Vodafone data traveller gone and the new offering outrageous!

[barryd]

like me you travel abroad a lot and have used the vodafone data traveller
service for £10 a month then sadly as of today it's no longer available! Instead vodafone think they are doing us all a favor by giving us euro traveller which for three pounds a day allows you to use your uk price plan and data
allowance abroad. Great if you make lots of calls, texts and use lots of data.
Not so great if like me you just need to check emails, send the odd text or
make the odd call. Now a single text will cost you £3!!! As it activates that days allowance!
Madness.

If I leave my roaming on and check emails everyday despite the
tiny amount of data this uses instead of paying my £10 a Month this will now
under the euro traveller package cost me £90 a month! A whopping 900%
increase just when the new eu roaming laws capping data prices at 70 cents a
mb come in. Data usage is supposed to now be cheaper!

The biggest disgrace though is the fact that myself and several other long
term data traveller users have had assurances from vodafone over the last few
weeks that and I quote "you will be able to continue to use data traveller as
long as you remain on your current price plan"! I have this in writing from them
as well but it appears to have been a blatant lie. There is a long thread about
this on Motorhome facts where others have been told the same.

I was also informed three weeks ago by vodafone that I would not be charged
for calling them while abroad. It seems I have had to call them several times
to clarify the continuation of our data traveller package and following today's
hour long conversation to them they then turned round and informed me that I
am being charged for all calls to them!

I'm not sure what legal action I can take against them but I intend to pursue it.
At the very least I think all the mh forums need to be made aware how
vodafone rewards loyalty and what a sham their systems and new packages
really are. I am totally outraged and feel very let down. I am no longer a member of
Motorhome fun but would appreciate if anyone who is could raise the topic on
there or provide a link to this thread or the one on facts.

 

[Northerner]

I know nothing about Vodafone's policy and have no comment, but why should a text activate your data services? I turn off data transmission when abroad and only turn it on if I need it. However, turning off data transmission does not turn off my phone and my texting facility, which is separate. A single email will certainly cost you £3.00 if that activates a day's charge, but not a text. I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 using Android.

 

[fairytooth]

For info Orange still have their mobile roaming traveller available eg France @ £5 pm w/o data £15 with (30Mb).

http://www.orange.co.uk/roaming/france/

 

[caspar]

If you feel minded to e-mail their Chief Executive Officer (the Exec's Office usually deal far better with well worded complaints), his address is below:

guy.laurence@vodafone.com

If you want the e-mail addy of Vodafone Worldwide, send me a pm and I'll let you have it.

 

[Airecraft]

GiffGaff now charge 69p / Mb data roaming with no minimum usage or upfront fee. http://giffgaff.com/index/pricing Not cheap if you need lots of data but good for occassional emails. If you want a free GG sim let me order it for you so I get £5 free credit

 

[bethatthehug]

Isn't it 'trading standards' or whatever it's called these days for complaints like this - saying/advertising one thing and doing another.

 

[Deleted member 967]

I have been with Vodafone for 30 years and when they call me They always describe me as a longstanding loyal customer.

I emailed them on this subject and despite a reminder they haven't bother to acknowlege or reply to my emails.

They have now lost my loyalty and probably my custom from my renewal in October.

I am not the only customer that they have ignored on this matter. I have followed Barrys posts on this topic on another forum.

Northerner. The £3 charge is activated for every day you exchange data with them, so recieving a text involves a handshake with the phone and the charge becomes effective. By switching the phone on abroad this handshake takes place even if you dont send or recieve any message or make a call.

They still have the £8 a day for 100mb data tarrif so I will probably use that for the day in a month, I need to check my banking and only use WiFi for any other data use while abroad if I cannot find a better supplier.

The other thing is the data cap option is automatically removed when you sign up to the new deal so you could finish up with a very big bill without knowing it.

John

 

[Northerner]

GiffGaff now charge 69p / Mb data roaming with no minimum usage or upfront fee. Calls and Tariffs to UK mobiles and Landlines | giffgaff.com Not cheap if you need lots of data but good for occassional emails. If you want a free GG sim let me order it for you so I get £5 free credit

You're right, it's not cheap and it's one area where GiffGaff, an otherwise excellent operation, needs to improve its services. T-Mobile with whom I'm with, have a European data package that gives 50 MB for £10 or 20p per MB. When in Croatia I bought a local sim card that had one gigabyte of data and it cost £11, or just over one penny per MB.

There's a lot to be said for looking at a local sim card if you're in a country for a reasonable period.

 

[fairytooth]

I don't think you will get far with 'legal action' Barry. It is expensive and costs more than you are planning to save. I think the best way forward is to vote with your feet and leave them (as many others will too).

What you are entitled to do when they change the terms and conditions of your contract is to cancel the contract without penalty (ie without having to go to the end of the 12 month contract or whatever you have).

Unfortunately most of these companies are a bunch of monkeys and loyalty counts for very little I fear.

 

[vindiboy]

Get an O2 simplicity Sim only deal £15, use your free minutes and texts in Europe too, Simples.

 

[Northerner]

Get an O2 simplicity Sim only deal £15, use your free minutes and texts in Europe too, Simples.

The latest that I can find on this gives 600 minutes of talk time, 500 mb of data and unlimited texts. This normally costs £21.50 but there is a limited offer which, as you say, reduces it to £15.50. However, there is no indication whatsoever that your call, text or data allowances can be used in Europe. In fact it beggars belief that a phone company would let you have 600 minutes of international calling and 500 MB of data transmission for £15.50 a month. I may be wrong here and am willing to be corrected but I can find no reference to this anywhere and I wonder if your are misunderstanding the terms of your contact?

 

[Northerner]

Northerner. The £3 charge is activated for every day you exchange data with them, so recieving a text involves a handshake with the phone and the charge becomes effective. By switching the phone on abroad this handshake takes place even if you dont send or recieve any message or make a call.

John

I think that there is a misunderstanding here and in essence we are both right. As I understand it, Vodafone does a £3.00 a day European package, which allows you to use your UK calling plan when abroad so, even if you just use one text you have activated your plan and will have paid £3.00 for the privilege. However, you do not have to buy the £3.00 European package and, if you don't, you will be charged Vodafone's normal European calling and texting rates, which by law, starting yesterday, cannot exceed 29p a minute to call out and about 8p a minute to receive. Texts are charged at 8p to send and are free to receive.

Under the latest European legislation Vodafone simply cannot charge you more than these rates so, the answer is simple; if you know that you are not going to be using data, and will only be making one or two calls, do not purchase the European plan and pay just 8p to send that single text or just 28p a minute to make a call. Of course you should turn off data transmission to be on the safe side. This will not affect your phone's ability to make normal calls and send or receive texts.

Presumably, if you do decide that one day you want to make lots of calls and download files, you can activate the £3.00 charge? I can do this with T-Mobile any day that I like.

 

[Sophie]

I know nothing about Vodafone's policy and have no comment, but why should a text activate your data services? I turn off data transmission when abroad and only turn it on if I need it. However, turning off data transmission does not turn off my phone and my texting facility, which is separate. A single email will certainly cost you £3.00 if that activates a day's charge, but not a text. I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 using Android.

ANY use of the phone on any given day activates the £3 charge

 

[Northerner]

ANY use of the phone on any given day activates the £3 charge

Yes I know. Perhaps you should read my last post on this?

 

[vindiboy]

The latest that I can find on this gives 600 minutes of talk time, 500 mb of data and unlimited texts. This normally costs £21.50 but there is a limited offer which, as you say, reduces it to £15.50. However, there is no indication whatsoever that your call, text or data allowances can be used in Europe. In fact it beggars belief that a phone company would let you have 600 minutes of international calling and 500 MB of data transmission for £15.50 a month. I may be wrong here and am willing to be corrected but I can find no reference to this anywhere and I wonder if your are misunderstanding the terms of your contact?

Not at all I have had a text telling me this and I followed it up with a FREE call to o2 for further confirmation , just a 50p connection charge and then use your freebies.prior to 1st July only the texts were included.

 

[Northerner]

Not at all I have had a text telling me this and I followed it up with a FREE call to o2 for further confirmation , just a 50p connection charge and then use your freebies.prior to 1st July only the texts were included.

I thought it was too good to be true! Yes, you're right in one respect, if you make a call you can use your UK minutes and if you receive a call the call length is deducted from your UK minutes, however...............

For every call that you make you are charged a 50p connection fee, and for every call that you receive you pay a 50p connection fee. If you make a two minute call and receive a two minute call, you are paying one pound. If I make a two minute call, I am spending 56p, and if I receive a two minute call it costs me 16p, so for the two calls I, and everyone else on the new European charges, are only paying 72p. The break-even point is just under three minutes, so if you have long calls your deal is better,but if you just need to make or receive the odd short call, your deal is actually more expensive.

Data on your deal is not included and costs £1.99 a day (up to 25mb). Now, I currently buy a T-Mobile 50mb data package for £10 and it lasts a month. I only use it for emails and it lasts a whole month. If I'm accessing the web I use wi-fi or buy a local sim.

Now, if I was on your deal and wanted to check email every day it would cost me £2 a day for thirty days! £60 as against the tenner I spend at present. So for me, your package would be very expensive. I'd save a bit if I was making some longish phone calls but data transmission would be very expensive and if I just make a few short phone calls, I'd actually be paying more.

I thought that your initial statement that you can simply use your UK package in Europe was too good to be true. Like all these firms it's swings and roundabouts I'm afraid!

 

[vindiboy]

Well thank you for all your effort to prove [once again ] that you are right, I don't use Data, not interested in that I just don't have the time whilst touring, I make and receive calls as and when required and I am not too bothered what that costs ,I have plenty of money, at least more than enough not to worry about a few call costs, so it's still O2 for me.

 

[Northerner]

Well thank you for all your effort to prove [once again ] that you are right, I don't use Data, not interested in that I just don't have the time whilst touring, I make and receive calls as and when required and I am not too bothered what that costs ,I have plenty of money, at least more than enough not to worry about a few call costs, so it's still O2 for me.

It's not a question of proving that I'm right and I'm sorry that you feel the need to be aggressive. My wife's contract expires soon and mine not long afterwards and I was very interested in your original statement, which claimed that you could use your allowances abroad. In the original post you made no mention of the extra costs involved, which actually makes it a very different kettle of fish from what you originally claimed. I also think that it's important that other members who may be interested in changing provider get accurate information. Isn't that what forums are for, to help each other with good advice?

 

[vindiboy]

It's not a question of proving that I'm right and I'm sorry that you feel the need to be aggressive. My wife's contract expires soon and mine not long afterwards and I was very interested in your original statement, which claimed that you could use your allowances abroad. In the original post you made no mention of the extra costs involved, which actually makes it a very different kettle of fish from what you originally claimed. I also think that it's important that other members who may be interested in changing provider get accurate information. Isn't that what forums are for, to help each other with good advice?

sorry if you felt I was being aggressive, but you come over in All your posts as having to be right at all times, just my opinion, I am often wrong and have my wife's testimonial to prove that, any way nuff said, I attach a web page that you may or may not have seen ,hope it helps one or the other of us LOL
O2 | International | O2 Travel Pay & Go PS my contract is for only 30 days so no problem cancelling that as and when the need arises.

 

[Higgins91]

Vodafone Euro Traveller is too expensive

Vodafone Euro Traveller works out incredibly expensive if you are mainly a data user with varied roamed call use.

Data Traveller cost only 10 pounds a month for 25mb a day. In my case calls varied but in total monthly bill if I was roaming for a month was never as high as what it would cost with Euro Traveller - around 90 pounds!

As Vodafone removed the old services without giving the option to keep them, many customers and I are fighting to be released from our contracts as they are now pretty much useless when abroad and we chose Vodafone due to these services being available. Vodafone, however, are not allowing this and so complaints have been lodged with Ofcom, the Ombudsman and BBC Watchdog.

You can see the discontent here:
Eurotraveller questions - Vodafone eForum

I urge all of you who are unhappy not to just sit back and take this kind of treatment. The more Vodafone see that people are upset and their reputation going down the drain, the more they are likely to worry and listen!

like me you travel abroad a lot and have used the vodafone data traveller
service for £10 a month then sadly as of today it's no longer available! Instead vodafone think they are doing us all a favor by giving us euro traveller which for three pounds a day allows you to use your uk price plan and data
allowance abroad. Great if you make lots of calls, texts and use lots of data.
Not so great if like me you just need to check emails, send the odd text or
make the odd call. Now a single text will cost you £3!!! As it activates that days allowance!
Madness.

If I leave my roaming on and check emails everyday despite the
tiny amount of data this uses instead of paying my £10 a Month this will now
under the euro traveller package cost me £90 a month! A whopping 900%
increase just when the new eu roaming laws capping data prices at 70 cents a
mb come in. Data usage is supposed to now be cheaper!

The biggest disgrace though is the fact that myself and several other long
term data traveller users have had assurances from vodafone over the last few
weeks that and I quote "you will be able to continue to use data traveller as
long as you remain on your current price plan"! I have this in writing from them
as well but it appears to have been a blatant lie. There is a long thread about
this on Motorhome facts where others have been told the same.

I was also informed three weeks ago by vodafone that I would not be charged
for calling them while abroad. It seems I have had to call them several times
to clarify the continuation of our data traveller package and following today's
hour long conversation to them they then turned round and informed me that I
am being charged for all calls to them!

I'm not sure what legal action I can take against them but I intend to pursue it.
At the very least I think all the mh forums need to be made aware how
vodafone rewards loyalty and what a sham their systems and new packages
really are. I am totally outraged and feel very let down. I am no longer a member of
Motorhome fun but would appreciate if anyone who is could raise the topic on
there or provide a link to this thread or the one on facts.