If you are a Vodafone customer that uses OziCall to make free international calls, please read this. As of 7/27/2010, Vodafone is playing the following message to all of its customers who call our access numbers:

“The number you have dialed is a re-routed call service. Depending on your plan you may be charged higher rates for this call unless you hang up now. Visit vodafone.com.au for more information on re-routed calls.”

Nice and scary huh? What Vodafone does not say is which customers are affected and how they are affected.

If you are on the Unlimited Cap Plan, Vodafone is excluding OziCall from your unlimited minutes and charging you a $0.35 flag fall and $0.60 per 30 seconds to call our access numbers outside of your cap. This is still a savings over their $2.40 per minute charge for international direct dialing, but a material change in their service.

If you are a Vodafone Standard Cap Plan customer (someone on a $19 to $79 a month cap plan), then the cost to call OziCall is $1.20 per minute plus a $0.35 flag fall but these costs are included within your monthly cap value. This is a slight surcharge over a standard mobile rate to call which is a $0.35 flag fall and $0.90 cents per minute, but still a significant savings versus international direct dialing.

Standard Cap Plan customers should realize that because of the bizarre mathematics of Australian mobile plan pricing, you are most likely paying much less to call us through your included cap plan value than the fees listed above.

If you are an older Standard Cap Plan customer, you may not be charged this extra $0.30 per minute at all because the concept of extra fees for re-routed calls did not exist when you signed up for Vodafone. We believe this was introduced in August 2009, but are not positive.

For all of our Vodafone customers, if you have any doubts about what it will cost you to call OziCall from your Vodafone plan, please contact them and ask. We have no control over what they choose to charge you, so you need to speak with Vodafone directly.

If you want this information from the horse’s mouth, please visit Vodafone’s rerouted call page. Being a large and confusing telco, that page won’t answer all of your questions clearly, but it is a starting point.

We are obviously disappointed that Vodafone has chosen to segregate some Australian mobile numbers and charge some of their customers extra for calling them. We are particularly disappointed that they have decided to do this to us, and will take action through the appropriate channels much like we have done with Optus. Sadly, the wheels of justice move slowly and a resolution to this may take months.

We encourage our affected users to voice their displeasure with Vodafone directly and by taking the matter to the ACCC. If possible, see if Vodafone will allow you to change from the Unlimited Cap to one that includes OziCall as part of its standard mobile billing rates.

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