Limited lifespan Sim Cards

<p>On Sunday 17 July 2016, my cell c service suddenly cut off at about 12pm.</p> <p>At about 7pm I contacted customer service as my service still has not been restored. Winston advised me that selected customers throughout WC and KZN have been reporting this issue.</p> <p>I was advised to allow 2 hours to recover from this issue and the error would resolve on it's own. After waiting several hours I turned my phone back on to find the issue still present. </p> <p>I then contacted yourselves again on Monday 18 July 2016 to query the issue, the agent sent a friend who also owned a cell c sim the Vodacom settings so I can try my sim there. Still it did not work. </p> <p> </p> <p>I contacted the call centre several hours later and spoke to Sbu, who put the phone down in my ear saying "What must I do" after I requested a manager. At this point I was already very worked up as I felt I'm being fobbed off by your staff. I phoned back immediately and spoke to Sandiswa who informed me what I would need to puchase a new sim card as it appears to be "magically" damaging itself. The item was securely in my phone at the time and as we all now know, I am not the only customer who suddenly had a "damaged" sim card.</p> <p> </p> <p>I requested a manager, which spun me the same tale. He advised he could do nothing for me. I would need to puchase a new sim card for R150 due to being on a contract, or I can puchase one at a store and call in to have it activated, for which I will be billed R50 on my account.</p> <p> </p> <p>For obvious reasons, I refused this immediately as I cannot for a moment believe that Cell C would design sim cards with a 6 month lifespan forcing their contracted customers to be buy a new piece of plastic for R150, even R50 is ridiculous. Sim Cards can be used for years and even be carried over between networks. </p> <p> </p> <p>As it stands I am still cut off from a contract which I am paying every month, they also charge my debit late even though funds are readily available, and charge me an additional R70 for this. I feel I should claim all of this back if they don't resolve this issue soon.</p>