A huge Vodafone bill is a warning to all consumers.

Last year Sam Vilain took Vodafone to the Disputes Tribunal. He’d returned to New Zealand from a month overseas to discover an incredibly hefty phone bill of around $2300. How he ended up with this huge bill is a warning to all consumers.

Sam's experience

Sam is tech savvy and knew that data-roaming charges are quite high, so while he was away he regularly checked his bill and data usage through Vodafone’s online tools for doing this. What he didn’t realise (because the bill was collapsed into a single figure) was that it didn’t include billing yet to be forwarded from other mobile providers.

This is made clear in Vodafone's roaming terms and conditions: "There may be delays in Vodafone receiving notice from external carriers of charges to be billed to you. This does not affect Vodafone's right to charge you or receive payment from you." Interestingly, this warning only applies to call roaming. It doesn’t apply to data roaming.

Sam felt somewhat reassured when he received a text message from Vodafone later in his trip: "You've used 50% of your 100MB data bundle. When you exceed your data bundle, out-of-bundle rates will apply. More details at vodafone.co.nz". He then received a later text saying he was at the 100 percent limit – but when he checked the online data-usage tool again, it showed no usage over the limit of his plan.

So he was shocked when the first bill for over $2000 came in. Each little text message was listed, but there was no breakdown for the massive data charges.

The Disputes Tribunal case

In his case with the Disputes Tribunal, Sam attempted to use Section 9 of the Fair Trading Act – which deals with misleading and deceptive conduct generally. But the Disputes Tribunal is unable to hear claims under that section. (Anne Darroch, the current Principal Disputes Referee for the Disputes Tribunal, is recommending that this be changed).

Instead Sam claimed for "deceptive invoicing" and "deceptive communication of roaming rates and charges". But the tribunal ruled that Sam had enough information to understand there would be charges against his account and that its “fine print” did cover Vodafone in this case. However, $850 in data charges after the "50%" message is still yet to be ruled on as Vodafone has requested more time to get information.

We say

• When you’re travelling overseas, don’t rely on Vodafone’s online billing and data-usage information as an accurate indication of your final account. It’s obviously just an estimate.
• Look into buying SIM cards in the countries you’ll be visiting – that way you can get some great deals, control your costs, and not come home to a massive bill.

More information

• Vodafone Roaming: www.vodafone.co.nz
• Sam's blog: http://vilain.net/blog.html

More from consumer.org.nz

• Disputes Tribunals - how they work
• Fair Trading Act - our guide to your rights

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