Blackberry Took my money

D.Craftsman

Hi Folks,
My daughter has a Blackberry Curve, which is great, on pre pay with Vodaphone.She was travelling to Donegal and passed through N.I. She got a text telling her she was in U.K and the rates etc, so she switched off the handset.When she turned it back on, on arrival, she had lost €16 in credit.:mad:
She called Voda to be told it was a charge for the BlackBerry connection not the Vodaphone.She explained that the phone was turned off and was told she should have turned off the BlackBerry connection too.That even with the phone switched off the handset "looks for incoming e mail and things".She asked if this was the case why she got no text to tell her this as she had got one to warn about the other charges. The adviser could not answer.
My question is, Has anyone else had this happen? Did you resolve it? Can the hand set contact the internet when turned off? Any help please.

cookie1977

Well personally I think thats ridiculous. While the servers check email on your account they aren't pushing email to your device since it's off so there's no data being used. Maybe it would be best to get this thread moved to the vodafone section and get a mod to look at it. I would expect that as long as the phone is off and no email/data had been used before she turned off the handset there's no reason for such a roaming charge.

I've a blackberry with three but previously had one with O2 and was in india roaming. I kept the device off for the most part and only turned it on periodically to check email. I was only charged for data received and not for the servers checking email since that has ZERO to do with whether you're roaming or not.

drunkmonkey

It's €5 + Vat per mb with Vodafone in the North, It's quite possible she did turn it on to check facebook or something like that. 3mb isn't much but without the phone turned on there's no way it could have incurred a charge. She did turn on the phone. (i'll grab my hard hat:))

The fact she said she turned off the blackberry services makes me suspicious as I don't think she really knows what they are or how to turn them off while leaving the phone on, you could maybe ask her to demonstrate that to you.

You do know your giving her more top up than in she had an ordinary phone just because it's a blackberry?

D.Craftsman

Thanks for your replies. I think you had better read the post again D.Monkey.The point is that Voda said she should have turned off the Black Berry connection.She has no idea how to and they could not tell how to either! They sent a warning text about the phone charges but not the Black Berry, how was she to know?
I dont get your point about the top up? How do you know how much top up she gets? The package she is on seemed good value..until now.

Dermo

It is not vodafone's responsibility to teach your daughter how to use her phone.
When you turn the phone "off" you are only putting it to sleep. If she has any data connections like email it will periodically send a message to the server asking if it has any new messages. This connection uses data which she will get charged stupid amounts by vodafone.
Go back and read the manual to turn it fully off. Not sleep off or off but wake on alarm.

drunkmonkey

D.Craftsman wrote: »

how was she to know?

She was meant to know because it's a price plan she subscribed to and a blackberry she chose to use. She should know all about it and it's charges.

If you were going to china you'd check how much calls and data were going to cost before you leave, crossing the border to the North is no different on Vodafone they class it as a different country, same as going to china.

I know she's your daughter and you love her and I hate to be saying it's her fault but she has to take some responsibility for educating herself about the costs of running her phone or any other service she has with any other company.
€18 and a little finger wagging from daddy is a good enough lesson. If you don't tackle her on this it'll come back to haunt you when she gets her first bill phone and the debt collectors are after her.

LukeS_

drunkmonkey wrote: »

D.Craftsman wrote: »

how was she to know?

She was meant to know because it's a price plan she subscribed to and a blackberry she chose to use. She should know all about it and it's charges.

If you were going to china you'd check how much calls and data were going to cost before you leave, crossing the border to the North is no different on Vodafone they class it as a different country, same as going to china.

I know she's your daughter and you love her and I hate to be saying it's her fault but she has to take some responsibility for educating herself about the costs of running her phone or any other service she has with any other company.
€18 and a little finger wagging from daddy is a good enough lesson. If you don't tackle her on this it'll come back to haunt you when she gets her first bill phone and the debt collectors are after her.

What are you getting at? She turned it off assuming it was like any other phone. Obviously BlackBerry's are different as they have BIS on them but I'm sure most normal non-tech savvy children wouldn't even know what BIS means, let alone what the services are for. Trying to put the blame on her is just pathetic.
Not everybody does research about phones before they buy one, usually it's just: buy a phone, figure out how to use it then enjoy it.

Just make sure she learns how to disable the BlackBerry services on her phone so it doesn't happen again. You can only learn from your mistakes.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

LukeS_

Captain Morgan wrote: »

Captain Morgan wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Then who's fault is it she didn't read the manual to find out how to use the phone? It's hardly a networks responsibilty to sit customers down and explain their phones to them.

Theoretically it's her fault, yes. But surely anybody would think that turning off a phone would turn off the cell radio's inside too. Only experienced BB users would know that you would have to disconnect the Blackberry Services before turning the phone off to stop incurring charges. I think BlackBerry need to sort it out, whatever the problem actually is. If I turned off my iPhone while I still had data on getting push e-mails I'm sure I wouldn't be charged as when it's off it's actually not syncing to the exchange server. So of Google/Apple can do it correctly, why can't RIM?

cookie1977

If a blackberry is powered off it will not recieve data. The only reason she could be charged is if she didn't power off the blackberry. The reps telling here that if a blackberry is off it still recives data is rubbish.

If she didnt turn off the phone properly then it's her own fault unfortunately but if she did turn it off and vodafone's excuse for charging is that she didn't disable data then thats absolute rubbish. I've been using blackberry's for 7 years and I know what I'm talking about.

D.Craftsman

I think it's time to end this thread Drunk monkey & Morgan seem to be getting upset.She turned off the phone when in the North to avoid any charges.If they text to tell you that, then why not mention the Black Berry connection?The fact is that Voda have told me that "We did not charge her,Black Berry did" Her contract, on pre pay, is with Voda not Black Berry.The shop reps cannot understand why it happened, the tele reps keep repeating " we didn't take the credit" and cannot tell us how to turn off the connection.One guy even said he had the same hand set and didn't know how!
Every one with a phone knows about roaming charges..THATS WHY YOU TURN IT OFF.
I will post when I get it sorted.

D.Craftsman

Sorry folks. Just to point out that this "kid" is in fact 17 yrs old and knows her way around technology, like most but better.

4ndroid

But yet got stung while roaming

LukeS_

I think Vodafone are referring to the BIS package you have to subscribe to when you own a blackberry whicy gives you blackberry messenger, push e-mail etc. for the month. Don't know how much it costs with voda, but it's 10E for meteor. Maybe they are just trying to blah their way out by saying that's what the cost must've been something?

Atleast it's not as bad as your friend signing you up to one of those subscription things on the Internet, sending me three texts all within about 20 seconds, I was finally able to reply STOP then they sent me an extra three telling me it had been cancelled. All costing me four euro each. Didn't really bother with it though and just got on with it. He paid me back though.