Automatic contract renewal -*******

My ipad 24 months contract expired on 31 August 2016. When the contract automatically ended, I didn't renew it. Vodacom also did not notify me in writing of the impending expiry date of the contract within 40 and 80 days as required by section 14 (2) of the Consumer Protection Act. I elected not to have any data dealings with Vodacom upon expiry. Instead, I bought prepaid 100GB data with Cell C for R999. I only learnt today from the Call Centre Agent (Thembeka) when I queried R168,99 charge debited from my bank account on 31 August 2017 that Vodacom has been charging me R168,99 for 3GB promo since August 2016.

I was not aware of the R168.99 charged by Vodacom for the past 12 months. All along I was under the impression that the R677.49 monthly debit was solely for the iphone contract, until Thembeka explained today that the said amount included R168.99 3GB top up debit, the data which I have never used, as I already had/have 100GB with Cell C, which has not been depleted. I tested the sim today at 14:28, and I was shocked that it indeed had data as advised by Lydia and Thembeka.

Vodacom has my email address, my postal address and iphone contract number, all of which could have been used to communicate the intended automatic renewal. In short, Vodacom imposed an automatic renewal on me without any prior notification.

I request that the debited funds be reimbursed on the basis that if I had been notified by Vodacom in writing of the impending expiry date of the contract within 40 and 80 days as required by section 14 (2) of the Consumer Protection Act, I would not have allowed any debits on my account for data I had no intention of using. This is a blatant example of a ******* by Vodacom.