£7000 Charge For Useage When Sim NOT In Use

[Soul Shadow]

Hi Folks,



I have been battling with Vodafone and an associate company of theirs for over 14 months. I have a data card for my Laptop for which I have been charged £7000 over a 3 month period BUT the data card, sim card and Laptop were sitting in a cupboard out of use for the said billing period.



I contacted Vodaphone to have verification of the Mac address and the location of the receiver station/mast, etc. so that I could challenge their records of where they say I was at any given time during the period and so prove I didn't use my sim card. (This I can do via my work.)



Under the Data Protection Act, I had a legal right to see those details. Unfortunately for me, Vodafone only keep details for 6 months and the dispute is older than that. Therefore they have advised me that all the records are now destroyed. It has been stated to me that for my own protection Vodafone were not allowed to share these details with any one, including any Government legal departments.



I say it’s a technical problem at their end, an administration error or the work of a hacker. They just state I am guilty and I owe them £7000. I am continuously banging my head against a wall. My Solicitor is obviously rubbing his hands together because it has now become a legal matter and it is costing me a small fortune.



I know I only owe them my standard charge of £29 per month for the 3 month period - I stopped paying this due to the dispute.



I have been advised by other Vodaphone and their associate company's customers that they too have had similar problems either with a data card or a mobile phone. One such example was a person being charged for making calls when their phone was out of use....another for making a call from London followed five minutes later with a call from Manchester. As you are aware, this being impossible. I know that the customer took the complaint to Vodafone who checked all the details, discovered a technical problem and admitted they were at fault and adjusted the customer's invoice accordingly.



Off COM will not get involved because the dispute has become a legal matter.



The reason I have contacted this site is in the hope that some of you will be able to help me by relating similar stories. I am looking for evidence of similar issues/problems with Vodaphone and /or their associate companies. Who helped you at Vodafone? How was your problem resolved? I would appreciate as much information as you are able to forward to me.



My Solicitor has advised me that if I lose the Court case I will be liable to pay the £7000 bill, his fees and the Court costs - Total figure will be around £20,000! ....Now do you see why I’m asking you guys for help?



Any information you can forward to me will be of a great support in my case. May I thank you in advance for reading this notice and for any help any of you can give me, thank you.

[gembo2609]

Hi Soul Shadow,

I’m sorry to hear of the problems you’ve been having with Vodafone. I’d like to help with this and see if there’s anything we can do to help you get a resolution. To do this I’d need to have a look at your account. If you’d like me to do this please contact me using the Vodafone online contact us form (https://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatch/Portal/appmanager/vodafone/wrp?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=Page_Help_ContactUs&pageID=PCU_0002) here. If you include the code FIT135 in the body of the email it will ensure it comes through to my team. Please fill in a brief description of the issue or to save you time you can paste a link to your post here.

I look forward to hearing from you so we can get this resolved.

Thanks
Gembo
Vodafone UK

[gembo2609]

Hi again Soul Shadow

Following on from my post on 14th January, I’ve now received your email.

I’d hate to be in the situation you’re in myself and really want to help. However when I read your post I assumed that your account was directly with Vodafone. I’ve since found out that your account is with an independent service provider.

As your contract and service was provided by another company, I don’t have any visibility of your account or billing transactions.

I can understand how frustrating this situation must be for you, so I’ve taken the time to look into what usage records we would have kept; we have some limited information as you would have been using the Vodafone network. This information only records dates, times, and amounts of data transferred using the Vodafone SIM card, and unfortunately doesn’t include MAC addresses of any other equipment data was transferred from. We also only keep this for 6 months.

With this in mind, there’s little that I can do to help and the case should be dealt with by yourself and your service provider directly. We would of course provide any information to your service provider that would help with your query.

Gembo
Vodafone UK

[Soul Shadow]

Hi Gembo,

21st January 2008

Thanks for your emails and letters left here on 3G Forum. Yes its a very very frustrating situation and Vodafone seem like piggy in the middle because the service provider use the Vodafone network, they buy air time from Vodafone and sell it on at a profit, and that's fair play.

The service provider inform me they dont keep nor are allowed to keep certain details of information that I requested in order to prove there is an administration error, or a technical error, or some other problem with the system. I know I`m not gulity !!!

Whats also NOT fair play is the fact their is a problem which neither Vodafone nor the service provider seem to be able to solve, or able to help each other to solve.

Vodafone monitor all usage and pass on the information to the service provider because the service provider buys air time from Vodafone because they dont have there own air ways or system, this seems to make them some kind of sub contract business.

To be totally honest, when I purchased the data card it had the Vodafone name and details all over it, as did the packageing and details. I filled out the contract and sent it off, back it came contract accpeted, from there on in, up to the time of the dispute, I actually thought the said service provider were a monitering / collection service working on behalf of Vodafone to keep down inhouse costs.

The invoice totals come to £7000, I estimate I owe them £90 and thats simply because I refused to pay any more standard payments @ £29 per month until the dispute was resolved.

Yes I did receive some information in the early days, and it was basically an itemised phone bill covering 3 months. But I had requested to see the Mac addresses and full details of the locations of mast / receiver stations that I was said to of connected to during the 3 month period to run up a bill of £7000, but I was told I was not able to see those details under the Data Protection Act, a few months later on I was informed I had a legal right to see those details and under the Data Protection Act, unfortunately by then it was to late because Vodafone are only legally obliged to keep those details for a term that Vodafone see as reasonable, this term being 6 months.

Financially I could of paid the £7000 and not missed it, and walked away fuming because I didnt owe it in the first place. I simply refused to pay for something I haven`t had !!!

I accuse the service provider of very bad management, total ignorance, and total incompetence. For a 3 month period they sat and watched the account go from standard £29 per month to £7000 for 3 months and their alarm bells never rang !! and they never questioned it !! WHAT A BUNCH OF CASH PROFIT COUNTING CLOWNS. I had the account over 2 years and in all that time I never ever went over the standard £29

I have no doubt the service provider has paid Vodafone ( less their own profit margin ) in full for the said usage over the said period, and most probably without question or hesitation

I have AOL broadband at home, I can download UNLIMITED information 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for less than £300 per year, in the comfort and privacy of my own home. Who in their right mind would also want to spend an additional £7000 for a limited amount of information on a data card over a 3 month period ??

I appreciate your own frustration in not been able to further assist and I thank your for all your help.

I`m very angry and I`m sat counting the days to the Court hearing in which it could cost me up to and over £20,000. In the mean time I`m very tempted to contact BBC Watchdog because I`m not guilty !!! And neither Vodafone or the service provider seem able to solve the issue.


Soul Shadow


NEWSFALSH 22nd JANUARY 2008


My Solicitor phoned me late this morning to inform me he had received a fax from the service provider, to inform him they had made a commercial decision and they are " with drawing " their claim and they are not going to pursue the matter any further. So the case is now closed.

My anger and principles wouldn't allow me to pay for something I simply hadn't had.

Did I win in the end ? Yes I did but it cost me over £2500 in legal fees with my Solicitor and 14 months persistence from myself.

Gembo, I`m not sure if any one from Vodafone had any thing to do with helping to close this case with the sub contract service provider behind closed doors over the last 24 hours, but if they did, thank you.


Soul Shadow