find it by clicking here.

I'm looking forward to your email so that I can get this sorted out for you. If you have any other questions along the way, or if there's anything else that I an help with, please let me know.

Cheers,

-Bruno.

[Edwina1]

Add me to the list. My daughter has an iPhone 4, has had it since November of 2011. She has never once gone over on her data plan but in the last couple of weeks data charges have started appearing that make no sense.

She has charges that have appeared for usage at midnight. She is asleep then.Even if she was up, we have wifi so would not be using the phones data. Charges appear when she is in meetings or in class at school and the phone is nt being used. Ihave called customer service twice and they have been little help.

No the software has not been update, no new apps haven't been downloaded. No one can tell us what has happened.

I am ready to go elsewhere with my business, just about had enough.

[Jerome_F]

Hi Edwina1,

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Edwina1 wrote:

Add me to the list. My daughter has an iPhone 4, has had it since November of 2011. She has never once gone over on her data plan but in the last couple of weeks data charges have started appearing that make no sense.

She has charges that have appeared for usage at midnight. She is asleep then.Even if she was up, we have wifi so would not be using the phones data. Charges appear when she is in meetings or in class at school and the phone is nt being used. Ihave called customer service twice and they have been little help.

Receiving an unexpected charge isn't a pleasant experience, and we're here to help.  I've sent you a Private Message here with our contact details. If you'd like to get in contact, we will help investigate your daughter's data charges with you to see what is happening.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Jerome