Hands0n
28th December 2007, 07:03 AM
This is a simply ridiculous tale of woe. If it is at all possible for such things to happen then Vodafone (and all of the other operators) must be immediately legislated to provide a very distinct and unmistakable financial health warning. OFCOM should intervene and the bill should be written off by Vodafone. Shame on them for even attempting to bill a private individual such a huge amount.
Now, one could argue in Vodafone's defence that the Customer should have read the Ts & Cs. That if he was intelligent to use the handset as a modem in the first place that he should have had the savvy to read the contract properly. And I might indeed sympathise with that view, but don't in this instance. That is because of the sheer scale of the charges. It is indefensible of Vodafone to say that their systems only picked it up after a considerable charge had already been incurred. If they are going to make such ridiculous and punitive charges then their systems should be capable of tracking overuse and be capable of warning the Customer. Not drive someone into bankruptcy as a punitive gesture and warning to others.
What really galls me about this entire story is Vodafone's comment "Few customers exceed the fair usage. But it seems clear Ian has run up these charges legitimately,".
Many of us here would not be caught out - but we should consider ourselves the fortunate and well-experienced ones. The mass population will not have much of an inkling of the background to this story, that the mobile operators typically charge stupendous amounts for using their networks for data. In this respect Vodafone is a capital offender second only to Orange and [perhaps] O2.
Shame on Vodafone unless they deal with this humanely. But I firmly believe that it is well beyond time for the mobops to be legislated against as clearly they cannot and will not do this voluntarily. Not while they see data as a cash cow.
Ian Simpson, a factory worker from Darlington, Yorkshire downloaded TV programmes onto his laptop using his mobile phone as a modem - and racked up charges of £27,322 in just one month. He says he may go bankrupt unless Vodafone "takes a sensible approach" to his bill.
Simpson thought he had an all-you can eat deal for unlimited web use and "probably" downloaded 20-30 TV shows and four albums. But his £41.50 per month contract maxed out at 120 megabytes of downloads per month, enough for most users, Vodafone says. "Few customers exceed the fair usage. But it seems clear Ian has run up these charges legitimately," a spokesman told The Mirror.
So Simpson was on the wrong package and cannot be accused of acting intelligently in this matter. But his phone bill illustrates the outrageous expense of mobile data - downloads were priced at up to £18 per minute.
Warning bells should have sounded sooner at Vodafone, which cut Simpson off four weeks into his download spree. In its defence, Voda told The Mirror that "the intensity of Ian's downloading was such that by the time our systems flagged anything up he had already racked up a massive bill".
The company will "try to come to some sympathetic arrangement" with Simpson. And it advises its customers to "never use a mobile as a modem".
This month, a Canadian man ran up an $85,000 bill, for also using his mobe as a PC modem. Bell Canada showed mercy and reduced charges to $3,243, which it based on "the best data plan available for using cellphones as a modem".
Article Source: The Register (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/12/27/massive_vodafone_uk_mobile_data_bill/)
Now, one could argue in Vodafone's defence that the Customer should have read the Ts & Cs. That if he was intelligent to use the handset as a modem in the first place that he should have had the savvy to read the contract properly. And I might indeed sympathise with that view, but don't in this instance. That is because of the sheer scale of the charges. It is indefensible of Vodafone to say that their systems only picked it up after a considerable charge had already been incurred. If they are going to make such ridiculous and punitive charges then their systems should be capable of tracking overuse and be capable of warning the Customer. Not drive someone into bankruptcy as a punitive gesture and warning to others.
What really galls me about this entire story is Vodafone's comment "Few customers exceed the fair usage. But it seems clear Ian has run up these charges legitimately,".
Many of us here would not be caught out - but we should consider ourselves the fortunate and well-experienced ones. The mass population will not have much of an inkling of the background to this story, that the mobile operators typically charge stupendous amounts for using their networks for data. In this respect Vodafone is a capital offender second only to Orange and [perhaps] O2.
Shame on Vodafone unless they deal with this humanely. But I firmly believe that it is well beyond time for the mobops to be legislated against as clearly they cannot and will not do this voluntarily. Not while they see data as a cash cow.
Ian Simpson, a factory worker from Darlington, Yorkshire downloaded TV programmes onto his laptop using his mobile phone as a modem - and racked up charges of £27,322 in just one month. He says he may go bankrupt unless Vodafone "takes a sensible approach" to his bill.
Simpson thought he had an all-you can eat deal for unlimited web use and "probably" downloaded 20-30 TV shows and four albums. But his £41.50 per month contract maxed out at 120 megabytes of downloads per month, enough for most users, Vodafone says. "Few customers exceed the fair usage. But it seems clear Ian has run up these charges legitimately," a spokesman told The Mirror.
So Simpson was on the wrong package and cannot be accused of acting intelligently in this matter. But his phone bill illustrates the outrageous expense of mobile data - downloads were priced at up to £18 per minute.
Warning bells should have sounded sooner at Vodafone, which cut Simpson off four weeks into his download spree. In its defence, Voda told The Mirror that "the intensity of Ian's downloading was such that by the time our systems flagged anything up he had already racked up a massive bill".
The company will "try to come to some sympathetic arrangement" with Simpson. And it advises its customers to "never use a mobile as a modem".
This month, a Canadian man ran up an $85,000 bill, for also using his mobe as a PC modem. Bell Canada showed mercy and reduced charges to $3,243, which it based on "the best data plan available for using cellphones as a modem".
Article Source: The Register (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/12/27/massive_vodafone_uk_mobile_data_bill/)