Poor old Vodafone is getting a right kicking online at the moment, thanks to its rather aggressive decision to start penalising people for exceeding its previously flexible “acceptable use” allowance of 500MB – which the vast majority of its smartphone users will be contractually signed up to.
There’s now a Facebook group about the issue, called Vodafone UK screws it’s customers on Data Charges – and a very angry thread over at MoneySupermarket where users are complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority and emailing the company’s CEO about claims made when selling recent smartphones.
Here’s a snippet of Facebook RAGE:
There’s an interesting debate over at Bitter Wallet, where they query whether this is a big enough change to Ts&Cs to warrant cancellation of your original contract, while the original Vodafone announcement thread now also resembles the aftermath of a serious motorway pile-up. It has all gone a bit wrong, basically.
Now, it IS possible to live within a 500MB data allowance if you use a wi-fi connection for the bulk of your app downloading and are careful, but this new restriction pretty much kills the idea of using Maps Navigation as an in-car GPS device – a couple of long drives and you’ll be way over the 500MB allowance.
Also, having to be “careful” about your data use kind of ruins the idea of owning an always-on “superphone”, doesn’t it?
HTC’s 4.3″ dual-core Android model, powered by Qualcomm’s all-new S4 processor. It’s smaller than the enormous One X, but is it as nice as its bigger brother? (SPOILER: Yes it is).
HTC is very much B-A-C-K at the top of the Android world with this, its quad-core flagship for 2012. Great camera, huge 4.7″ display and Android 4.0 running beautifully well.
Sony returns with an all-new mobile design for 2012, pairing a dual-core processor with a 720p display. It’s a lovely phone, but is it enough to end our Samsung and HTC obsession?
LG’s updated Prada phone comes with an absolutely crazy black & white theme, but is it just for fashionable suit wearers who want to make themselves look a bit more interesting?
Espi_Vodafone
/ May 11, 2010Hi all,
We have seen quite a bit of speculation on the out of bundle charges for Vodafone UK mobile internet users on forums and in the media. We wanted to clarify things. Here are the facts as they stand today:
In June we’ll be introducing a free text service to tell our contract customers when they’re approaching the upper limit of their data bundle. As the vast majority of our mobile internet subscribers (more than 97 percent) never reach the limit they will not be receiving the text alerts at all.
The minority of our customers (less then 3 percent) who do come close will receive a text telling them they are approaching their data allowance and advising them to monitor their usage going forward. At this point customers will not be charged anything more.
If after receiving several such alerts, over a period of few months, customers continue to use excessive amounts of data they will be contacted by Vodafone and advised to upgrade to another data plan to avoid incurring unnecessary additional charges.
Customers will be able to make an informed decision on whether to continue, limit their use or change to a different price plan, giving them total control of their spend.
However, if customers continue to use excessive amounts of data over a longer period of time, the costs are as follows:
Current charge Out of bundle charge
No handheld data bundle 50p a day for 25MB 50p for an additional 10MB
Handheld data bundle £5 a month, or £7.50 with a flexi-bundle £5 for an additional 500MB
Note: 500MB means you can read and reply to thousands of emails, download 24 Google maps and read 8,000 BBC News stories. Today, a tiny fraction of our customers use their full allowance.
Thanks,
Espi
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK
Zed
/ May 12, 2010This isnt good enough Espi. I left o2 to join vodafone just a few weeks ago, and what a big mistake that turned out to be. Poor customer service, I was offered a deal of 18 month contract with discounted first 6 months, and free first month, got none of that. Was told that my contract was 24 month, and no 6 months discount. Spoke to customer services who didnt believe me, and said would check phone records, they came back saying yes, it was 18 months but no sign of the first month being free. What an awful, awful company. Ive had more hassle with vodafone in 3 weeks than with o2 in 3 years, and when I asked that the contract be terminated, apparently they will be charging me. What a joke.