Atrocious service by Vodacom and poor quality phone by Samsung

On 24 February 2019 we upgraded my wife’s phone at Vodashop Key West to a new Samsung J6.

Since the start the phone gave problems, screen freezing, jumping around between Apps etc.

Since my wife is unable to drive we just missed the deadline for the out of box replacement and handed the phone in for checking/repairs on 4 March 2019 also at the Vodashop at Key West.

The previous phone she had (Samsung Galaxy A3) was still working fine but the battery was giving problems. We then learned that the battery for this phone is integral to the phone and also has to be sent away to be replaced. We are not impressed with Samsung for this poor design feature. We then had to purchase another phone at a cost to us of R 1700 for her to use, instead of only a new battery, while her new phone was in for assessment as she cannot be without a phone. The replacement phone also gave problems with intermittently not being able to make and receive calls or Whatsapp messages.

The Vodashop at Key West then established that the SIM card was faulty, which was not picked up the salesperson or technicians at either Key West or Grove Mall in Pretoria where we purchased the second phone, and a SIM swop had to be done. The excellent service by Tshepo at Key West is appreciated amidst the other poor service all round.

My wife was then informed that there is a technical problem with her new contract phone and there is a charge of R 373.00 to repair/replace it. They then wanted us to provide the contract for the new phone which Key West had promised to send and had not sent for a warranty repair. The sales manager at Key West was requested to provide the contract to the repairer but two days later this appears not have been done and a second person also ordered us to pay the repair costs for the brand new defective phone. We are still waiting for an answer. Under no circumstances will we pay for any repair costs for a defective brand new phone.

The phone was repaired and then had to be sent back under another job number. Eventually we received the phone back after the second job card was completed at the end of March 2019 more than four weeks after it was handed in. Fortunately we did not have to pay for the repairs

It turned out that the phone was still defective with the same defects and it was returned to Vodacom Key West on 22 April 2019. We insisted on a new phone but were told that it had to be sent in to the repair centre for assessment under a new job number.

We have since followed up with e-mails on progress on 26 and 30 April 2019 to the Sales Manager Mr Michael Botes who has to date not rep****. The question of a new phone was raised but no answer has been received. On 30 April 2019 we received an SMS message that the phone is being repaired and that the turnaround is 2 to 3 days, completely ignoring the matter of a replacement phone. It is now more than a week later with no communication of any kind about the repaired or new phone.

In essence we now have to pay for a new phone under contract every month which is dysfunctional while using a temporary phone which we had to pay for in addition, because Vodacom does not care if you have a properly working phone or not.

In posting this review I will probably receive a nice call from a Vodacom representative who will tick his/her box that they did respond to the review and then forget about the customer because Vodacom couldn’t care less about the customer as long as they can bill and take the customer’s money every month.

It is also a pity that I had to give Vodacom one star because if I give them a zero, which they deserve, I would not be able to compile a review.

I will also not be using Samsung cell phones in future.