Contract cell phone with Cell C

Good day I would like to share my horrible experience with cell c. I took a phone with cell c (Huawei P 20) during December 2018. All was good until I got trenched on June 2019. I went to their nearest Branch (Vincent, E.L) to let them know of status back then as well as to negotiate my monthly payment going forward mean while still looking for another job. The lady that was assisting me told me that; the phone is not going to be taken from me and informed their head office about my situation and scanned through my ID copy as well as retrenchment letter. The resolution was that; am going to pay the minimum amount of R200 or even less but I must ensure that I keep on paying. On the start up of the contract it was indicated that if I make direct EFT deposits, I must use my cell number as Reference. Furthermore, it was always there on my monthly statement During my retrenchment period, I think I missed one or 2 payments but I made sure that I kept on paying the original amount we agreed up on NOT the negotiated one. To cut the long story short, I thought by me using the correct reference Cell c will be able to allocate payments under my name on their records. In addition, I wasn't told to bring the receipt to them after every payment made to their account. To my surprise all the payments were not allocated to my account. They claimed that I was using incorrect reference number all along.

Around June last year I was in Port Elizabeth and decided to visit one of their branches because; as I was paying I realized that the balance wasn't decreasing but increasing instead. At the branch I was told that the last time I made payment was before my retrenchment on the system. I was vey surprised by this, I told the lady there that information wasn't correct. Fortunately, I had some few deposit slips with me not all of them even though some were faint then she scanned everything and sent to their finance department. She assisted me in working out the remaining balance so that I can pay-off everything to avoid bad reputation as I was already working that time. I topped up by R3900 in trying to pay of my debt same day.

I received the statement late on, my payments were reflecting and I was happy but I was still owing. I went to branch again to ask why because I paid the remaining balance as per last month statement . Their response was; they are behind in updating clients information on their side blah-blah but at the end of the day I must pay again. I did pay an amount of R700 in relation to the balance that was still outstanding of R1000 and something.

Come next month around August or September last year, same problem. The balance increased again instead of going down. I went to the branch to query that ,they tried to get hold of their head office to clarify the issue but there was no solution as they promised to look at it. I said to them I wasn't happy with their services and now am gonna make final payment as soon as I know exactly what's due.During October, I went again to check for my response or way forward. To my surprise, I was told that I was handed over to their Legal department (Blake and Associates) . I was NOT happy at all about their decision. I asked why I wasn't informed about that prior to handover. As far as I know if the customer is struggling to make payments you first get hold of him or her to try understand why is the payment not made and see if it can be negotiated and so forth.

I tried to call Cell c customer care line and emailing them and even writing on their Facebook page till today they never responded to rectify that. I told my self ok, let me pay the amount to these guys so long meanwhile waiting on them for clarity and to clear my name for such. I paid the money to their legal department last year (outstanding balance) 26 November 2020. Till today I have been waiting for the paid up letter on them. I tried to get hold of them they said they are waiting on their head office to release my letter. Am so not happy about it as it has impacted my credit score. Am stuck currently because of this. I have been calling both Cell c customer care and Blake and Associate but NO HELP UNTILL TODAY .The only response I get every time I call them is this " we have forwarded your query to relevant individuals, they will contact you as soon as possible".

I would like this to be sorted out as soon as possible by Cell C.For further details I can be reached on ***.

Thank you Lindy