SimonB

Another Update: Vodacom today (27 October 2008) officially refunded the money that was removed without permission from my account. They also put an additional R15.00 into each of my accounts as some sort of buffer? mmm this was not asked for but what can I say.. thank you Vodacom Apparently the other 0.004% of Vodacom customers who lost money due to this SVS bug will also be receiving their funds soon, I wonder if they all got R15.00 extra? - wow.

Urgent Update: Ok so within only a few hours of posting this blog I receiving multiple emails from high end Vodacom staff saying they were not stealing the money and that it was a “small” mistake in the billing system. Apparently they are only grabbing funds from numbers that were ported to Vodacom. So in other words if you were a MTN or CellC subscriber and you walked across to Vodacom then you will be billed. oops

Apparently and I have actually tested this and found it to be true, if you send a SVS to a ported number then you are billed, but if you send a SVS to an unported number then you are not billed. Oops seems like a nasty bug if you ask me. Anyway Vodacom’s “Executive Client Liaison Officer” has assured me that everyone who was billed will be getting a full refund and that “Vodacom technicians are fixing the bug as we speak”. So heads up to me for saving South Africans at least R900 000 today. Will I get some medal for standing up to a gaint and actually getting them to fix the bug and refund everyone? or will Vodacom sue me? mmm lets hope its the medal and that Vodacom doesnt hate me forever for this post.

So it seems they are not stealing the money after all? It was all a nasty little bug, lucky someone found it. The question that I have now is why was this product not tested before being launched?

Update No2: So apparently the folks over at bizcommunity are very unhappy that I mentioned them in this post. Now although I know that reporting the truth is never the wrong thing to do, I think it’s only good to be a man and step forward and say sorry for making them unhappy, I personally know some of them and they are not bad people (although I never knew they worked at bizcommunity). Guys I am sorry for making you unhappy and for not clearing this post with you before publishing!!

Now wouldn’t it be right decent of bizcommunity to follow my example and also apologize on their site to all the South Africans who where misled after reading the post on bizcommunity?

If Vodacom also steps up to the plate and apologizes officially in writing to all South Africans for launching a service that was not properly tested and for the nasty “bug” that frustrated some to the point of wasting an entire day on this issue then we will all live happily ever after again and the small man on the street won’t feel vistimised by Vodacom again

Ok back to the original post - leaving it here for historic purposes.

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Vodacom, South Africa’s leading cellular network today (22 October 2008) launched a new service. The service which looked very promising is simply called: Short Voice Service or SVS

The SVS service allows Vodacom customers to send short voice messages instead of SMS’s to each other. Each SVS message can be up to 30sec long and Vodacom claims that the service is ‘FREE’ until 9 November 2008.

SimonB being the techno junkie that he is quickly started sending ‘FREE’ SVS messages to friends and family after reading an article on bizcommunity.com that confirmed that the service is free until 9 November. I mean hey why not try the service while it’s free and then if you like it you can continue using it.

WRONG!! Vodacom’s Short Voice Service (SVS) is NOT FREE during the trail!

I am shocked that bizcommunity writers do not research their posts before posting the info live.

Lucky for me I had decided, that since I had previous experience with ‘FREE’ services from Vodacom that I has better check my account balance before and after sending a SVS messages and low and behold yet another service advertised fraudulently.

Each time I sent a Vodacom SVS message my account was billed and would you believe each time I was billed another amount? Some SVS messages cost R0.76c while one Vodacom SVS message even cost me R1.00 and the funniest thing is that non of the SVS messages reached the 30sec cap.

Lucky for me I took a screen capture and a video clip of the fraud so there is no escaping Vodacom!

I am so outraged by this blatant fraud that I have now lodged a complaint at The Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) and legal action will follow!

If 1 million Vodacom customers were ripped off in this way today thats R900 000 stolen illegally in the first day. Any clear thinking person can see that this should not be tolerated.

This is an urgent call to all South African bloggers to take action today by pasting this post onto your blogs and by spreading the word! Let’s stop corporate fraud in a unique way!!

Update: Pictures of Vodacom Fraud coming soon.

NBC recently launched a huge marketing campaign to promote the upcoming TV series Crusoe. What I found very interesting is that they even took their campaign online. From Twitter to Flickr to Facebook NBC made sure that the online audience could stay up to date with the latest on the series.

Pic taken by: sizeofguam and available under these terms

NBC however seems to have forgoten one thing about the whole online aspect. By targeting sites like facebook and twitter they have entered our social networking enviroment and as such need to play by our rules.

According to the cluetrain manifest, “markets are conversations and these markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.”

By starting a group on facebook and twitter you are starting a conversation and a conversation is something that happens in two directions. If the conversation becomes one directional the conversation will end!

Blocking certain demographic sectors from watching your online content, is like driving with your handbrake on, it will destroy the growth of your campaign and you can forget about viral growth!

The cluetrain manifest goes on to say:

# These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.

# As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.

# People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.

# There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.

# What’s happening to markets is also happening among employees. A metaphysical construct called “The Company” is the only thing standing between the two.

# Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.

# Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on television are kidding themselves.

# Companies that don’t realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity.

# Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance.

NBC we allow you to join our online conversation, we even spread the word and get our friends to follow you, thus giving you more people to talk to, all we ask in return is that you don’t blow it