Vodafone's apparent £360,000/week Christmas bonus from unwitting customers

Link: 160Characters Association

So it’s not just me and my source! The Vodafone overcharging story is now on 160 Characters thus:

Vodafone customers in the UK are receiving an additional charge of 12p on Premium Rate text messages across all price points.

An aggregator has discovered that all PSMS messages through Vodafone in the UK across all price points from 25p through to the maximum £1.50 are having an extra 12p added to their bill. The extra charge only came to light following a customer complaint to an aggregator.

Assuming that this is a technical error, this will be netting Vodafone an estimated £360,000 pounds a week in additional revenues. If it comes to offering refunds to those over charged, the refund flow from operator to aggregator, service providor and end user is tricky to implement for PSMS.

So far Vodafone has declined to comment on this additional charge which appears to have been in place for some weeks.

Deary me.