crazymalc.co.nz - Home Page of Malcolm Trevena

Vodafone wants my kneecaps

1st March 2006
Being the organized young pup that I am, I decided to sign up for Global Roaming on my Vodafone cell phone prior to coming to the Philippines.

Upon arriving, I discovered that it would be much cheaper and easier if I got a local SIM card. So I put my old SIM card in my wallet, and popped my new SIM card into my cellphone. Everything was hunky dory.

At some point my old SIM card disappeared. It might have fallen out of my wallet. It might of been eaten by a couch. It may of fallen into a wormhole. Dunno. I didn't really care though. It was a prepay card and only had about twenty bucks on it, so it wouldn't really matter if someone picked it up and used it. Right? Right?!

Wrong.

Several months later I get a bill from Vodafone for $6,000, which is 240,000 pesos in the local currency. Yikes. That's a mind numbing amount of money in the local currency. That's six and a half years worth of wages for a farm laborer.

I've written several emails to Vodafone explaining my situation, but all I've got so far is wanky copied and pasted answers along the lines of:

Vodafone stands by out original decision. As per the signed contract, you are legally bound to pay us the sum of $6,000.

Bleh. Very cold and heartless. My most recent email pointed out that if I paid this bill, then there is a serious chance of me not going to Africa. Which is quite true. I haven't hand an income for a long time now and have effectively been eating my savings as I help those left fortunate than me.

Like the underfed kids at my school.

Or like, Renalyn. She walks 90 minutes in the blazing sun just to get to school. She arrives tired and hungry.

Or like the kids I run classes for on the floor because their just aren't the necessary resources.

Or like this blind guy.

Or like this beggar.

The list goes on and on. I hope soon to be helping the poor in African countries. Aids victims. Aid orphans. War orphans. The shat-on of the world. People like these.

I don't know their stories yet. I hope to learn them. If I have to pay this damned bill though, I may not be able to.

I hope Vodafone doesn't value profits over human suffering. Time will tell though.

Lets hope that they will be more humane than Singapore Airlines were. This page and this page tells the Singapore Airlines story.

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(c) 2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to link to this page. Heck, you can even copy stuff from here if you want. Just make sure you sight me as a reference.