I managed to log in this morning to the Vodacom portal, it has a new section showing me the free minutes and carry overs. It is laid out nicely and gives all the info, but sadly, I don’t have a clue how to read it.

Below is a screen capture of what is reflected on the portal, followed by some thoughts and research on reading it :

From what I can make out :

• My contract changed from Everyday+S to Everyday+ at the end of May
• No minutes were lost from the +S, they were just moved across to the + as the threshold
• 120 – useage = remaining, and this was used  threshold opening balance for March, April, May in the bottom table

What I can’t make out :

• What order do minutes get used up in?
• In no month have I used more than the 120 minutes, therefore
• if the minutes “in the month” are used before “old minutes” then
• I should never have a previous month’s minutes decrease (look at March and May)
• If the oldest minutes get used up first
• Why does March still have minutes while May does not? and
• Why did May get used up while  April is untouched?

All still very confusing. Maybe in time I will get some answers. Stay tuned.

Take a look at the post by Ryan411 made at 14/3/2007 about halfway down this page on Mybroadband.

Summary :

• Since Dec 2003 you don’t just get to carry over unused minutes from a pool of minutes up to a maximum of 5x your monthly allowance, a “new” multi bundled approach was introduced. (News to me, and that was 8 years ago)
• The new Multi bundle method allows a subscriber to accumulate 5 months unused bundles + the current month’s allowable minutes.
• The unused minutes for each month will be maintained in separate monthly bundles. Any unused minutes that the subscriber has accumulated in the sixth month will be forfeited.
• The subscriber will first use the current months “bucket” of bundle minutes.
• Once all the minutes in the current month’s “bucket” has been used up, the accumulated monthly minutes of the “bucket” 5 months prior to the current month (month -5) will be used.

Ok then. That is understandable, not in favour of the consumer, but at least we understand the rules. However, if I take that logic and apply it to my table above, it doesn’t work.  I no month did I use more than my bundled amount, therefore the previous “buckets” should never have been touched.

There is clearly a problem, either in the explanation of how it works above, or in the way the system is calculating and deducting minutes. 

P.S. I gave up trying to use the Vodacom portal after wasting an hour. It has the following major flaws :

• Click the “view monthly statement” link on the Vodacom home page, enter login details, and hey presto, you don’t get taken to your monthly statement
• View the summary page, select a different phone number (if you have multiple numbers), get the summary, click the link to get the detail and hey presto, you are taken back to the detail for the primary account
• Choose the reports page to try and get an invoice/statement/other report. Select the period and report and wait and wait and wait and … refresh … enter your login details again … maybe get a page saying the report is being generated and wait and wait … and you never get your report

P.P.S. I reported the problem re free minutes again to Vodacom, as well as the website/portal issues. Reported them separately via the Vodacom website, received one acknowledgement for the two mails sent, with a commitment to get back to me within 24 hours. Lets see.

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