Mobile Network Comparison

Hi again and welcome to the third instalment of our series on the state of the UK phone market. Today we’re looking at the excessive roaming fees we are made to pay by UK mobile networks and ways you can get caught out while travelling on holiday or even at home. But first, don’t forget to check out all the other articles in the series:

• Part 1: Does the mobile phone industry in the UK need a top-down shakeup? – Contracts and new phones
• Part 2: Does the mobile phone industry in the UK need a top-down shakeup? – Repairs and unlocking
• Part3: Does the mobile phone industry in the UK need a top-down shakeup? – Roaming on holiday
• Part 4: Does the mobile phone industry in the UK need a top-down shakeup? – 4G and mobile data

Are you updating your Facebook status by the pool?

How many times do we go away on holiday and take our smartphones with us? Every time, probably. Do you get home from your holiday and totally forget about the next mobile phone bill landing on your doormat? When the bill arrives you have to look at it twice in disbelief wondering how the bill came to £100s of pounds more than you usually spend. It’s not unheard of for bills after holidays to be in excess of £1000.

You might not think that checking your Facebook status could be so costly. The reason it is expensive because your home networks have struck up a roaming agreement with foreign networks. Your mobile network may well have networks in other countries and you would be forgiven for thinking, for example, that Orange FR (France) would be exactly like Orange UK wouldn’t you? Well it is, but in name only. The similarity ends there; it may appear to be the same network, but it it’s charged differently. So you might have only updated your Facebook status once or twice a day, but if you are away for a couple of week it can mount up.

Did you know that if someone from yhe UK rings you while you are abroad, you will both be charged when the call is connected? The rules differ slightly with text messages. In the case of texts being sent abroad from the UK, or vice versa, the sender pays extra for the text, but they are free for the recipient.

Can I avoid being ripped off when on holiday?

The answer is yes you can. There are a few measures you can take to avoid being ripped off. The first is you can switch off data roaming on your handset, then phone your network and ask them to put a bar on international calls and texts. If you really want to use handset abroad, phone your network and ask about international charges. They may have a network in the country you are visiting. You can also have an international call add-on so you won’t be stung for high charges. Make sure you all your notifications are switched off; things like your email alerts, etc.

If you really have to take your handset on holiday it may be cheaper if you buy a PAYG SIM card for a network in the country you are visiting. Your handset will need to have been unlocked to use a local SIM card. It may be worthwhile investing in a cheap phone on PAYG complete with SIM for the duration of the holiday. You can, of course, use it again if you’re a regular visitor to that country. It might cost you around €50-€60, but it’s cheaper than getting a mobile bill of £100s of pounds. The best way to avoid charges is to either leave your phone at home, or make use of any free wifi hotspots that are available, such as in hotels, coffee shops, etc.

Even if you don’t leave the UK you’re not exempt; it’s possible to be charged roaming while actually being in the UK. But how is this possible? A few years ago some people living on the south easy coast of England near Dover found their phones were picking up an Orange FR (France) instead of Orange UK transmitter. This was because Orange switched off a transmitter in the area and the Orange FR signal was the strongest in the area despite having the English Channel between to the two countries. The distance between England and France is only around 25 miles.

It’s a real problem in Northern Ireland too. Many people who live there can’t get a signal at all, as the nearest cell transmitter for the network is 2 miles away. However, often it is is possible to pick up a transmitter in the Republic of Ireland. This shows that it’s possible to pick up an Irish network when still in the UK. Just to be clear Northern Ireland is in the UK, but the Irish Republic is in Europe – where roaming rates apply.

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We recently got a bunch of comments in a row recently that all praised Vectone highly. Although they were under several different names, we got a bit suspicious as they had used the same email address every time. After a bit of poking around, it soon became apparent that something very dodgy was going on.

The first post was on 20 March at 12:29 by a user named “RJ” and said:

I reccomend vectone to anyone who wants to work hard and be rewarded for that. In no other company you get recognition for your hardwork so quickly.

This same user, “RJ” then went on to make two more posts in quick sucession, both defending Vectone Mobile:

First, at 15:31:

I used the service for the 1p deal as well and I got the correct rates. You need to understand that 1p is not to mobiles in all countries. It practically impossible to offer 1p rate to mobiles. What vectone does offer is the UKs lowest rates to international mobiles in addition to 1p landline rates

Then at 15:34:

sory to hear that ! what i am wondeing is how can they have 2 million Uk customers if they are so bad. They must be doing a lot of things right !

The interesting thing was that the posts didn’t stop there. At 15:50 another user named “Andy” wrote:

everyone in my family is on vectone and we never faced issues calling each other.

It was about now that we checked out these particular comments and noticed that, although they used completely different names, they both had the same email address registered: rishabh.jaipuria@gmail.com

This would make sense for a user named “RJ” but not so much for someone called “Andy“. Furthermore, why would someone want to use two different names even though they only had one email address?

Curious, we googled “Rishabh Jaipuria” and this LinkedIn profile came up.

It’s for one Rishabh Jaipuria whose current job is, wait for it, “Head of Online Marketing and Sales at Vectone“. Even better, he writes in his profile:

I am an open networker, please add me using rishabh.jaipuria(at)gmail.com .

So it seems that this Rishabh Jaipuria has been engaging in a little bit of astroturfing. That is, pretending to be writing grassroots support when he’s actually being paid by a company. By posing as a normal customer, Vectone is trying to mislead all the visitors to our site with phoney user reviews posted by completely fake people. Surely this is a bit embarrassing for Vectone?

But wait, it gets better!

We wanted to be even more sure so checked the website logs and, sure enough, the comments by RJ (who never identifies or discloses himself as Vectone employee) were posted from exactly the same IP address as those from “Andy” later in the day.

What’s more, there was a post left a long time earlier from exactly the same IP address on the 16th February from a user named “bleh” saying:

I work for them too.
And they suck. It’s a joke!

As both these comments were from the same IP address, that means they were both from the same building – the poster who goes by “RJ” (and other aliases) with the email address rishabh.jaipuria@gmail.com was posting his positive comments from the same place as the person claiming to work for Vectone!

We then went and looked up all the comments posted from this IP address and found many more from rishabh.jaipuria@gmail.com but again with different names defending Delight Mobile. Why is a Vectone Mobile employee defending Delight? Well, they just so happen to be the same company!

The comments were posted under names such as “cindy” and “sandeep” and said things like:

very starange. I never had any connecion issues with delight !!

and,

Hi Paul, i had similar problems with them as well at the start but now they seem to have improved their service greatly. I guess like any startup there ware some bumps in the begenning.

There were also two posts (1, 2) from the same IP address saying:

I like Delight Mobile. I have never had any connection problems or anything like this.

Customer service was good too. They do have a good deals for call inside UK, but what is the most attractive to me is the cheap international call they offer.

As far as know, they really do have the cheapest rates.

and,

I use Vectone for international calls as well and I do not feel ripped off, as on Vectone website is clearly stated that ‘it’s only 1p a minute to make international calls’. It is general statement, not stating mobile rates anywhere…so it is landline, otherwise they would write mobiles…and also there is a limited list of 1p countries. Are you sure your country was on the list of 1p countries? I recommend you to do a little reading before getting any SIM card or topup next time:)it is worth it…I am really satisfied with their services, but I know what I got, so I have good experience. However, I cannot believe that they could mess up with your history of calls…sounds like a story from a movie:)

Funnily enough, the only two reviews that had been commented on by this IP address were, you guessed it: Vectone and Delight.

And as if they weren’t busted enough, they’ve also recently been registering new forum accounts to defend themselves on critical threads. Unfortunately, they haven’t noticed that the threads were all very old so bumping them all in quick sucession is very obvious especially if you’re using brand-new just-created accounts. We’re betting the admins of that forum will find they all used the same IP address and that it’s the same as the user posting positive comments on our reviews…

If you’re trying to manipulate public opinion with dishonest astroturfing, you’ve got to be a lot more subtle than that!

Have you ever caught companies astroturfing? How did it make you feel about them? What do you think about Vectone/Delight now you’ve read about this?

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O₂ have announced that they are planning on launching a money transfer app for mobile phones. O₂ are currently testing the app and hope for its release to be within the next three months. The app will allow users to link their mobile number with their bank account and make money transfers by sending SMS messages, similar to Barclay’s Pingit service.

O₂ are allowing this service to be used by all UK banks and mobile networks, whereas Pingit is only available to Barclays customers. Ronan Dunne, chief executive of O₂ has said the following:

We have loads of people in a closed user group who are already using it. What we are just doing is building and testing all of the scaling, so that when we go to market we can be prepared for an onslaught of demand.

He has also given details about the procedures to setting up this service. They have applied for an e-money license and have their provisional approvals. They will also partner with Visa and have all of the credentials you would expect from somebody launching this service.

The biggest fear of money transfer apps is privacy concerns; however Mr. Dunne said he did not anticipate any problems as the system will be properly secured. Along with Vodafone’s imminent ‘mobile wallet’ service, smartphone payments are suddenly becoming very real.

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