Vodafone to cut off inactive phones and rob you of any unused credit

Run_to_da_hills

Vodafone customers who don’t top-up their pre-paid mobile phone within eight months will have their account disconnected and lose any unused credit.

They could also face losing their number altogether if they don’t reactivate it within the following six months

Those that will suffer in this cut back will be the elderly and those in need that keep a mobile phone just for emergency purposes.

The Consumers’ Association of Ireland said that while it was reasonable to try and re-use old mobile phone numbers, it was “completely unacceptable” that customers lose any credit remaining on their phones.

Chief executive Dermott Jewell said: “It’s the closest thing to putting your hand in someone’s pocket and taking what’s there.”

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/vodafone-to-cut-off-inactive-phones-and-take-unused-credit-2073796.html

Nody

What makes credits any different then gift cards with a time limit in the eyes of Mr Jewell (can't recall him complaining about those)?

Anyway not overly impressed by Voda but nover surprised either, number runs out and this is a cheap way to get more. Would not be surprised to see a new service fee for reactivation coming in a year or two either.

helimachoptor

Number recycling is a government regulation

bladespin

Credit is owned, it's not sold with a time limit (or wasn't up to now), not honouring it is akin to theft.

tipperaryboy

helimachoptor wrote: »

Number recycling is a government regulation

correct but what they are going to do is very unfair to certain groups of people who only use their phones now and again.

i dont see any of the other companys planning a similar move?

thebiglad

tipperaryboy wrote: »

i dont see any of the other companys planning a similar move?

Let vodaphone take the heat and test the market place, when the dust has settled they will all follow in.

Run_to_da_hills

thebiglad wrote: »

Let vodaphone take the heat and test the market place, when the dust has settled they will all follow in.

Maybe not, if other service providers had any sense they would give customers twice that length of time. IMO two years is time enough as a cut off non refundable threshold, not 8 months.

thebiglad

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Maybe not, if other service providers had any sense they would give customers twice that length of time. IMO two years is time enough as a cut off non refundable threshold, not 8 months.

But this is business - if you can turn over inactive numbers quickly and claw back some unused credit why not (from a business, not a moral perspective!)

If 'the others' allow a double period they will increase their numbers of users but they will be very low yield clients - stick €20 in the phone and let it last for 2 years for emergencies.

That said, I do sympathise with the people who only have a phone for that very reason (my own parents included) but I can see the business logic to the service providers.

Shelflife

Vodafone have for as long as ive been with them a policy of turning off your phone if you dont top up within180 days, i had an alarm with a top up sim, it would dial out every 2nd day to the monotoring station so was always in use, however if you didnt top up they would just cut it off and leave you alarmless until you topped up again even though you might have plenty of credit on the phone.

"its in their terms and conditions"

seamus

Jeebus, doesn't no-one remember back to the early days of RTG?

You had to top up with £20 every 60 days or your outgoing calls would be blocked, and if you didn't top up within 6 months, your number would be blocked completely.

When RTG become the normal mode, they loosened the terms, upped the cost of using a RTG phone, but left you active even if you didn't top up for 2 years (or something).

I don't think it's ever been possible to buy a RTG phone, never top it up and keep your number open.

Now the operators must recycle their numbers (gov. directive), so they put a fair policy in place.

eth0_

This is nothing new and has been going on since pre-pay phones first came on the market in Ireland!

8 months is plenty of time, imo.

Vodafone: Kelly

Hi all,

Can see the discussion on this subject and can confirm that customers can contact us to reactivate their account (plus any credit) six months after this time. I have a Vodafone official statement on this:

"The changes recently announced by Vodafone Ireland in relation to inactive prepay accounts are expected to have negligible customer impact. This is because, based on careful analysis of customer usage patterns on inactive accounts - there are only a very few cases where an account is reactivated following 8 months with no top ups.

However, Vodafone Ireland is mindful of the concerns of the very small number of customers who may consciously omit to top up their accounts for a prolonged period of time for specific reasons. For this reason there is a carefully considered step by step contact process before disconnection which involves texts sent to customers to remind them to top up to keep their account active.

In addition, customers have the opportunity to reinstate their number for six months after disconnection. Any customer whose account falls into disuse and is disconnected with remaining credit can contact us for reactivation at any time within that 6 month time frame to be reinstated with their old balance completely intact."

Hope this helps!

Yawns

well they can hardly contact you through the phone if it's disconnected so no it doesn't help.

Yawns

I don't top up my phone a lot. But I do recieve a number of calls if I'm out and about. I have a house phone so I spend enough money on phonecalls as it is. I should not be forced to put money on my phone every 8 months. Next it'll be a minimum top of 20 euro only. I can say this safely because Vodafone are rip off enough as it is I wouldn't be surprised should they try it.

/Rant over

Limerickgal82

o2 will cancel your phone if not used in 12 months. they send an sms to advise you that if you do not use your sim then the sim is cancelled. it is common for the number to be recycled ! I Dont agree with it really!

Run_to_da_hills

Limerickgal82 wrote: »

o2 will cancel your phone if not used in 12 months. they send an sms to advise you that if you do not use your sim then the sim is cancelled. it is common for the number to be recycled ! I Dont agree with it really!

At least they send you a text to remind you. A few years I had a Diamond number that I rarely used as I wanted to hang on to it for later use. I let it lapse over the time, I had some time trying to retrieve it and almost lost it.

seamus

Yawns wrote: »

well they can hardly contact you through the phone if it's disconnected so no it doesn't help.

If their mobile is their only means of communication, then it's not going to get disconnected, is it?

Yawns wrote: »

I don't top up my phone a lot. But I do recieve a number of calls if I'm out and about. I have a house phone so I spend enough money on phonecalls as it is. I should not be forced to put money on my phone every 8 months. Next it'll be a minimum top of 20 euro only. I can say this safely because Vodafone are rip off enough as it is I wouldn't be surprised should they try it.

Vodafone not supplying you with a service for free, the bastards! Why should Vodafone have to supply you with a phone to receive calls and no obligation on your part to buy credit?

Yawns

When I purhased the phone it was only available on Vodafone so not too much of a choice. But in your view it's ok for them to hold people to ransom yes?

And ransom it is!

Give us money or you don't get your number back.

It is plain ransom no matter which way you look at it. Why cam't it be something simple as any numbers with no outgoing or incoming calls be simply recycled after 8 months? why does it have to be based on credit?

Run_to_da_hills

seamus wrote: »

Vodafone not supplying you with a service for free, the bastards! Why should Vodafone have to supply you with a phone to receive calls and no obligation on your part to buy credit?

This is why they offer so many incentives.

Eight months cut off time is a bit sweet considering it is your money that has toppedup the phone. People will who don't use their phones too often will top up by the minimum amount.

Yawns

as for the no obligation to buy credit part. They should simply offer better top up deals to tempt me. My house phone is a cheaper option for calling mobiles so why not use it instead. If they offered me a better deal I would get rid of house phone and use mobile only. It's not up to the customer to attract the business, it's the other way around.

They offer a great deal I'll take it. As it is they don't do good deals imo. I'm not a texter so I don't care about how many texts I get for free by paying x amount a month. I want a nice set cheap rate per min of voice conversation

sdanseo

bladespin wrote: »

Credit is owned, it's not sold with a time limit (or wasn't up to now), not honouring it is akin to theft.

Not quite - credit on Vodafone (and all operators IIRC) expires after 12 months - you can reactivate it by topping up again, however, but in fairness if you don't make any calls in that period what's the point in having credit?

For example, you purchase €20 credit on 1/1/08 and make no calls at all. The credit expires on 1/1/09. But if you top up by €5 on 2/1/09, it reactivates the pot leaving you with €25.

I see it as perfectly reasonable that accounts left to stagnate for 14 months be recycled and the credit lost. All you need to do is make a free call to 1741 to stop this from happening, it's not a huge ask.

Run_to_da_hills

Another reason Vodafone might be doing this is that they are running short of numbers. There are only a certain amount of 087 XXXXXXX that they can hand out and there must be some amount of people including my self with 087 numbers that have ported over to other service providers.

Yawns

I can undersatnd but think that they'd have a better way of doing it with just completly in active accounts that have no calls made either way.

If the number hasn't been used in say 6 months, it's hardly to be used at all. I'm annyoed thar they opted for the choice to gain more money and that they are actually getting away with it.

witnessmenow

You really dont like Vodafone, when i seen the thread title on the main page I was thinking to myself I bet i know who started this thread

seamus

Yawns wrote: »

I'm annyoed thar they opted for the choice to gain more money and that they are actually getting away with it.

The number of people this will impact will be minimal. There will be, at most, a couple of thousand subscribers who have a number which they use but which is not used for outgoing calls. At present, those subscribers must top up every 12 months to keep their number going. So if they top up by €10 once a year, Vodafone gets €50k from (e.g. 5k) those subscribers. Now they must top up 30% more often, which means that Vodafone Ireland gets an extra €25k/year from these subscribers.

Considering that Vodafone Ireland made €270m in profit in 2009, that's a drop in the ocean. It probably cost about three times that amount to implement this new system.

This is a big fuss being made over absolutely nothing.

astrofool

Yawns could of course move to a competitor.

8 months is a fairly short amount of time, most vouchers (which I'd compare pre-pay credit to), give at least 12 months of usage.

You could possibly charge someone to receive calls if no calls out have been made in the 8 month period, and then cut them off at 12 months (with 6 months to retain the number).

jimoc

Vodafone (Kelly) wrote: »

Hi all,

Can see the discussion on this subject and can confirm that customers can contact us to reactivate their account (plus any credit) six months after this time. I have a Vodafone official statement on this:

"The changes recently announced by Vodafone Ireland in relation to inactive prepay accounts are expected to have negligible customer impact. This is because, based on careful analysis of customer usage patterns on inactive accounts - there are only a very few cases where an account is reactivated following 8 months with no top ups.

However, Vodafone Ireland is mindful of the concerns of the very small number of customers who may consciously omit to top up their accounts for a prolonged period of time for specific reasons. For this reason there is a carefully considered step by step contact process before disconnection which involves texts sent to customers to remind them to top up to keep their account active.

In addition, customers have the opportunity to reinstate their number for six months after disconnection. Any customer whose account falls into disuse and is disconnected with remaining credit can contact us for reactivation at any time within that 6 month time frame to be reinstated with their old balance completely intact."

Hope this helps!

There seems to be some slight contradiction in this statement.
Firstly you seem to imply that it only related to inactive prepay accounts.
This to me says that if the phone number is in use and is recieving calls that it should be considered as active.
Then later on you refer to accounts that have gone 8 months without top-ups. But a phone can still be active for 8 months without getting topups.
In my own case when I swapped from bill pay to pay as you go I didn't get credit for almost a year since I had overpaid my bill and had over 100 euro credit on it.

Could you clarify please whether a phone which is still in active everyday use is considered inactive if its not topped up, or is it only inactive if there is no incoming calls for 8 months?

Ardent

Limerickgal82 wrote: »

o2 will cancel your phone if not used in 12 months. they send an sms to advise you that if you do not use your sim then the sim is cancelled. it is common for the number to be recycled ! I Dont agree with it really!

If you don't use it - not if you don't top it up!

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

trishasaffron

So what about my friend who lives in Asia and comes home once a year (using up his few holidays) to mind his elderly mother? he is in his 50s and not a great phone user anyway. but when he does come back its really important to catch up with the few friends he has left in this country and needs to have the same number so that he has a chance of keeping in touch.
What;s the rationale for this?

Run_to_da_hills

trishasaffron wrote: »

So what about my friend who lives in Asia and comes home once a year (using up his few holidays) to mind his elderly mother? he is in his 50s and not a great phone user anyway. but when he does come back its really important to catch up with the few friends he has left in this country and needs to have the same number so that he has a chance of keeping in touch.
What;s the rationale for this?

The same can be said for Irish students that are travelling to Australia and the States for up to a year, They may want to leave their Irish account at home until they return.