A Bandra District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has dismissed a complaint of a Borivali resident against telecom service provider Vodafone India in which he had complained of inflated international roaming charges.
The complainant Vinit Goenka had approached the commission last year complaining of a 2017 bill. He stated that he had never switched on his data network during his stay abroad from 1 April, 2017 to 4 April, 2017. He sought that the company waive off the inflated international roaming charges imposed on him and give him compensation as well as costs.
The commission opined in its order that the complainant’s own bill shows data usage of 23 MB and 1 GB on 4 April, 2017 and that it is “quite impossible” that such a usage happened without his knowledge.
Vodafone India had filed its reply and stated that the complainant had a Dynamic Credit Limit which keeps fluctuating under various factors under consideration of the service provider. Further, it had said that since the complainant had travelled abroad, for his own benefit, the usage of international roaming was allowed beyond his credit limit.
It also said that the customer has admitted he had used WiFi at services wherever possible and that it was quite possible that subscribers forget their data is on when latching on to WiFi and when the WiFi is not available, service automatically switches to mobile data network. Further it said their billing systems are computerized and accurately calculate usage.
The commission remarked that the disputed transactions are of the year 2017 and that the annexures with the complaint contain emails between him and the company of Sep-Oct 2019. It said it is not sure why he had not disputed the bill when he had received it in 2017. The commission concurred with the method, it said, of setting the Dynamic Credit Limit that Vodafone India explained in its reply.
