A Vodafone Ghana customer who has fallen victim to the mobile service provider’s fraudulent IDD calls promotion has exposed the company.
Dr. Joe Addae, a Virologist in Accra has put down a detailed record of how Vodafone Ghana promised him reduced IDD call rates but eventually ripped him off.
According to Dr. Addae, who sent the record to ghanabusinessnews.com – on December 8, 2011 at 12:39 pm, he received an SMS message from Vodafone Ghana advertising IDD bundle for subscribers. He indicated that the advert said customers should dial *125*30 at a cost of GH¢5. “This I did for a cost of GH¢5,” he said.
Later in an interview, he said his understanding was that after paying the initial GH¢5, he could make 50 minutes of IDD calls to the destinations listed in the promotion.
“On the same December 8 at 13:09, I received a congratulatory message from Vodafone confirming my subscription for the monthly IDD bundle,” he said.
On the same day according to Dr. Addae he called Vodafone to enquire about the countries on the list for the promotion. “On their list, notably were UK, USA, China and India – both fixed line and mobile was confirmed,” he said he was told.
He said on the same day again he called the UK to try and find out if the “so-called promotion was genuine.”
“But I realised the next day that I’ve lost some unspecified amount of credit I cannot recall,” he said.
He said that even though he had over GH¢7credit on his phone, when he made a call to his brother in the UK on this number, 00447xxxxxxxxx (number available) on Sunday December 18, 2011 and spoke for 9.43 minutes, “I received the warning signal that I had only one minute left,” he said.
“On Monday December 19, 2011, I called the Vodafone hotline 100 and demanded explanation as to why they stole my credit to over GH¢7 on Sunday, but their official explanation was that the UK number I called is exempt from their promotion list. They told me that the only numbers that qualify are 0044, with the prefix 1, 2, 3, 5 and 8 but prefix 7 does not qualify. However these were not stated in the contract,” he said.
When ghanabusinessnews.com forwarded this record to Vodafone Ghana for their response, Ms Carmen Bruce-Annan, Head of Corporate Communications, Vodafone Ghana sent the following written response: “We will get in touch with the customer to better understand and iron out any issues – this is our official response.”
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi
this is only the one we know. there are lots of cases wo do not know. authority should do sth to protect us(comsumers)
These British tugs are up to it again after. Ghana is not Libya for them to keep on stealing thro dubious adverts. Blame Kufour and his gangsters for bringing these thieves on board
I had the same problem in November. After I received a SMS message confirming my bundle subscribtion of GH¢5 for 50 minutes of IDD, I made several calls to Chine mobile numbers. My last call ended unexpectedly due to my plan was “exhausted”. I did not keep track of duration for all my calls, but I felt I should have 20-25 more minutes to use.