Hidden Costs of Vodafone Picture Messaging

leche solara

The following is a quote from the Vodafone website:

What does Picture messaging cost?
25c (inc VAT) - To send a picture message from your mobile to any Irish mobile; to any e-mail address and from the Picture Album on www.vodafone.ie will cost 25c (inc VAT) for Ready to Go and Pay Monthly customers.

19c (inc VAT) - To send a long text message will cost 19c (inc VAT) if you are Ready to Go or Pay Monthly customer. A long text message is a message of up to 1kb in size. Your phone has a counter that will give an indication of message size. The number of characters that make up 1kb varies. Some phones have a minimum message size.

If you send a picture message using the email function on your phone (i.e. not by MMS), you will be charged at standard GPRS rates.

This information is misleading and false.
I recently sent a RTG picture message and my credit was reduced by 69c. I remembered seeing ads saying that Vodafone MMS cost 25c so I emailed them to enquire as to why I was charged more. After a few obfuscating replies they eventually conceded that picture messages were charged as follows:

MMS up to 100Kb 25c
100kb to 300kb 69C
They didnt say what the charges were for above this size.

Most of the newer camera phones with 1 or more Gbs will take pictures in the 69c price bracket. My phone (1.3GB) gives me the option to resize the picture before sending, but while this puts it into the 25c bracket, it makes the picture tiny and defeats the purpose of having a higher resolution camera.
Vodafone are pushing these phones, obviously because they have a higher margin, but now also because they get more revenue from picture messages.

Not only are they doing this but they are keeping the information secret.

soiaf

I went to the website and put 'picture messaging' into their search engine (top left of their site).
The link it was gave me was
http://www.vodafone.ie/services/mms/index.jsp?site=personal

Which does mention the 69c charge, so its not very secret.

Saying that, this page could definitely be clearer, it starts off saying that 'picture messages are now just 25c' but ends the page with a table showing that it could be more.

Sam Vimes

leche solara wrote:

My phone (1.3GB)

i want this 24th century 1.3GB camera :eek: i assume you mean 1.3Mega Pixels. the k750i which is marketed as a brilliant camera phone only has 2 Mega pixels

http://pricebomb.co.uk/full_specs/Electronics/Phones/Mobile_Phones/8464/

Gillo

Commander Vimes wrote:

the k750i which is marketed as a brilliant camera phone only has 2 Mega pixels

QUOTE]

Without stateing the obvious, if you want to take good pictures, buy a camera not a phone.