Cell C sent a debt collector after me, while they owe me more than R4000.

In August 2021 I moved into a new place and needed an internet connection. I got Cell C fibre with OpenServe because it was the cheapest of the very few options I had at the new place. The fibre was installed and connected (after waiting more than a month) around mid September.

I moved out of this place in the beginning of November and of course had to cancel my fibre line. I contacted Cell C and told them I want it cancelled because I was moving. They said I fist had to settle my account which was in arrears and then I had to pay a cancellation fee. This was communicated to me on the phone.

The reason my account was in arrears, was because the debit orders never went through. I asked the person helping me about this and they said it was a problem on their side, that their debit order system was broken and that I would have to make EFT payments for my account and then the cancellation fee. I was more than happy to pay all of these bills, but I wanted an invoice so that I can see the amounts I needed to pay. I didn't want to pay amounts that I heard on the phone because I could never be sure that I heard them correctly etc.

I waited for almost 2 months to finally get the account invoice (not the cancellation fee) sent to me so that I could make the payment and move on to the cancellation procedure. The totals were around R2500 and consisted of 2 months of the fibre package, plus around R200 for the fist month because it was only connected at the end of the month.

Then, on Christmas day, Cell C put through a debit order (the first one that actually went through) of around R4300. This was of course a mistake and even the invoice that they sent along with it did not make any sense. I contacted them immediately and I was told that they would make a ticket for the issue. I told them that they could either repay me the entire amount and then I would pay the cancellation fee (which I was not invoiced for at this point), or they could deduct it from the amount and then repay me the balance. But, then I received the invoice for the cancellation fee at the end of December. I immediately contacted the person handling my cancellation, but they told me that they only handled cancellations and had nothing to do with refunds.

Through this entire process, my credit record was severely damaged because Cell C marked the debit orders not going through as me not paying my accounts. I also called them about that and they said they would make a ticket to set my record straight.

When I called them to follow up on the refund issue, the lady said the case looked very strange as it went from department to department and each time the amount I had to be refunded got less and less. She then made an enitre new ticket and said she would escalate it.

Then yesterday I got a phone call from someone about Cell C. It was very hard to hear what they were saying but I explained the entire situation (going on a bit of a rant) to them and at the end of the call they asked me if I was going to pay the cancellation fee. I told them no because Cell C owes me money and if I paid that then I would just potentially lose more money (the cancellation fee is around R1400).

Only after the call I realized that it might have been a debt collector. They said something about MBT or NBT or something but I realized now they were maybe saying NDC and now I have gone on record (because the call was recorded) that I was not going to pay. I then panicked because they also mentioned lawyers or something so I immediately made an EFT payment to Cell C for the cancellation fee, which in retrospect might have been a bad idea.

I don't know what to do about this whole situation. I don't want these bad marks on my credit record and I definitely don't want it on record that a debt collector approached me for money I 'owed' Cell C.

They still owe me more than R4000 but I don't even care about that when I have a bad record like this. I couldn't even apply for a credit card because of this whole situation.