Vodafone refunds $35,000

Vodafone New Zealand Limited has refunded a total of $35,000 to customers that it had overcharged for cellphone text messages.

A Commerce Commission investigation found that between May and July last year, Vodafone advertised on television, on its website and in newspapers that "a text message is only 20 cents to send to another mobile on the Vodafone network." The true cost was 20.25 cents.

"Overcharging consumers 0.25 cents per text message for three months gave Vodafone an additional $35,000," Commerce Commission chair John Belgrave said.

Vodafone told the Commission that the overcharging was an inadvertent mistake in rounding to allow for GST.

Vodafone has accepted responsibility for the error, and has undertaken to: acknowledge that it made false or misleading claims about prices and breached the Fair Trading Act; stop overcharging for text messages; provide credits and free air time as refunds to customers.