Data roaming fees can be a crippling expense, and some clients reckon mobile operators should have a cap on usage.<\/p>\n
That was the response of several eNCA.com readers on learning of a hefty data roaming bill worth tens of thousands of Rand that Vodacom sent to customer Kyle White.<\/p>\n
Vodacom spokesperson Richard Boorman said the operator was investigating the details of White’s grievance, but recommended that clients research data roaming options on the company’s website.<\/p>\n
Several clients who had bills from R7,000 to over R30,000 responded to a query on the cost of roaming fees.<\/p>\n
They indicated the cost of data roaming proved stunning for consumers who, like White, travelled overseas, but also those using the service in South Africa, and on several mobile networks, not only Vodacom.<\/p>\n
One consumer claimed he received a bill of over R30,000 after travelling to two destinations but eNCA.com was not able to independently verify the report.<\/p>\n
Vodacom slammed White with a R46,000 bill for data roaming fees incurred while he was in Mauritius on honeymoon last year. He is just one customer who has received a shocking bill.<\/p>\n
The operator “generously” waived over R14,000 from White’s original bill and granted him extra time to settle the account.<\/p>\n
Once he settled his bill, however, White decided to warn others about exorbitant data roaming fees. He wrote an irate post out of sheer frustration at what he perceived to be Vodacom\u2019s apathy towards its customers.<\/p>\n
Thousands of people have read the damning piece, which White sponsored on Facebook and published online. On Wednesday, 12 May 2015, he said the blog had been read 8,000 times in six days.<\/p>\n
“Why did Vodacom not block the account when such a high bill was being tallied?\u201d wrote White.<\/p>\n
He said he found Boorman\u2019s response to be “a very soft explanation\u201d. Vodacom did not explain why White never received SMS notifications of data roaming abroad once it exceeded the R2,000 mark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Data roaming fees can be a crippling expense, and some clients reckon mobile operators should have a cap on usage. That was the response of several eNCA.com readers on learning of a hefty data roaming bill worth tens of thousands of Rand that Vodacom sent to customer Kyle White. Vodacom spokesperson Richard Boorman said the … Continue reading “Ripping clients off the Vodacom way”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[11696,149,11694,9252,11695,4618],"class_list":["post-18948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-bad-mobile-operators","tag-cellphones","tag-exorbitant-data-roaming-fees","tag-ripp-off","tag-terrible-service","tag-vodacom"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18949,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18948\/revisions\/18949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}