Hands0n
21st November 2006, 07:53 AM
Found this little bit of rather uninspiring news today ..... If you are a PAYT customer who uses Premium Rate SMS (PSMS) at all or a lot then you may have been overcharged by 12p per message!
Vodafone has been charging its pay as you go customers an extra 12p for texting premium rate numbers.
Customers are usually charged 12p for the delivery of the message, and then the premium rate charge. However, it seems the mobile operator has been tagging on an extra 12p.
The overbilling came to light when a customer complained to an aggregator after noticing the SNAFU.
A Vodafone statement said: "Vodafone can confirm a charging issue affecting a number of our pay as you talk customers using premium rate SMS services. The issue continues to be investigated."
Vodafone could have been netting about £360,000 per week through the overbilling, if it affected all its premium rate SMS', less if it's only hit PAYG customers.
The question now is whether ICSTIS will come to the rescue.
The premium rate services regulator is geared more towards aggregators than the networks themselves, so if Vodafone is misbilling it may well get away with it, or be given the chance to rectify the situation.
An aggregator misbilling would inevitably lead to a fine, or worse.
Vodafone could, of course, remedy the situation and go through all its billing records and credit customers who have been overcharged. Whether it will or not is another matter.
The aggregators and content providers who utilise premium rate SMS may be unwilling to help sort out the situation, even though it's their customers who will be complaining. They do have a point as usually they are the first to get the "finger pointed at" and have to sort out billing issues very rapidly or get cut off from the networks - Vodafone is unlikely to cut itself off or stop providing premium rate short codes as they are hefty revenue generators - even more so it now seems. ®
Article Source: The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/20/vodafone_overcharges_premium_sms/)
And .....
Vodafone customers in the UK are receiving an additional charge of 12p on Premium Rate text messages across all price points.
An aggregator has discovered that all PSMS messages through Vodafone in the UK across all price points from 25p through to the maximum £1.50 are having an extra 12p added to their bill. The extra charge only came to light following a customer complaint to an aggregator.
Assuming that this is a technical error, this will be netting Vodafone an estimated £360,000 pounds a week in additional revenues. If it comes to offering refunds to those over charged, the refund flow from operator to aggregator, service providor and end user is tricky to implement for PSMS.
So far Vodafone has declined to comment on this additional charge which appears to have been in place for some weeks.
So far, Premium SMS (PSMS) has been the primary method used for consumers to purchase content on their phone, says Raomal Perera, CEO of payment specialist Valista. For the content market to grow successfully, the pricing of off-portal transactions urgently requires greater visibility and flexibility than PSMS allows, as this incident with Vodafone has shown.
The PSMS billing method has, indeed, given rise to several concerns among operators, content providers and consumers alike. Among them is the absence of credit checks, fraud protection, flexible charging and pricing transparency. Operators are now looking to suitable alternatives in order to prevent any such issues with PSMS damaging their reputations which they have spent millions building. One such alternative is direct-to-bill charging, which is seen as a more robust payment mechanism. With direct-to-bill Vodafone would be able to bill consumers more accurately and provide an appropriate level of security, fraud protection and transparency.
Article Source: 160Characters Association (http://www.160characters.org/news.php?action=view&nid=2154)
Vodafone has been charging its pay as you go customers an extra 12p for texting premium rate numbers.
Customers are usually charged 12p for the delivery of the message, and then the premium rate charge. However, it seems the mobile operator has been tagging on an extra 12p.
The overbilling came to light when a customer complained to an aggregator after noticing the SNAFU.
A Vodafone statement said: "Vodafone can confirm a charging issue affecting a number of our pay as you talk customers using premium rate SMS services. The issue continues to be investigated."
Vodafone could have been netting about £360,000 per week through the overbilling, if it affected all its premium rate SMS', less if it's only hit PAYG customers.
The question now is whether ICSTIS will come to the rescue.
The premium rate services regulator is geared more towards aggregators than the networks themselves, so if Vodafone is misbilling it may well get away with it, or be given the chance to rectify the situation.
An aggregator misbilling would inevitably lead to a fine, or worse.
Vodafone could, of course, remedy the situation and go through all its billing records and credit customers who have been overcharged. Whether it will or not is another matter.
The aggregators and content providers who utilise premium rate SMS may be unwilling to help sort out the situation, even though it's their customers who will be complaining. They do have a point as usually they are the first to get the "finger pointed at" and have to sort out billing issues very rapidly or get cut off from the networks - Vodafone is unlikely to cut itself off or stop providing premium rate short codes as they are hefty revenue generators - even more so it now seems. ®
Article Source: The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/20/vodafone_overcharges_premium_sms/)
And .....
Vodafone customers in the UK are receiving an additional charge of 12p on Premium Rate text messages across all price points.
An aggregator has discovered that all PSMS messages through Vodafone in the UK across all price points from 25p through to the maximum £1.50 are having an extra 12p added to their bill. The extra charge only came to light following a customer complaint to an aggregator.
Assuming that this is a technical error, this will be netting Vodafone an estimated £360,000 pounds a week in additional revenues. If it comes to offering refunds to those over charged, the refund flow from operator to aggregator, service providor and end user is tricky to implement for PSMS.
So far Vodafone has declined to comment on this additional charge which appears to have been in place for some weeks.
So far, Premium SMS (PSMS) has been the primary method used for consumers to purchase content on their phone, says Raomal Perera, CEO of payment specialist Valista. For the content market to grow successfully, the pricing of off-portal transactions urgently requires greater visibility and flexibility than PSMS allows, as this incident with Vodafone has shown.
The PSMS billing method has, indeed, given rise to several concerns among operators, content providers and consumers alike. Among them is the absence of credit checks, fraud protection, flexible charging and pricing transparency. Operators are now looking to suitable alternatives in order to prevent any such issues with PSMS damaging their reputations which they have spent millions building. One such alternative is direct-to-bill charging, which is seen as a more robust payment mechanism. With direct-to-bill Vodafone would be able to bill consumers more accurately and provide an appropriate level of security, fraud protection and transparency.
Article Source: 160Characters Association (http://www.160characters.org/news.php?action=view&nid=2154)