Avoid Cell C

Cell C and their billing department have been the most frustrating people to deal with for two years. In 2021, I contacted Cell C to let them know that I noticed my debit order for my two contracts did not go off. The consultant told me that it did but was probably not reflecting on my end yet. A called back a week later and said that it definitely did not go off and I didn’t want to be stuck with a billing issue as this happened before and took months to resolve. The consultant then told me that the debit order did not go off because they switched to a new system and some debits showed that they went through even when it didn’t. She said I should make the payment manually and email the proof to her, which I did. The following month, Cell C double debited me. Keep in mind that I was paying for two fairly expensive contracts so this was a lot of money. I then contacted Cell C and they apologized saying that the finance/ billing department had a backlog therefore the money I paid to them manually was not yet allocated to my account. They said they would refund me in 3-5 days. I was told that I they were going to stop my debit orders or else the problem would keep happening.

This problem was ongoing and I was not refunded. I was then told to ask my bank to do a reversal which I did. However, when this happened, somehow the account went into arrears. Every month I would phone in, every month they would say it’s a mistake and every month I would do a manual payment and send them proof, however, NONE of the payments were being allocated due to an apparent backlog. At some point they told me I owed them R11 000 then R7000 then after six months, they finally allocated the money and I spoke to Josephine from their finance department. She told me that that she compared the invoices against the proof of payments I sent to them and that I owed them R1700. Mind you, the person I spoke to before her said I didn’t owe anything and that they actually owed me. The same day, before speaking to Josephine, I was told by another consultant that I owed R1000 and I made the payment. I kept saying I wanted to cancel my contracts and they wouldn’t because the account was in arrears. I told Josephine about the R1000 payment and she said that hadn’t yet been allocated but that if I wanted them to process the cancellation then I should make payment for R700 which I did. I then kept calling for the contracts to be cancelled which didn’t happen. Instead, they suspended my lines. I was then emailed and they said it was done in error. It was reinstated after a week and switched to prepaid and I thought this nightmare was over. However, I then got an invoice for R3800. I asked them to call me and go over all the payments that were made which they did but then they couldn’t prove where I missed a payment. I asked for invoices and they said the invoices would reflect incorrect amounts due to the unallocated payments. I asked for all the call recordings and I was told that the latest email telling me that I owed them trumped the call recordings and they didn’t send me anything. Eventually there was no communication for about a year. Last week, they contacted me again about the money, I’ve asked again for call recordings to prove that this conversation was held and that they payments were made and acknowledged. Instead of doing this, I get a notice that they handed me over. The reason? That I didn’t honor a payment arrangement. There was never a payment arrangement made to start with, I did not acknowledge that I owed them because I didn’t abd I’m not going to pay them close to R4000 because their billing department can’t get their **** together and acknowledged that on every phone call with me. I regret ever taking a contract with Cell C