These guys just love to not help you

Cell C's call center has the absolute worst service. I have had the most infuriating experience trying to trying to have my recent cellphone upgrade reversed.

It all started when I tried to upgrade my phone, but wasn't happy with the phone I received. I quickly called them and explained my issue (the phone did not support Google play services) and they quickly helped me arrange a reversal and before long, a courier came to pick it up. They tell you that once the device has been approved by the repair shop, it takes "24-48 work hours" before you can get a different device. Surely logically that's one to two days, right? Nope. One work day is eight hours, so the process process takes six days. Why they don't just tell you "six days" is something they alone know. But if only that were where my problems ended...

At one stage while the process was supposedly in progress, I received a call from them which I unfortunately missed. Looking back, it was probably a spam call, but at the time I didn't want to miss any updates from their side, and phoned the call centre to find out what was going on. I reached customer service who asked me their standard set of security questions and listened to the full story about how I upgraded, didn't like the device I received, app**** for the reversal, sent back the phone and received feedback from the repair shop, before putting me through to the upgrades department. There I was asked the security questions again, I told them the same story, and they put me through to the cancellations department. Cancelations again made me tell the full story, asked me their security questions, and put me through to repairs. Repairs did the same before sending my call back to upgrades. At this point I was starting to get a bit worked up, and the lady on the phone, after another set of security questions and a retelling of my reason for calling, told me that she was going to put me through to the follow-ups department and that she absolutely guaranteed that they would help me. I reluctantly allowed her to send me through, however my call ended up back at customer service. At that point I lost my cool and asked them to send a recording of my call to my local Cell C store so that I could make a complaint.

It has been six days. I called again this morning, only to find that my reversal has not been finalised because I was somehow supposed to know to ask for something called an "RMA number", and because I didn't, my reversal has not gone through. As I sit and type this complaint on my old, busted up cellphone with a third of its screen black from damage (the reason I wanted an upgrade in the first place), I can only hope that what I have typed up half-blindly using muscle memory and autocomplete amounts to a coherent piece of reading.