A Payment arrangement with Vodacom means nothing

This has been the most terrible service I received in years.

I called Vodacom last week on 7 Feb to ask if I can make a payment arrangement to pay my account a week later on 15th of Feb. Vodacom accepted my arrangement and mailed me the reference number on Thursday, Mar 7, 2:38 PM. Yet the very next day they terminated my line.

I could not gain access to my property or call a taxi, so I was basically stranded.

I called and asked why they had cut my line, and they said the system does it automatically. I asked why did they then even bother to accept the arrangement, and not tell me my line will be cut.

They said I had to pay R1350 immediately to have my line restored. So I paid R1400. My line was still down the entire weekend. I called and asked why my line was still down. They said I must pay the full amount, and R1400 was not enough.

Again I asked why did they bother to make the payment arrangement, and why did they carry on giving me false information, and just paid another R900 to pay the account in full. My line was still not reconnected automatically as promised.

Yesterday I tried to call ********** . It asks to enter the number you want help with. When I entered my number, it said the number does not exist and it just puts down the phone - no option to speak to an operator. I called 082111 and held forever. The operator said that once a line had been cut, you can't call re-connections on ********** to reconnect it, even from another phone, since they have terminated the number. Fantastic. Absolutely Brilliant.

So they had to transfer me to re-connections from the 082111 helpline. ********** They said they would reconnect me in a few hours. It was however not done.

Today I called 082111 again and held forever. They transferred me to ********** again, and I had to hold forever. Then accounts had to transfer me to collections and I had to hold forever. Finally my line has now been restored after 5 days of struggle.

Don't bother to make payment arrangements with Vodacom. Save yourself tons of hassle and frustration and just pay it. It is not worth the agony, trust me.

I made the arrangement to pay them on the 15th of Feb and they accepted. But it meant absolutely nothing. They say a payment arrangement has nothing to do with lines being up or down. I had to pay the account in full to get my line restored. I had to pay R1400 on 8th of Feb and R900 on 11th of Feb as per their request. Payment arrangement totally useless - don't even bother.