New Vodafone Mobile Internet pricing w/ text bundles

I'm hoping someone in here can help because Vodafone CS have been a
complete non-starter.

My current pay monthly Vodafone contract is Anytime 100 with the £9 half
price text and data bundle. One of the advantages of this setup is that
each month any unused SMS credits are used to offset the cost of data
calls that fall outside the inclusive bundle. Because it's a rare month
that I send more than a handful of SMS, this means that for most of my
bills my data costs (mainly IMAP e-mail with the occasional 1-2MB
download to the laptop via Bluetooth) are covered by the SMS credits and
are often zero.

In light of the new 'added value' Mobile Internet charges Vodafone are
introducing in June, I need to know whether unused credits from my SMS
bundle will still be used to offset data calls or not. If they're not,
then under the new scheme my last month's bill would have been higher by
at least £4 (for the four days on which I downloaded >1MB of data) and
by some fraction thereof for the other days when I downloaded a few
dozen KB of e-mails and headers. For some months it would be much, much
higher.

I e-mailed Vodafone Customer Services with a much more thorough
explanation of the issue, detailing what I knew about the old and new
pricing structure and asking them specifically if the bundle offset will
continue.

After a five day wait I've just received a completely useless response
that a) outlines the new Mobile Internet charges that I quoted in my
original e-mail and therefore already knew about and b) goes to great
pains to explain that Vodafone have not breached their Terms &
Conditions, something I didn't accuse them of in the first place.

This suggests to me the possibility that the bundle offset IS to be
dropped on June 1 when the new charges come into play, but that CS just
don't want to say so in black and white lest I jump ship early.

Does anyone know for certain whether or not the SMS/data credit offset
is to continue under the new scheme? I'm all for simplicity and
consistency but I refuse absolutely to pay more per month for exactly
the same service just because Vodafone say it's what their customers
want.

I will vote with my wallet if my bill goes up, but Vodafone don't seem
to want me to know if it will or not before I get my June bill...

TIA

--
Kev
__________________________________________________ ________________________
"If you put it on the table as a bargaining chip it becomes a bargaining
chip." Ronald Reagan

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 Kevin Reilly wrote:

>I'm hoping someone in here can help because Vodafone CS have been a
>complete non-starter.

[...]

>I will vote with my wallet if my bill goes up, but Vodafone don't seem
>to want me to know if it will or not before I get my June bill...

I've just picked up the thread "Vodafone data charging" thanks to Graham
Murray's post this afternoon (for some reason my news client had chosen
not to download the other eight messages and I had to grab them
manually) so it looks as though the fobbing off by Vodafone CS is
nothing new.

My contract is due to expire in the next couple of months anyway so even
if Vodafone get arsey about cancellation I won't have to stick with them
much longer if the bills go up.

It really is looking as though they've shat on their own chips with this
new pricing policy. While I'm sure it will entice a few customers who've
previously steered clear of mobile data due to cost, those of us already
happy with our existing contracts are just going to bail when the new
charges come in.

--
Kev
__________________________________________________ ________________________
"Now is your chance to have your ears pierced and get an extra pair to
take home, too." Jeweller's shop sign

From what vodafone told me you should be able to carry on as you are at the
moment as you are on an old price plan. New priceplans don't currently allow
texts to be exchanged for data anyway and so the bundles being released next
month will be useful for those customers who are currently paying all data
as extra.

If you upgrade your phone and change your tariff whilst doing so more than
likely you'll be on a new tariff and wont benefit so be careful.

This, as you said might be made up by the person I spoke to?!? sounds
sensible though


"Kevin Reilly" <usenet@denali.org.uk> wrote in message
news:OiAKNoEeOLNGFw56@spamtrap.denali.org.uk...
On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 Kevin Reilly wrote:

>I'm hoping someone in here can help because Vodafone CS have been a
>complete non-starter.

[...]

>I will vote with my wallet if my bill goes up, but Vodafone don't seem
>to want me to know if it will or not before I get my June bill...

I've just picked up the thread "Vodafone data charging" thanks to Graham
Murray's post this afternoon (for some reason my news client had chosen
not to download the other eight messages and I had to grab them
manually) so it looks as though the fobbing off by Vodafone CS is
nothing new.

My contract is due to expire in the next couple of months anyway so even
if Vodafone get arsey about cancellation I won't have to stick with them
much longer if the bills go up.

It really is looking as though they've shat on their own chips with this
new pricing policy. While I'm sure it will entice a few customers who've
previously steered clear of mobile data due to cost, those of us already
happy with our existing contracts are just going to bail when the new
charges come in.

--
Kev
__________________________________________________ ________________________
"Now is your chance to have your ears pierced and get an extra pair to
take home, too." Jeweller's shop sign

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 James Lewis wrote:

>From what vodafone told me you should be able to carry on as you are at the
>moment as you are on an old price plan. New priceplans don't currently allow
>texts to be exchanged for data anyway and so the bundles being released next
>month will be useful for those customers who are currently paying all data
>as extra.

>If you upgrade your phone and change your tariff whilst doing so more than
>likely you'll be on a new tariff and wont benefit so be careful.

Thanks for that. I'll keep an eye on the bills and see what happens.

I'm happy to stick with Vodafone for the time being if indeed they keep
me on the old tariff and offsets, but if it looks as though I'll lose
out if I upgrade then I'll switch to T-Mobile instead. Unless I've read
things wrong their Flext 25 / Web & Walk Plus seems to offer similar if
not better allowances for about the same price. The only pain will be
porting the number, which caused me no end of trouble last time when
switching from Orange to Voda.

--
Kev
__________________________________________________ ________________________
"Warning! Difficult to swim out if wearing wader filled with water by
falling down! Therefor, please avoid deep water where danger of
drowning possibility exists." Warning on Taiwanese-made waders

Kevin Reilly wrote:

> Does anyone know for certain whether or not the SMS/data credit offset
> is to continue under the new scheme? I'm all for simplicity and
> consistency but I refuse absolutely to pay more per month for exactly
> the same service just because Vodafone say it's what their customers want.

According the e-mails exchanged between myself and Vodafone (and it has
been escalated) the data part will cease at the end of May. In my case,
based on this month's usage, my bill will double from £25 to about £50,
given the 5p per session minimum charge (I use lots of POP/IMAP too),
and the fact non-web data will not hit any plateau (even though that
would presuppose £30 extra per month, given there is a £1 minimum per
day to hit the plateau).

Vodafone have been unable to comment on how an old bill may appear under
the new charging regime, and they have said they will have to revisit my
account at the end of June to see whether there has in fact been in
increase in my charges. If it is more than 10% they will look at
allowing me to end the contract, and, I presume, they will have to
refund the extra I will have paid. It is a bit of a mess. Of course,
they initially tried to fob me off saying the data was a free extra so
they could remove it at their will. That understanding runs contrary to
UK law though. As the old system has not yet finished, and as VF may
offer something useful (eg a moderate data pack thrown in in exchange
for unneeded text messages) I will wait a little longer before pursuing
this.

It might be worth keeping your eye on The Register for the next few
weeks too, as this is an issue they've been looking into... VF's
charging seem to indicate a total lack of awareness about how their
customers use their services. The fact they've withdrawn data from
existing bundles but have yet to publish details of new data packs
further clarifies this, IMHO.

Cheers,

Mark.

Mark Coley wrote:
> It might be worth keeping your eye on The Register for the next few
> weeks too, as this is an issue they've been looking into... VF's
> charging seem to indicate a total lack of awareness about how their
> customers use their services. The fact they've withdrawn data from
> existing bundles but have yet to publish details of new data packs
> further clarifies this, IMHO.

Have a look at:

http://www.theregister.com/2007/04/3...e_data_tariff/

Mark.

Mark Coley wrote:

> Vodafone have been unable to comment on how an old bill may appear under
> the new charging regime, and they have said they will have to revisit my
> account at the end of June to see whether there has in fact been in
> increase in my charges. If it is more than 10% they will look at
> allowing me to end the contract, and, I presume, they will have to
> refund the extra I will have paid.

Latest news from Vodafone is that customer service are awaiting an
official response on what they are allowed to tell me as a customer. The
chances are VF head office have yet to release any details and the
customer service people are as much in the dark as we are. The
spreadsheet I sent them shows with little doubt that a £25 bill for
March will become £50 under the new charging regime.

I've had no clarification on whether putty/ssh/imap/pop etc will be
eligible for bundle inclusion either (so I assume it won't), or whether
they will be regarded as peer-to-peer communications. And no comment on
the 5p minimum session charge, which will mean regular e-mail polling
will be out of the question.

If anyone is affected by these changes, can I suggest you contact
Vodafone? If they listen to market research they should surely take heed
of what paying customers are telling them.

Mark.

On Tue, 1 May 2007 Mark Coley wrote:

>If anyone is affected by these changes, can I suggest you contact
>Vodafone? If they listen to market research they should surely take
>heed of what paying customers are telling them.

Unfortunately I wouldn't rely too much on that theory. What you have to
remember is that customer feedback is free, whereas market research and
consultancy data are paid for. In my experience, management tend to
favour that information for which money has changed hands even if said
information is less than accurate

I will certainly be contacting Vodafone if it looks certain that my
bills will increase under the new scheme, in whatever form it ends up
taking.

--
Kev
__________________________________________________ ________________________
"My mother died last year and I promised to look after her. She was
sprayed twice a week and wore a flea collar." Tamworth Herald

Mark Coley wrote:
> Mark Coley wrote:
>> It might be worth keeping your eye on The Register for the next few
>> weeks too, as this is an issue they've been looking into... VF's
>> charging seem to indicate a total lack of awareness about how their
>> customers use their services. The fact they've withdrawn data from
>> existing bundles but have yet to publish details of new data packs
>> further clarifies this, IMHO.
>
> Have a look at:
>
> http://www.theregister.com/2007/04/3...e_data_tariff/
>
> Mark.

And another interesting article!

http://telecom.seekingalpha.com/article/34190

Mark.

On Tue, 1 May 2007 Mark Coley wrote:

>If anyone is affected by these changes, can I suggest you contact
>Vodafone? If they listen to market research they should surely take
>heed of what paying customers are telling them.

Jeez, dealing with Vodafone is like banging your head against a brick
wall.

Having read about clause 8.a) of the Airtime Terms And Conditions on
another forum I am in the process of using Vodafone's own online archive
of my previous bills, along with as much information as I can find on
their new pricing structure, to creating some spreadsheets that will
hopefully demonstrate that under the new scheme my bills will rise from
between 8% and 50%.

Because their 'get out clause' stipulates a 10% difference I am
understandably anxious to obtain some information from the horse's mouth
as to whether my calculations are accurate or not. For instance, I have
heard from several sources that bundled SMS credits will not be able to
be offset against data calls post-June 1st, but none of those sources is
Vodafone itself.

I have exchanged several e-mails with Vodafone Customer Services. In
each case my originating e-mail was of the standard, ASCII-only
RFC-compliant format e.g.

Salutation.

>Some quoted Vodafone text.

My response to it.

>Some more quoted Vodafone text.

My response to that.

And so on. In each case I have received a reply that addresses only the
first part of my original message (usually a complaint about the
non-professionalism of their previous effort) and completely ignores the
rest of the message along with any questions therein.

In my last e-mail I specifically indented and highlighted two questions
with simple YES or NO answers, and asked for simple YES or NO answers in
reply. All I got by return was an apology for the previous
misunderstanding, and no answers to the damned questions.

At this point I can see only three main possibilities as to why I keep
hitting this brick wall:

1. The Vodafone CS people are so used to Microsoft Outlook that
they completely ignore anything after the first quote character,
assuming it to be nothing more than the previous message quoted
in its entirety.

2. They do not understand the nature of my questions because
English is not their first language. A bit un-PC of me to say
that, perhaps, but the names of the personnel involved so far do
suggest the possibility of an overseas facility being involved.

3. They are deliberately avoiding answering the questions in the
hope that things will drag on past June 1st after which the
terms of clause 8.a) no longer apply and I will be stuck with
the new charges until my contract expires.

I want to think the best of people but the more this drags on the more
likely option 3 seems.

Has anyone had any luck getting sensible, meaningful answers from
Vodafone CS via e-mail? Especially regarding these new data charges?

--
Kev
__________________________________________________ ________________________
"I've been up and down so many times that I feel as if I'm in a revolving
door." Cher

Kevin Reilly wrote:

> Has anyone had any luck getting sensible, meaningful answers from
> Vodafone CS via e-mail? Especially regarding these new data charges?

Without quoting verbatim, I have had more success in getting personal
responses. I sent in a spreadsheet showing my charges will increase by
approximately 100% too. This is how the e-mail went...

Query was escalated and a response given. VF can't confirm extent of
price rise so will have to wait till end of June to compare that month's
bill with previous bills, allowing for any change in data usage
behaviour (obviously!). If bill increases by more than 10% there would
be grounds for contract cancellation.

This information would not be available on the billing systems until
July's bill appears (showing June's usage). My account would be then be
revisited and a decision taken then.

I was asked if I was happy with this, and whether I wished to feed
anything back to management again.

A later e-mail said they were still awaiting an official response as to
how to answer my continuing questions (on the existence of data packs,
and whether they could be provided given I was still in contract and was
therefore expecting some degree of data provision until the end of my
committed period).

I have a good mind to actually do nothing and go to the small claims
court if July's bill is different from what I agreed at the start of my
18-month contract!

Mark.

ps if you want an excel spreadsheet have a look at this:

http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~mdc1003/VF.xls

cut and paste the unbilled usage/old bill to the back sheet (select
all/copy on VF's original, then go to A1 in mine and do a paste). Then
on the FORMULAE sheet you can have a fiddle. Some of the maths may not
be quite right(!) but there are some formulae that extra the bytes from
the text fields.

On Wed, 9 May 2007 Mark Coley wrote:

>cut and paste the unbilled usage/old bill to the back sheet (select
>all/copy on VF's original, then go to A1 in mine and do a paste). Then
>on the FORMULAE sheet you can have a fiddle. Some of the maths may not
>be quite right(!) but there are some formulae that extra the bytes from
>the text fields.

I could have done with that on Monday when I was editing my downloaded
bills into a form Excel liked! Still, it's done now.

What's really gripping my shit is that I'm sitting on a finalized
spreadsheet based on my last four billing periods that clearly confirms
my eligibility for early release under clause 8)a, but only if my
interpretation of Vodafone's vague information on the new billing policy
is correct. All I'm asking is verification on two key points, and
they're stonewalling me all the way.

I absolutely fail to see what they hope to gain by this; if I'm wrong
then my bills will rise only by 8% or so, thereby trapping me until the
contract expires anyway. And if I'm right then all they're doing is
delaying the inevitable. From what you've described they'll be unable to
confirm the % increase until AFTER the new prices come in (even if this
is not what clause 8 states) so they'll be looking at a long drawn-out
refund and release process, with Vodafone's name dragged through the
consumer press and possibly the Small Claims Court.

What's the alternative? Do they think I'm going to just roll over and
happily fork out tens of pounds more per month for the same service?
What planet are they on?

I know this new generation of phones with WiFi and VoIP has all the
mobile companies scared shitless, but this total lack of professionalism
by Vodafone is incredible. It smacks of desperation.

--
Kev
__________________________________________________ ________________________
"Staff should empty the teapot and then stand upside down on the
tea tray." Canteen notice

Kevin Reilly wrote:
> I absolutely fail to see what they hope to gain by this; if I'm wrong
> then my bills will rise only by 8% or so, thereby trapping me until the
> contract expires anyway. And if I'm right then all they're doing is
> delaying the inevitable. From what you've described they'll be unable to
> confirm the % increase until AFTER the new prices come in (even if this
> is not what clause 8 states) so they'll be looking at a long drawn-out
> refund and release process, with Vodafone's name dragged through the
> consumer press and possibly the Small Claims Court.

I came across this the other day... not sure exactly how relevant but it
states:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19992083.htm

"Effect of unfair term
8. - (1) An unfair term in a contract concluded with a consumer
by a seller or supplier shall not be binding on the consumer.

(2) The contract shall continue to bind the parties if it is
capable of continuing in existence without the unfair term."

Now if a change in billing process is enacted by Vodafone, without
agreement, and Vodafone do not offer early release, then I would
consider that unfair as it is to the detriment of the consumer.

"Unfair Terms

5.(1) A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated
shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good
faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and
obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer.

(2) A term shall always be regarded as not having been individually
negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has
therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term."

Note the words 'good faith'!

The sensible things for be for VF to continue to honour contracts as
they are. Failing that (if their billing systems will be incapable of
having such a wide variety of charging mechanisms) they should offer
something that allows the customer to continue using their phone as they
have been doing. If this means giving them a bundled data allowance in
addition to the contractual text/data allowance, so be it.

Mark.

On Thu, 10 May 2007 Mark Coley wrote:

>The sensible things for be for VF to continue to honour contracts as
>they are. Failing that (if their billing systems will be incapable of
>having such a wide variety of charging mechanisms) they should offer
>something that allows the customer to continue using their phone as
>they have been doing. If this means giving them a bundled data
>allowance in addition to the contractual text/data allowance, so be it.

Thanks for that.

I just received an e-mail from Vodafone that's actually helpful, at
least in part. It's still a tad unclear, but a lot more useful than the
rubbish they've been sending me until now.

The e-mail states that for the example I quoted (semi-regular IMAP
connections) I will be billed £2 per MB with *no* minimum connection
charge. And the data part of my £9 half price text and data package will
not apply post-June 1st.

I'm not sure what to make of the first part of this, since it seems to
be a hybrid answer. The £2 per MB seems to be the P2P price, but that
comes with a 5p minimum which Vodafone say won't apply to me. Either way
I've just re-done my spreadsheet based on £2/MB with no minimum and I'm
still looking at a 50% increase when the data bundle is removed.

That's more than good enough for me so I'll be sending printouts of
those spreadsheets, along with all the e-mail communication, to Vodafone
requesting termination of contract and a PAC. Let's see how they react
to that.

--
Kev
__________________________________________________ ________________________
"Enraged cow injures farmer with axe."
Newspaper headline

Kevin Reilly wrote:
> That's more than good enough for me so I'll be sending printouts of
> those spreadsheets, along with all the e-mail communication, to Vodafone
> requesting termination of contract and a PAC. Let's see how they react
> to that.

The problem with VF at the moment is they don't have any information
they can publish on how their monthly data packs will work. This is
either because they don't yet know, or they are waiting to see how the
market responds before they say what the price will be and what services
it will cover.

http://www.vodafone.co.uk/datapricing

seems to have a bit more information on now. There is a way of
registering interest for the monthly data packs, which wasn't there at
the beginning. It is now stressed you can connect a laptop or PDA too,
but that the monthly packs will be for 'web browsing' (as opposed to
internet access?).

Assuming Vodafone want to keep their customers, a simple and easy way to
deal with this issue is for them to see what the customer has been
using, give them a credit on their bill each month till the end of the
contract (which must work in the customer's favour) to account for their
new charging regime. For example, if I send no SMS one month I can use
12.8MB of data (£30 of data at £2.35/M. Under the new scheme, 12.8MB
of data spread out over the month will cost £6.40, so if I was given a
£6.40 credit per month for the remainder of the contract I would be no
worse off. They'd have to waive the 5p minimum charge of course too for
this to work and allow free access using all protocols. If they can't
make such an exception, they'd have to negotiate, or provide early
release if requested.

Mark.

Mark Coley wrote:
> Assuming Vodafone want to keep their customers, a simple and easy way to
> deal with this issue is for them to see what the customer has been
> using, give them a credit on their bill each month till the end of the
> contract (which must work in the customer's favour) to account for their
> new charging regime. For example, if I send no SMS one month I can use
> 12.8MB of data (£30 of data at £2.35/M. Under the new scheme, 12.8MB
> of data spread out over the month will cost £6.40, so if I was given a
> £6.40 credit per month for the remainder of the contract I would be no
> worse off. They'd have to waive the 5p minimum charge of course too for
> this to work and allow free access using all protocols. If they can't
> make such an exception, they'd have to negotiate, or provide early
> release if requested.
>
> Mark.

Urm, wrong maths! 12.8MB of data will cost £25.60 at £2/MB... (and that
would mean free rental till the end of the contract). So it would
probably be cheaper to chuck in a monthly pack and ask the customer
nicely if he'd agreed to forgo VoIP (assuming he used it previously?)
and be content with being able to send more text messages as all the
bundle would go to text messages.

On Thu, 10 May 2007 Mark Coley wrote:

>Assuming Vodafone want to keep their customers, a simple and easy way
>to deal with this issue is for them to see what the customer has been
>using, give them a credit on their bill each month till the end of the
>contract (which must work in the customer's favour) to account for
>their new charging regime. For example, if I send no SMS one month I
>can use 12.8MB of data (£30 of data at £2.35/M. Under the new scheme,
>12.8MB of data spread out over the month will cost £6.40, so if I was
>given a £6.40 credit per month for the remainder of the contract I
>would be no worse off. They'd have to waive the 5p minimum charge of
>course too for this to work and allow free access using all protocols.
>If they can't make such an exception, they'd have to negotiate, or
>provide early release if requested.

This may yet happen, on a per-customer basis. A work colleague has been
having issues with Vodafone (not data related) and during one of the
more frustrating, getting-nowhere Customer Service calls he told them to
shove it and send a PAC. He was passed on to Retention who offered him a
cracking deal on his voice calls and a new phone to boot.

It will be interesting to see if something similar happens with those of
us requesting cancellation because of the data pricing.

Personally, though, I've had it with Vodafone. I can't imagine how good
a deal they'd have to offer me to get me to stay. During the five or so
years I've been with them the quality of service and support has
steadily slipped, and now it looks as though value might be following.
Their Customer Service is a joke.

This recent debacle with multiple useless repetitive e-mails flying back
and forth has been the last straw as far as I'm concerned. In the first
reply I got from them the guy even spelled my bloody surname wrong, even
though it was quoted in the original message. It might be a minor thing
but it reeks of a lack of professionalism.

I shall be taking my custom elsewhere.

--
Kev
__________________________________________________ ________________________
"Coming from Detroit, this man has no children."
Medical chart entry

On Thu, 10 May 2007 Kevin Reilly wrote:

>I'm not sure what to make of the first part of this, since it seems to
>be a hybrid answer. The £2 per MB seems to be the P2P price, but that
>comes with a 5p minimum which Vodafone say won't apply to me. Either
>way I've just re-done my spreadsheet based on £2/MB with no minimum and
>I'm still looking at a 50% increase when the data bundle is removed.
>
>That's more than good enough for me so I'll be sending printouts of
>those spreadsheets, along with all the e-mail communication, to
>Vodafone requesting termination of contract and a PAC. Let's see how
>they react to that.

Some people may be interested to know that after sending a hard-copy
report to Vodafone CS detailing the 30%-50% rise that my bills would
suffer under this new pricing policy, I've had a reply by snail mail
telling me that they're sending me a PAC and that my account will be
cancelled as soon as the PAC is used.

Just a pity I had to jump through so many hoops just to convince someone
at Vodafone that their new pricing policy sucks, particularly for those
of us on soon-to-be-defunct 'data inclusive' bundles.

What's really amusing though is that the day after I got the snail mail,
an e-mail arrived from a different Vodafone CS representative, once more
explaining in exhaustive detail all those facts I already knew. It went
on to say that, "At present, we're unable to advise on what effect these
changes will have on the charges you incur. As mentioned above, £1 is
not a minimum daily charge and so the changes may still benefit you."

Even though another CS rep has accepted my increased figures as
justification for early account cancellation.

Left hand, have you met right hand?

--
Kev
__________________________________________________ ________________________
"Experience with LBM compatible computers."
From a resume

Kevin Reilly wrote:

>
> What's really amusing though is that the day after I got the snail mail,
> an e-mail arrived from a different Vodafone CS representative, once more
> explaining in exhaustive detail all those facts I already knew. It went
> on to say that, "At present, we're unable to advise on what effect these
> changes will have on the charges you incur. As mentioned above, £1 is
> not a minimum daily charge and so the changes may still benefit you."
>
> Even though another CS rep has accepted my increased figures as
> justification for early account cancellation.
>
> Left hand, have you met right hand?
>

Or you can purchase 120mb for £7.50 a month.

Charlie Mitchell wrote:

> Or you can purchase 120mb for £7.50 a month.

So have they published their data bundles? You think they'd press a
button on their computer and chuck in 10MB for free for those still on
contracts and keep everyone happy. That should set them back about 62p a
month but it would mean they'd keep the customer and possibly tempt them
to go for the bigger pack.

Is anyone from Vodafone reading this?

Mark.

Mark Coley wrote:

>
> Is anyone from Vodafone reading this?
>
> Mark.

Yes, me

Charlie Mitchell wrote:
> Mark Coley wrote:
>
>>
>> Is anyone from Vodafone reading this?
>>
>> Mark.
>
> Yes, me

OK, so will the data package allow SSH communication, or will that come
under the 'could be voip, could be p2p, could in fact be anything so
will be outside the bundle and attract a minimum charge of 5p'???

Though what happens if there is a data session in progress (say normal
web browsing), and then the odd bit of intermittent p2p takes place. How
will the session(s) be identified? Will it be 5p for the whole lot? Or
5p everytime a new p2p is noticed?

Mark.

On Thu, 17 May 2007 Charlie Mitchell wrote:

>Or you can purchase 120mb for £7.50 a month.

This is EXACTLY the sort of thing I'm talking about. In the last ten
days or so I've had dealings with at least five individuals working for
Vodafone CS and not one of them, including the guy who verified my
spreadsheet calculations and confirmed that my costs would go up,
mentioned a new bundle to replace the existing £9 Text And Data bundle
that's being dropped.

I'm assuming that this MAY be the information I would have eventually
received had I registered interest in the new Monthly Browsing Bundle
(an option that only appeared on the website midway through all this
chaos). But again I have to ask: why must the customer jump through all
these complicated hoops just to get a straight answer?

--
Kev
__________________________________________________ ________________________
"Let the tool have nonloading for one minute and see whether the function
of the transmission position is flexible and there is abnormal noise and
the scraws become flexible and fall off and the inverting sparkle is
normal or not." Instructions with Chinese electric drill

Kevin Reilly wrote:
> On Thu, 17 May 2007 Charlie Mitchell wrote:
>
>> Or you can purchase 120mb for £7.50 a month.
>
> This is EXACTLY the sort of thing I'm talking about. In the last ten
> days or so I've had dealings with at least five individuals working for
> Vodafone CS and not one of them, including the guy who verified my
> spreadsheet calculations and confirmed that my costs would go up,
> mentioned a new bundle to replace the existing £9 Text And Data bundle
> that's being dropped.
>
> I'm assuming that this MAY be the information I would have eventually
> received had I registered interest in the new Monthly Browsing Bundle
> (an option that only appeared on the website midway through all this
> chaos). But again I have to ask: why must the customer jump through all
> these complicated hoops just to get a straight answer?
>

It was only released to staff today.

Mark Coley wrote:
> Charlie Mitchell wrote:
>> Mark Coley wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Is anyone from Vodafone reading this?
>>>
>>> Mark.
>>
>> Yes, me
>
> OK, so will the data package allow SSH communication, or will that come
> under the 'could be voip, could be p2p, could in fact be anything so
> will be outside the bundle and attract a minimum charge of 5p'???
>
> Though what happens if there is a data session in progress (say normal
> web browsing), and then the odd bit of intermittent p2p takes place. How
> will the session(s) be identified? Will it be 5p for the whole lot? Or
> 5p everytime a new p2p is noticed?
>
> Mark.

As far as I know, so far the system isn't capable of telling
what data is what, that's something that is being worked on
though. If you want to use MSN/Yahoo!/AOL chat etc then there
are plenty of web based browsers that should work.

The new live portal is very good though, it has a new
rendering device that makes web pages fit to your mobile phone
screen.

On Thu, 17 May 2007 Charlie Mitchell wrote:

>It was only released to staff today.

Thanks for the honesty! Things are starting to make sense, now.

As many of us may have suspected, you're as hamstrung by lack of
information as the rest of us yet apparently can't say as much in
official correspondence even though such knowledge tends eventually to
leak out elsewhere. Surely the Powers That Be at Vodafone must realise
what this does to customer confidence?

Problems like this are exacerbated by the communications style used by
CS staff, some of whose e-mails come across as absolutely authoritative
even when the information they're providing is a) inconsistent between
individuals and b) apparently based on incomplete knowledge.

I'm probably going to be incommunicado for a week or so and by the time
I return I should be armed with both my PAC and a more solid idea of
what Vodafone's data options are to be post-June 1st. Sad to say it's
extremely unlikely I'll remain with Vodafone even if the new bundle
works in my favour, partly because there are similar offers from
competitors already in place (with accurate information available for
some time now) but mainly because I've had enough of being given the
run-around and trickle-fed snippets of information when all I need are
straight answers.

Vodafone certainly aren't the only company to work in this way (it seems
to be becoming very common on the service side of most businesses) but
my experiences in the last week or so have led me to the point where I
simply can't trust any short-term answers I get from Vodafone's
customer-facing elements. And if there's no trust, how I can continue to
buy the service with confidence?

--
Kev
__________________________________________________ ________________________
"Somewhere between real and real real."
Dan Quayle

"Charlie Mitchell" <jm2@charleem.co.uk> wrote in message
news:5b3mmrF2qemndU1@mid.individual.net...

> Or you can purchase 120mb for £7.50 a month.

Is that the only bundle option and is it available from June 1 or later?

--
John