Cell c sim insurance (yes you read correctly) and sim swap costs - **************** !!

Today I went into the Waterfront branch of cell c to report an issues with my cell c home router. I have 2 contracts with cell c, the one I am having issues with I got 7 months ago. The issue started on the 17th May when the router stopped working. I thought I was out of data so I bought an add-on. This also didn’t work, hence my visit today.

But before going into waterfront, I called cell c technical services, they were not helpful and my airtime ran out before they could help. But before it ran out, the agent told me that they won’t be able to call me back. This sucked because when getting both my contracts, I was told that the warranty’s would be nullified if I took them out of the devices. So I never took them out to use to call cell c for free. I suspect I got bad advice from the agent. First problem. When I got to waterfront, I explained this to the cell c employee so he started troubleshooting - this included taking the sims out of devices to test them and the devices with others. But while he was doing this, one of his colleagues kept coming to “correct” him, this was distract. If he was in training, then they should supervise him instead of the disorganized method. Second problem. When he finished troubleshooting he suggested that the router be taken in for repairs and that the SIM is malfunctioning so they need to do a sim swap. They informed me that it would cost about R160. I told them that it makes no sense and is unacceptable but I was told that I must do a sim swop and pay monthly sim cover/insurance of about R30/40 incase the new sim malfunctions. I was even more confused. But they told me that my sim is old that’s why it malfunctioned, that time their colleague had put the sim into my router less than 8 months ago.

My problem is that a cell c devise malfunctions and I am expected to pay to sort out the problem? Secondly, at this rate I’d be paying for a sim swap every 6-8 months until my 24 month contract end since cell c now makes **** sims? Third, since when is sim insurance a thing? I wasn’t told when I took out both contract, still, a SIM card costs less than R10 rand, why would I want to pay more than that every month? This is too much and it is not industry norm so it’s wrong nje. And lastly, this add-on will be charged to my bill that time I can’t even use the data AND they didn’t even try to help me transfer this data to the working sim or even offer to cancel it.

I took my devices and left the store, I didn’t pay for the sim swap. My router and sim still doesn’t work so I’m considering my other options.

I hope this helps someone - think really hard before getting cell c.