Pricewatch readers queries: Vodafone bill for 11890 call just doesn’t add up

Last week, Sean Carberry got his monthly statement from Vodafone for his broadband and home phone. "Under call analysis, it showed that a member of my household made an 11890 [directory inquiries] call in August which lasted one minute and eight seconds, and cost €10.50. When I contacted Vodafone Customer Care, I was told that this was a charge they received from 11890, and could do nothing about it but pass it on. 'It has nothing to do with Vodafone,' was what I was told. Today I contacted 11890, to discover that I was one of hundreds of people contacting them about such a charge."

He says that he has found out that 11890 charges €3.40 for the first minute of such a call, which they bill to Vodafone to bill to the customer.

“I called Vodafone, who this time were able to tell me that they were charged for two minutes, at a cost of €6.80, by 11890. I checked again with 11890, and they informed me the extra eight seconds incurred an 11890 charge of €1.27, making a total of €4.69 billed to Vodafone and not the amount of €6.80.”

He says Vodafone’s Customer Care “was unable to say why they added their surcharge, of either €3.70 or €5.81, depending on who you believe, although it’s patently obvious why they do. According to 11890, Vodafone is the only carrier to put a surcharge on these calls.”

We contacted Vodafone and received the following statement: “We are in touch with the customer and are looking into this query. Directory enquiries is a service used by a fraction of our customers. . . . we aim to resolve this issue as soon as possible to the customer’s satisfaction.”

Hit by a €10 charge for calling the bank on his mobile phone
On a similar theme, we have a mail from a reader from Dublin called Charlie. "I was recently hit for almost €10 in call charges after ringing Permanent TSB to make changes to my bank account recently because I dared to call them via my mobile phone," he writes.

“Not having a landline and not being informed by the bank that I’d be charged an extortionate rate by calling their ‘lo-call’ number to conduct fairly straightforward banking business, I’m left feeling very angry,” he continues.

“I know that Permanent TSB are not the only organisation to use lo-call numbers and having complained directly to them, they claim that they have no influence over the charges that mobile operators inflict on customers who ring 1890 numbers. But this simply isn’t good enough. I was informed by the bank that if I had called one of their local branches they could have put me through to the 1890 number and I’d have only been charged for a local call. But if this is the case why do they not advertise this fact widely?

“The only contact number listed on my Visa Debit card or on any correspondence I’ve received from them has been the lo-call one. Surely they should clearly inform customers of the fact they will be charged extortionate fees if they ring a 1890 number using a mobile.

“Better yet, why don’t they seek to bolster their image by ditching lo-call numbers altogether? Most of their competitors provide local rate numbers and it will be to them I’ll be going next time I want to put some money away for a rainy day.”

We contacted PTSB but at the time of going to press it had not responded to our query.

New car owner pays the price of forgetting to update parking tag
In the middle of August, Mai Hanlon parked her car at Blackrock Dart station and paid for her parking by texting Parking Tag. She paid until 7pm after which payment was no longer required.

Shortly after 7pm she returned to her car “and noted a parking ticket on the windscreen citing failure to comply with Pay & Display Parking Regulations. After some thought as to why the payment I made was not registered, I realised that it must be due to the fact that I had changed my car in July, a few weeks earlier, and had not realised I needed to inform Parking Tag,” she writes.

She contacted DLR Parking Services by phone that evening and was told to write to them and explain the circumstances. “I wrote to the company providing evidence of when the car was purchased and confirmation of ownership of the previous car which was still registered with Parking Tag. I received a letter yesterday stating they have refused to cancel the fine based on insufficient grounds.”

She believes her appeal should be granted on the following grounds. “The payment for parking on the occasion in question was made. This was done in good faith for parking at the stated location. There was no intention to commit an offence by failing to comply with the Pay & Display Regulations.

“The payment was deducted from my Parking Tag account, a text was received confirming this, therefore confirming the payment was made. Initial registration with Parking Tag was made more than 18 months ago and while I accept that there was a failure on my part to inform Parking Tag of the change of registration, this was an oversight easily made. It simply did not occur to me to do this.”

When we spoke to the parking division at Dun Laoghaire Rathdown county council we were told that as our reader’s parking complaint was still with the independent appeals officer it could not comment further.