ABSOLUTE DESPICABLE SERVICE - SENIOR MANAGERS SHOULD HANG THEIR HEADS IN SHAME OR HAVE THEIR BUTTS KICKED OUT

<p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">We are at a crossroad and have tried everything in the book to get the service we are paying for from Vodacom. </font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri"> </font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000"><font size="3">I have not been able to access my emails and internet since the 1ST</font><font size="3"> May 2016 and am just getting the run around from Vodacom. Unfortunately the only number you can phone is 082111 and this is a nightmare. There is no direct access to a Technical person to assist you. We have been Vodacom customers since 2004 and at present we have three contracts through them, two are for cell phones and one is for a MyGig3 Data Bundle (****le) which we use for emails and internet at my place of work. Although the contract is in our name my employer pays for it and needless to say they are not happy that I cannot perform my duties and provide a service to the company. </font></font></font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri"> </font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">Below is our experience with Vodacom:</font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri"> </font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><strong><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000"><font size="3">Sa****ay, 16</font>^{<font size="2">th</font>}<font size="3"> April 2016</font></font></font></strong></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000"><font size="3">The MyGig Data Bundle contract was due for renewal on the 30</font>^{<font size="2">th</font>}<font size="3"> April 2016 and we went in on the 16</font>^{<font size="2">th</font>}<font size="3"> April 2016 to go and renew the contract and upgrade from MyGig2 to MyGig3. We went to the Vodacom Shop in the Pavillion opposite the Wimpy and were advised that they did not have any ****les and could therefore not assist us with any upgrade. They did however recommend that we go to Game who would be able to assist us. We went to Game and the Manager of the Department was very helpful and friendly and we did the upgrade through them and added a laptop onto the deal as well. The Staff Member who assisted us advised us that Vodacom had upgraded their software and it resulted in them having to phoned everything through to the Call Centre and everything had to be done manually, he added that the Vodacom Shop was sending quite a lot of customers to them who wanted to do upgrades because they did not want to sit on the phone for nearly an hour to do each upgrade. We left and had breakfast and returned an hour later and the deal had been registered with Vodacom. We were promised that the upgrade would take effect on the 1</font>^{<font size="2">st</font>}<font size="3"> May 2016. (We have done a few upgrades and never had any problems).</font></font></font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri"> </font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000"><strong><font size="3">Tuesday, 3</font>^{<font size="2">rd</font>}<font size="3"> May 2016</font></strong> </font></font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">I tried to connect to my emails – I kept on getting an error message (<em>Mobile Connection not possible) </em>and <em>(CUR mismatch lookup problem. Please try again later)</em>. My wife phoned Vodacom 082111 and she was told that there was a major system problem with all upgrades that were done in the last 2 weeks and that the technical department were working on the problem. She asked how long it would take and they could not give her an answer. At 13h00 I was still getting the same error message and my wife then went to the Vodacom Shop at the Village Mall in Kloof. They phoned the Call Centre and were told that the upgrade had been done and there should not be any problems. They then asked her to bring in the new sim card that we received with the ****le, she told them that we did not receive a new sim card as it was an upgrade and we continue using the same number. Clearly they were not interested in assisting her and told her that she must go back to Game in the Pavillion and ask them to sort out her problem.</font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri"> </font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">My wife went home and phoned Vodacom 082111 again, once again she was given the same excuse that there was a major system problem with all upgrades that were done in the last 2 weeks and that the technical department were working on the problem. They would not even take her name and the MyGig number. She then insisted on speaking to a Senior Manager, she held on for 57 minutes and eventually a man answered the phone and claimed to be a Senior Manager, he would not give his name but just that he was a Senior Manager. He told her that the problem was under hand and most of the people were already up and running and everyone should have access by 16h00. </font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri"> </font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><strong><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000"><font size="3">Wednesday, 4</font>^{<font size="2">th</font>}<font size="3"> May 2016</font></font></font></strong></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">The next morning we still had no connection. Once again another call was made to 082111 and this time my wife was cut off whilst insisting to be put through to the technical department. She tried again and again and received the same treatment. At 12h00 she went to the Vodacom Shop in the Watercrest Mall, Waterfall opposite Dischem and spoke to Yash Veer. He made a call to the call centre who confirmed that the Profile had not been loaded. He then told my wife that he would be sending an email to the Technical Department to upload the Data Package and do the Data Migration. He assured her that he would phone her at 09h00am the next morning to see whether this has been done. We were so happy that somebody at Vodacom was actually helping us and we believed him. When we got home we tried again to connect at approximately 19h00 and found that we could now connect to the Modem but we could not connect to Email or Internet. We made another call to 082 111 and told them what had happened and they once again told us that it was a migration problem and we must just wait and be patient. My wife told them that we are losing business and who was going to pay for the inconvenience and cost of travelling, telephone calls and loss of income – she was told that Vodacom would decide what retribution would be given to anybody if any. She was then cut off. </font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri"> </font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><strong><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000"><font size="3">Thursday, 5</font>^{<font size="2">th</font>}<font size="3"> May 2016</font></font></font></strong></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">Still cannot access emails or the internet. Yash Veer had still not phoned by twelve and we made arrangements to go to the Watercrest mall with the laptop and ****le to sort out the problem. I arrived at approx. 13h15 and waited outside the Vodacom Shop for my wife to join me, when I phoned her we decided that I would go in and spreak to Yash and she would join me 10 minutes later. When I walked through the door Yash phoned my wife who told him that I had actually just walked into his shop. I spoke to Yash and he fobbed me off onto another person and he just stood around. The other consultant checked everything and said all was fine and he could not understand why we could not connect. They would now log a call and a consultant will phone us within 72 hours. I explained to him that my work is reliant on me having access to the Internet and emails, he merely shrugged his shoulders and told me that Vodacom was having a problem and I had to wait.</font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri"> </font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">I stormed out of their shop and met up with my wife, she went straight back and confronted both Yash Veer and the Consultant. They said that the email they sent the previous day was just for the Internet and they would now log a call for the Emails. She told them that they were a bunch of *********** idiots as the main problem was emails the day before. She basically told them that they were ***** and did nothing the previous day and they did not even keep their promise of phoning her but only phoned when I walked into the shop.</font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri"> </font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">We went home again without being helped. We then Googled Vodacom trying to find landline numbers for Senior Managers but to no avail. We phoned the head office in Jhburg and was told that they would put us through to the technical department but we ended up with the 082111 customer care call centre. Eventually we phoned *** which was the number listed for the Umhlanga Head Office and Geraldine very kindly put us through to Nishal at 15h25. He tried everything until 17h30 but to no avail. He then said he would speak to 082111 to log a call and he would phone back with the reference number – clearly this was not done.</font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri"> </font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><strong><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000"><font size="3">Sa****ay, 7</font>^{<font size="2">th</font>}<font size="3"> May 2016</font></font></font></strong></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">I can now connect to the Internet but still not to my emails.</font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">At 12h23 my wife once again phoned 082111, this time she spoke to a very friendly and helpful consultant who listened to the problem and asked for the ****le number and verified personal details. She then told my wife that she was going to transfer her to one of her colleagues who was experienced with emails. This she duly did and during the process kept on reassuring my wife that she was not cutting her off, our grateful thanks to her (unfortunately my wife did not get her name). We spoke to Baxter who was so helpful, he told my wife what to do and after numerous attempts he then advised her that this was a problem that needed to be addressed by the Technical Department. He told her that he was logging a call and took down all the details and the error messages. He then gave us a reference number – *** and advised us that the technicians would contact us within 3 working days – this means by Wednesday or Thursday next week. He also told us that no calls had been logged by anyone – his was the first.</font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri"> </font></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">Thursday, 12th May 2016</font></strong></span></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">It has been more than 3 working days since my call was logged and I have still not heard from Vodacom. I phoned 082111 and was advised that the systems states that the call is in progress. They are puppets and can only say what is on the screen.</font></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">It has now been 12 days that I have been without email. </font><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">We have wasted so many days driving around and phoning people at Vodacom to help us get the service we are paying for. We told the one consultant that we wanted the contract cancelled as they were in breach and we were advised that we had to pay the 24 months and then we could speak to their accounts department failing which they would sue us for breach of contract. I have tried to phone their accounts department this entire week but cannot get through ***.</font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri"> </font></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">In order for me to be able to do my job I need access to emails, my company pays me an allowance for this ****le and are not interested in my problems with Vodacom.</font></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">I will cancel my debit order with my bank and only pay them for the 2 cell phones. I will also be reporting this matter to the Ombudsman together with a hefty monetary claim against them.</font></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> </p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3" color="#000000" face="Calibri">All I can say is that not even an IDIOT would run a company the way that Vodacom is being run. You cannot even call it a CIRCUS - it is a total ATROCITY.</font></p> <p> </p>