Appalling behaviour and border line ******ion

To whom it may concern,

I have ceased to pay my contract account as per the last 3 months for the following reasons:

1. I was requested to pay R3500.00 to un-lock my contract in October last year 2017 when infant my line was open and no need for payment.. However I made the payment with the instructions given to me by the Vodacom representative over the line. This entire ordeal took 2 hours out of my day originally and thus i paid R3500.00 into Vodacom P/l account via my Capitec account. Then 24 hour later I was told i did not pay it and I must send through a POP or my line will be cut off...I sent through the pop and I was told it was not received and the payment was not made... I then had to make another payment of R3500.00 to Vodacom which I did... I asked that since I had provided proof of the first payment that Vodacom refund my money as soon as possible due to bills I had a the time. some 9 months later and almost 150 hours of my time, phone credit used communicating with Vodacom in excess of R1500 from my contract with MTN and close to 70+ emails later - I went into your gardens store and threatened legal action against Vodacom, as this is border line ******ion! After 2 weeks and a very helpful shop assistant who has since left Vodacom due to the amount of customer in my positions assured me this is a daily event and she herself is sick of how Vodacom strong arms small people living within a budget monthly. I was then told when she brought up my account that I have incurred over the top costs for my data, which was never allowed by myself, has never happened see past 11 months of monthly statements and all of a sudden I now owe almost the same amount Vodacom has taken 8 months before and not refunded in a form of over usage data...? WT..?

I was then sent a mail saying Vodacom in good faith will waiver half of these fee's, as you can see I have still not paid my bill since then and I made it ****** clear I shall not pay a cent towards Vodacom until they 1. Refund me R3500.00 to which they kept for almost 10 months..(More than enough proof supp**** daily to refund me but never did)

Now there is no banking/financial institute in the world to which if I owed them money for such a duration if time would not incur interest and loss of capital costs to the amount.

You people kept my money R3500.00 for so long the account it was drawn from I had incurred costs of not being over drawn of close to R1500.00 from standard bank, I could not even pay my rental the first 3 months after this ordeal due to no savings.. and yet you think after almost 10 months of keeping my hard earned saving you can just refund me and that’s that!!!

No ways, I have prepared a legal battle to take VODACOM to court the same way the CEO of Bidvest did, you guys are practising ******* consumer antics and my legal team has assured me that should Vodacom not try and solve this, via this last email I’m sending you now, they will go ahead and incur costs involved to get me:

1. The interest on my money you had for 10 months. 2. Loss of savings and inured interested from Standard bank due non refund. 3. Time spent trying to resolve this matter and proof which we have that from the day this happened i supp**** the docs needed to get my refund done. 4. Afrihost/MTN are assisting me in gathering all calls made to Vodacom to ascertain the Rand value of how much, I actually spent on trying to recover the money YOU people asked of me.

Since my shop experience the only things have happened:

1. I was finally refunded my R3500.00 into the wrong account. (once again i had to incur costs getting the money from the refunded account into the correct account it was paid from)

2. I have been presented with bills well over my normal usage which in the history of my account has never happened.

I am at the point of no return and am more than happy to take Vodacom to court to resolve this matter rather than another 10 months of calls, emails and disappointments.

I am due for my upgrade in the mid of September this month and was truly looking forward to upping my monthly spend, acquiring a new handset, opening a further contract for my company and enjoying the Vodacom experience i once had some 12 months ago before this ordeal happened.

I trust that this email find someone in a senior position well and that my threats of legal action are treated respectfully. I have also taken the steps to notify the consumer ombudsman whom has assured me i have a case strong enough to get the outcome I’m asking for.

I am a valued customer of MTN and Afrihost of almost 5 years to which i have never missed a bill, anytime there has been and issue in terms of payment not going off, I haven manually paid through my client zone and MTN online.

I would like to further add that I work with children for a living and have an extremely good relationship within the South African consumer market(Families, businesses and large corporations) Should this matter not be settled and dealt with professionally and faithfully...

I will take further steps in paying for a front page of every national newspaper, advertising my story and should there be anyone like me who's been bul**** by Vodacom too, may jump onto my band wagon and come for you whole heartily.

I am a medium class hard working south African who cannot afford to have R3500 floating in your banking system/accounts for close to a year. Interest alone should my savings had stayed where they were would have been in excess of your current bill!

I would like a person of senior management to contact me should anyone in a lower position do so, i will begin the legal proceedings.

Kind Regards

C R Futeran