- As someone working for a telco, not Vodafone, this would be my assumptions: A developer mistakenly grabbed a real MSISDN, instead of a QA one, while testing a promo still in development.
I only say this because there's no identifier to differenciate a real phone number from a test one. Subscribers often called to report those gibberish text messages they received. It's always a dev entering an incorrect number while testing.
- > Did I actually receive 999999 minutes? Yes, indeed I did. But unfortunately, I was only given 7200 minutes to spend my 999999 minutes and I could only spend them 1 minute at a time.
Well, not with that attitude! Initiate a 139-party conference call from your phone and you'll just about make it.
by userbinator
3 subcomments
- The "unlimited data" is an interesting contrast and always makes me wonder "at how much speed?"
I am more surprised that mobile plans are still charging by the minute. A "toll quality" 64kbps audio stream is 480KB per minute. More advanced codecs use a fraction of that.
by Quarrelsome
2 subcomments
- It said "for five days". So I'd assume those minutes/data will only last for that period of time. So I'd imagine this is like when I go to Amazon every X+n months and it tries to reel me back in with a free month of prime. They're giving you freebies to use, to establish habits which they can then profit from later down the line.
- For more than six months now, s.o. is (perhaps accidentally) paying my mobile bill. I have two sim cards, one is data, almost unused. Called the operator twice, concerned that a granny is messing the user ID, or that s.o. is trying to impersonate me by paying the bills and then claiming ownership. Two times reps. assure me that they have no clue who does the payment as it arrives from a partner network taking cash payments only, and that it is impossible for anyone person to claim ownership of the SIM.
And while the amount is not a large one, it is still very suspicious this keeps going on, even after two very long calls with the support. I'm going to soon speak to the partner network, but it is appalling how much these people are not interested in who actually gives their enterprise money. They're only there to take it.
- I'm even more intrigued by the whole family sharing two phones and switching sim cards. What's the reason behind it? How does it work?
- Back in 2017-8 I've got a four consequent top ups of an equivalent of $50 each (so a total of $200) from an unknown source. After that I've got a call from a resident cell number saying I've got a $200 fine for watching porn that I laughed off and hung up. I thought it was a scam to make me pay the "fine" with the money I've just got and then call the operator, tell them they "mistakenly" paid for the wrong number (four times for $50, lol) and get the money back. So I sat there and waited for the money to be recalled... but it never happened.
My theory is that it was exactly then I was changing operators while keeping my number, so the scammers tried complaining to the wrong one and failed. Not that I had any objections for the 2 years of free calls and data this got me but this still is a bit of mystery to me.
by japoneris
4 subcomments
- When reading a post like that, I am like "whaaat, people are locked in the 90s?"
In France, it is almost unlimited for 20€/month, so very cheap, I do not care / try to optimize that.
Happy for you you got unlimited :)
- Vodafone is quite a pest in terms of spam, leaving them led to two dozen emails, a bunch of SMS and five phone calls. It is not surprising they don't bother to check spelling on their spam anymore.
Especially the emails, resending me literally the same offer of a 5€ rebate per month five times is just offensive spam. The other ones were just variations of the same offer with different styling.
- We are all truely blessed on this reveived day.
- Can.. I'm very confused, why is Vodafone selling and giving people chunks of data and minutes over such short time periods? Does not compute.
by Mistletoe
1 subcomments
- > My family and I share a single mobile phone. To be more precise, we share two sim cards which move between a nearly 10 year old Samsung smartphone and a dumb flip phone depending on the present circumstances.
This seems like some sort of punishment those monks that stand in one place and pray until their feet wear holes in the floor would use. Mint Mobile is like $15 a month.
- Is there a way you can reasonably use that data offer to a large extent? For example, I know my provider has a setup where you can register your device MAC, connect to their city-wide wifi, and then it will let you use your data as wifi. In this scenario if it's really unlimited, is there a way you can chain devices together to get something crazy like 20Gbps up/down and do a bunch of heavy operations 24 hours a day on that for a few days?
Warning: I imagine if you do this they will say "it's not really unlimited bro that's not that we meant"
by DetroitThrow
1 subcomments
- oh vodafone spam offer writer, i can feel your coded warmth through your persistence and unsuccessful earnesty. maybe one day through your shy facade i can receive an offer to redeem one evening i can think fondly of for the rest of my life
- Ewww to this idea, tell me it wasn't the same engagement hacking that leads YouTubers to mispronouncing common words.
“Hey, give people a billion dollars of credits for the next 17 seconds. Oh!, make it look like a mistake too!”
by justinclift
0 subcomment
- Alternatively, it was a spoofed website using a spoofed SMS message/sender, trying to get them to click on the website link and give up their login. ;)
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