[wind Mega] Mega Increase & New Prices abroad
 

I received an SMS from Wind this morning, saying that Internet, Wap and imode tariff outside Italy for Mega users would be 0,9?/Kb from December 14. It corresponds to 3,3Mo for 20? with Mega No Limit and 16,7Mo for 30? with Mega 15000... Even French networks are cheaper!

Well, I'll just use my remaining credit and let my Wind SIM die... :ranting2: :ranting2: :ranting2:

Is this for real?? A 60 times price hike from ? 0.015/KB to ? 0.9/KB for the internet.wind APN????? AndreA - call the customer care and SHOUT!!!

I think you mean 0.9 EUR per megabyte (or megaoctet, as you call this unit in France :)), not per kilobyte. 0.9 EUR/kB would mean 900 EUR/MB :D. Anyway, not a big deal anymore :P

So if I understand this correct the data rate abroad has actually decreased? From ?1.5 / MB (?0.015/kb) to ?0.9 / MB (?0.009 /kb) if we're talking internet.wind APN?

The SMS wrote: "gentile cliente, la informiamo che dal 4/12 la tariffa internet, wap e imode all'estero delle offerte mega sar? di 0,9 euro/KB. info www.155.it"

http://estero.wind.it/it/privati/cos...ero_costi5.php

Exaxtly 60 times more only for the people that have a Mega Option :ranting2: You pay the traffic you have the old tariff... well, really nice to spend 20 euro for a email :wacko:

So did they kill the international utility of the MEGA plans or not? I'm not sure what's happening. To me it says € 0.90/KB but that seems outlandish. It must be a mistake. The Mobal SIM is less than that.

Oh dear....this is bad news :thumbdown:

I just read it too late as I was right beside the German border tonight visiting a friend down near Liege so went to Aachen especially to buy 60 euro of German O2 topup to cover the next months mega-no-limits and now they are in the account. I also just bought a new 3G phone especially to use with the Wind sim. Really a pity but I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. Just for reference I haven't received a single SMS from Wind.

It does seem a mad price at ?0,90 per KB though! Is it 100% for real?

So from next month I guess it's back to my old system of the ?5 +/- per MB UK Virgin sim.....unless somebody knows something cheaper?? I suppose in a way with Wind 30 Euro for 16MB of anywhere in the world data isn't so bad but I've got kind of used to the old tariff now so it will be hard to go back. I think for December I'll switch over to the 30 Euro tariff but how do I do this? I assume I have to deactivate the 20 Euro Mega-no-limit 1st then activate the more expensive one but how do I do this?

:( :( :( :( :ranting2:

That's what I wanted to say, too - it looks like a total absurd!. 0.9 EUR/kB is 900 EUR/MB (or even more if we count 1 MB = 1024 kB). I think that any SIM with GPRS roaming, no matter national or international one, is MUCH cheaper.

I still don't follow here.. Is it only for people with the ?20 option? Is the price still 0.015/kb on the ?8 and ?30 packages?

This is ONLY for the people with any Mega option (8, 20 and 30? month)... the old price is good only for the customers using the data connections without any promotion :censored:

Anyway I just wrote them and I informed the italian TLC authority too... i hope to have some answers soon :construction:

Well, now me and Effendi will go to Malta until next week... but I dont' forget you! B)

I really hope this is a mistake and they actually meant 0.9 euroCENT... otherwise they are just plain CRAZY

just close the offer only to italian connections and stop, this would have been bad anyway but at least more serious :(

exactly what i wrote on my blog...

Also on the official site (in a terrible Italian...):

Thanks for all the help, AndreA!

I would have understood if they increased to 0.03 or even 0.1 per kb but 60 times higher is just not acceptable... Where did they get this crazy idea from? I cannot believe the cost for wind to have data agreements abroad has hiked 60 times.. Or maybe it has hiked like that in one country and then they make customers in every country suffer...

I think the actual cost really has little relevance to this situation and they simply wanted to stop the usage of these special packages outside Italy. The only reason I can see for them to do it in this rather "unusual" manner is because their billing system can't manage to completely block the usage outside of Italy hence this ridiculous charge.

Whatever the reason I do question it from a legal point of view as we have all taken a subscription to a tariff that was offered by them and clearly published - whether it was a mistake or not is irrelevant as the offer was made and then accepted. I suspect in the terms and conditions somewhere is buried the right on Wind's side to vary the tariff from time to time but as Italy is a European country I'd suspect there are customer rights laws that don't allow unfair increases in price. Also, Wind's right to vary the price should normally depend on them informing the customer's in advance (1 month minimum). From my point of view I would never have known about this increase if it hadn't been for this forum so I'll be watching with interest to see if they actually do inform me before 4/11/06.

Anyway, at the end of it all it seems they have noticed their "mistake" and our free ride is over :( As I mentioned before the 30 euro/month for 16MB isn't so bad for basic usage when travelling so providing this is all 100% for certain I'll use up the rest of my credit on this tariff. However, I still don't know how to switch over...I assume I have to send sms's or something to a number but I don't have a clue which so any help would be greatly appreciated.

I can help you with how to unsubscribe the option:

just send an SMS with text:

MEGA 15000 NO

or

MEGA NO

(for the mega no limit offer)

to free short number: 4533

but still, I hope this was a mistake :(

They clearly state the data prices applicable when roaming, so I guess they 'wanted' to have foreign people using this service, or at least Italians using it all over the globe.

I got the sms today notifying about the price hike, but it's so laconicly stated that you nearly misunderstand it, and they don't accentuate it too much, in proportion with the implications it has.

Unfair price increases, yes I think one can claim that from a European Union consumer perspective. Many people use to topup 60+ euros in one go just to avoid the fees involved in topping up, and myself I sit here with nearly 45 euros that I can't use in a sensible way now for this service. If there was a way to transfer this credit to the starmap alliance partner in my country, o2 Ireland, I would happily do that, but now it seems that it seems impossible.

We'll see what type of response AndreA will get from Wind etc, but I think they have a legal right to do like this, in a time where you can sign up to offers over the telephone without written confirmation necessary, I guess a company can impose changes in their pricing structure just by sending out an sms and not informing them in a more official manner.

Hoping this to be a scary Halloween joke...

if it's terrible, then it comes out surprisingly well in translation

"The prices brought back in table are not applied to the traffic carried out in international Roaming for the options Mega Not Limit, MEGA 300 and MEGA 15000. For such options the price associated to traffic GPRS/UMTS in internazonale Roaming (Wap, i-modesTM and Internet of 0,9 euro/KB "

But there simply must be an error in the rate there - presumably either cents/kB or euro/MB. Until that's clarified we can't figure out the price to a factor of 10 100 or 1000

Andy, I think this may be true :(. As long as I understand how Mega packets "act", they are not "packets of megabytes" but "packets of money" (Effendi's explanations http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/index.php?...opic=1277&st=0). E.g. Mega NoLimit gives (for 20 EUR paid) a virtual credit of 3000 EUR which used to be "consumed" at the rate 1.5cent/kB(=15 EUR/MB) outside Italy. Now it will be consumed" at the rate 90cent/kB(=900 EUR/MB) what means 3000/900=3.3 MB for 20 EUR. It's about 6 EUR/MB real cost - no so tragic so far after all. But...if the rate 900 EUR/MB in roaming is valid also for data transferred after using the whole monthly package, then... God protect careless users :unsure:

Nothing is said on your personal page in 155.it about this.. At least for the MEGA customers, there should come up a flashing red text saying: "PRICE HIKE: BEWARE"... Well, I guess Wind are just being lazy to inform their customers about a minimal alteration like this!

http://www.telefon-treff.de/showthread.php...15&pagenumber=1

One person on this forum in this thread, called Wind customer care several times, and, as I understand it with my catastrophic German, two of the times, they told him it was a typing error on the web site, and it should be 0.9 euroCENT /kb.
If so, the price has actually gone DOWN from 1.5 euroCENT /kb to 0.9 euroCENT /kb? Can that actually be true? Actually the sms sent out about the price change didn't overtly say that it is indeed an increase in price, just a CHANGE of price, so maybe we're lucky!

Nearly correct.
I think you referred to this quote:

he writes that the customer care told him (in 5 different calls to make sure) that the price will raise to 9ct/kb not to 90ct/kb and that they will correct the typo soon.

But i am not sure about this.
If you calculate with 90ct/kbyte the prices are still quite a lot reduced compared with the regular roaming tariff.

MEGA: 3.25 MB for 20 Euro - regular price would be 48 Euro
MEGA 1500: 16.5 MB for 30 Euro - regular price would be 248 Euro....

I really do believe that the original assumption of the price rise to 90ct/kb is correct. Afterall the usage of the mega-no-limit abroad was kind of a loophole and must have been costing Wind money in a way. So, in my opinion it was only a matter of time before something like this happened especially as more and more people started using this service abroad.

After dealing with many different phone companies in different countries I really have little faith in what the customer services say so to have a definitive answer we'll all just probably have to wait and see. As dg7feq mentions the new cost of data on the 30 Euro tariff is still a reasonable deal....nowhere near as good as before but still overall acceptable.

Well, I picked up a SIM yesterday, activated the Mega no limit. This morning I downloaded about 200 kb or so of emails while roaming in Germany.

Thereafter I could not login and when I checked my balance it was negative but
the data counter still showed a balance of 3000 euro and minimal data useage.

The numbers don't work out but it doesn't seem to be a bargain any longer and I didn't even get any useage out of it. It would have to be 90 euro cents per kb to empty a brand new sim which had a balance of 55 euro.

Anyone have the direct dial # to customer service?

Jim

Jim,

it looks strange... maybe when you used it the option was not active yet?

anyway customer care number is : 155 from Italy

if you're not in Italy, don't use direct dial, instead use: *124*155# for the callback, this way the call will be free

My guess is your MEGA plan hasn't been activated yet. Did you receive the confirmation SMS from them? It takes some time before WIND activates your MEGA plan - I waited as long as about 12 hours.
By the way - did you activate GPRS first? MEGA won't be active until you activate GPRS (unless your Wind dealer has done so).
In my case I had to send 2 sms-es: GPRS SI and MEGA SI.
Hope this helps B)
Tomek

Well, I'm sitting in The Netherlands right now roaming on Telfort and it's deducting from the 3000 Euro monthly allowance as per normal at the old rate. I didn't think the "new" rates applied until the beginning of December so for the moment everything seems ok. As the others have said I suspect your mega-no-limit wasn't activated and the data usage came from your credit....mine took over 36 hours to go through when I first set it up earlier in the year.

Yes:

I got the SMS saying the Mega no limit was activated 31 Oct.

I sent 2 SMS - MEGA SI ans GPRS SI

I did not start any data calls while roaming until the next day 1 Nov

Thank You for the suggestions.

Jim

Wind have now updated its pricing page on data abroad.

Before it stated 0.9 euro/kb, now it says 0.90 euro/kb and
they have also added this pricing a second time in a coloured
frame.... 0.9 EURO/KB....... Well, I guess that's the final
correction from Wind... I wish I didn't have 45 euro in my
balance because this is a worthless and outrageous deal..

WIND just became useless to me. I have it for use in Greece and the UK. Greek local SIM's offer a better deal than WIND now and the UK has unlimited usage on a per-day basis with Orange and T-Mobile (which will have a much lower latency).

I am in France right now and dialled *124*155# waiting on a callback. Will the callback work while roaming if the balance is zero?

A query to *123# shows zero balance and zero data balance.

This cannot be because I have never accessed the Mega no limit data credit at all!

Again, does anyone know how to contact Wind? I can't even find an email link in their site. I would be happy to dial their customer service direct.

This has been most frustrating. Sorry to hijack the thread but there might be something in common with my problems and the Mega no limit roaming data increase.

This is clearly defective product or billing and I am thinking I will have American
Express do a chargeback.

Jim

it looks like it's official :( everywhere it's stating officially "0.90" EUROS and also that the same tariff will be applied after ending the promotion limits :(

so... bye bye wind usage outside italy... it has been good until it lasted

I do not know if we can get something, but do you think we should sign a petition and send it over to Wind?

No, calls do not work at all if the balance is zero. Also to "free" numbers.

Thats why i have 3 dead cards here - 0 balance, MEGA option activated and no chance to topup or switch off the option :sad:

Chris

Hi all

Well I had over 50 euros credit at the start of the month and got the SMS and didn't realise what it meant so carried on using the 20 euros version of the mega no limit (which I have used within the limits since July) as per normal and now have 0.00 credit and can't access or do anything!!!!

So it seems what has effectively happened is that they sent me a confusing SMS and within days they have changed the main terms and conditions despite the advertised terms and conditions which I signed up for saying this promotion was going to last way past Christmas. Also they have kindly charged me at this new rate without waiting for the only date in the sms - effectively using up over 50 Euros credit without me knowing in less than a week!!!!

I cannot afford to add another 30 euros credit for the other mega no limit options only to see it eaten up without any warning on whatever rate they decide to charge each week :ranting2:

I await some feedback from Andrea and others before ditching the sim :unsure:

Yeah I hope AndreA will take them to the EU court for unfair change of T&Cs... :(:(:(

It's strange to read this...I'm using my 20 eur mega pack as per usual and for the moment it's working as before and deducting from the 3000 eur at the old rate.

I just got the SMS informing me of the tariff change next month 2 days ago.

Guess everybody has got that sms now...
Well, if it they change the per-kb fee already before Dec 4th, that would make me really p-ssed off.....

Well, I haven't received that message yet, however so far I haven't used GPRS outside Italy.

Guess they will only inform customers who have done at least one roaming.

I'm still waiting for answer...

anyway a good website ( http://www.cellularitalia.com/news/w...stero-mega.php ) wrote against this change... hope that someone can undestand the crazy "60timesmore"...