Vodafone Roaming €500??? please help!

donnaghc

Before going to UAE recently I enquired in my local Vodafone shop about the cost of using my bill phone abroad. The guy in the Vodafone shop told me that it would cost a fortune to call home on it, so don't. Get people at home to call you, you will get charged a 'small fee' for receiving the call.

So did that, recieved a bill last December for over €300, thought this was very high and when I got my bill, I was charged a fortune for receiving calls from home, not a 'small fee'.

Now, today, I see my Bank acc is overdrawn because Vodafone have taken another €520, they say it could be roaming charges, they are sending out my bills to me.

Can this be correct? why was I given incorrect info from the guy in the shop? have I a leg to stand on? I'm so angry.

whippet

donnaghc wrote: »

Can this be correct? why was I given incorrect info from the guy in the shop? have I a leg to stand on? I'm so angry.

what you think is small might not be what someone else thinks is small.

Roaming charges are on VF website, you could have actually requested this from the guy in the store you spoke to. In hindsight I bet you wished you actually took the time to find out exactly what it would cost you before you left.

Did you use the web on the phone, text? all these would incurr a charge and are not normally taken from your 'free' texts during a month.

http://www.vodafone.ie/planscosts/paymonthly/roaming/world/region3/

arch_stanton

It sounds like the guy was talking about Vodafone Passport where you pay a flat fee of 79c to receive a call. The problem is according to the vodafone.ie page UAE isn't one of the countries where you can use this:

http://www.vodafone.ie/planscosts/paymonthly/roaming/passport/map/

UAE falls into the Vodafone World group where you pay €2 a minute for incoming calls. Do you have any idea how long you were on calls from Ireland during your trip?

dudara

arch_stanton wrote: »

UAE falls into the Vodafone World group where you pay €2 a minute for incoming calls. Do you have any idea how long you were on calls from Ireland during your trip?

Ouch, but that would probably explain the high charges.

Make sure that you receive a fully itemised bill from Vodafone for all this so you can check it out.

Paulw

It would also depend on what network you were connected to when receiving the calls.

A Vodafone partner network would be cheaper than say an O2 partner network.

Sounds like an expensive holiday. The specifics of roaming charges are detailed on the Vodafone website.

JohnC.

Why are they only sending out the bill after taking another €520? Is it normal to get the bill after they take payment?

Paulw

Kahless wrote: »

Why are they only sending out the bill after taking another €520? Is it normal to get the bill after they take payment?

Direct debit - online billing - posting out the bill only on request ??

jor el

Paulw wrote: »

Direct debit - online billing - posting out the bill only on request ??

He should be able to check the bill immediately online, if he's using online billing.

As to what you can do about it, pretty much nothing if the charges are inline with your usage while abroad.

cgarvey

Given that "small fee" is very subjective, I don't see that you've any leg to stand on here. You could argue that compared to your previous bills, that this could not reasonably considered a "small" fee and as. a gesture of good will, they might knock some off the bill. I'm not sure that that is very likely, however.

Now that the advice is over, here comes the pastin' .. when a sales person uses the term "small fee" or "not much at all" or "negligible", ALWAYS find out what that fee is, however "small" it appears to be. That, really (whilst trying not to be offensive), is basic common sense. Especially given the context (you knew it would cost a fortune, you went in to double check, you were told it would cost a fortune, so "small" in that context was always going to be a small fortune!

Anyway, plead your case in writing. It's too late to ask for phased payments (as they have your money), but you could ask that they show some acknowledgement of the bad advice you were given, in your opinion.

kumate_champ07

not much you can do, roaming charges are a rip off that continues to be allowed

I would go back and find the sales guy and show him the bill and see what he says

Nody

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

I would go back and find the sales guy and show him the bill and see what he says

To put it the other way though I doubt the sales guy was expecting him to get over 4 hours of phone calls and getting lets say 20 EUR additional charge could easily be seen as a small fee.

ch750536

Always buy a sim for the country you are travelling to before leaving (ebay) and have your phone unlocked. Much easier & cheaper.
Only takes a moment to flip sims to call home.

donnaghc

Thanks for all the replies. I was told in the Vodafone shop that there would be a flat fee of 24c per minute to take the calls, obviuolsy this is untrue as I can now see its €1.99 a minute in the UAE.

Just going to ring them and see what they say about their Sales people being mis-informed.

Paulw

donnaghc wrote: »

I was told in the Vodafone shop that there would be a flat fee of 24c per minute to take the calls, obviuolsy this is untrue as I can now see its €1.99 a minute in the UAE.

You still had a lot of calls when you were away. Rough calculation, based on the figures you've provided, but your bill still would have been over €100 for your roaming calls.

Next time, you really should limit calls when travelling.

I'm not sure how much Vodafone will do for you, but they may reduce the bill slightly, and promise to improve staff education.