Bad and Dishonest Service

<p>On Sa****ay, 21 May 2016, my wife opened up a new 24 month contract for a Huawei P8-lite phone at Game in N1-City. This contact included R200 of airtime and a Virtual Reality Headset. When she wanted to port her MTN number to this Vodacom the branch told her that they were only Vodacom agents (and therefore could not do the porting) and that the porting had to be done at a Vodacom shop. We then went to a Vodacom Chatz store to get the number ported and the store-assistant confirmed that they could do the porting and she asked my wife what the deal was she got at Game. After my wife told her about the deal we got at Game, she asked my wife why she did not conduct the deal through their shop as they has exactly the same deal w.r.t. the model and phone and airtime, but instead of the VR-headset she could provide my wife with a 2 year screen protection. For my wife the 2 year screen protection was of much more value that a VR headset and she was keener to rather go for that deal. She was then told to fetch the original forms from the Game store and bring it to the Vodacom Chatz store for the transaction to be completed. My wife went back to the Game store, and after confirming with the assistant there that they could not replace the VR-headset with a 2 year screen protection, my wife took the contract over to the Chatz store. The promise of the screen protection was made in the presence of my 19 year old daughter and later again, when I was called to come and sign a few documents, in my presence too.</p> <p> </p> <p>On Monday evening, 24 May, the MTN sim card stopped working and I opened up the bag with the Vodacom sim card in order to swop the simcards. The bag also contained the contact that my wife took out with the Vodacom Chatz store. I looked at the contact, but saw no mention of the promised screen protection. I brought this to my wife’s attention and she took it up with the store the next business day (Tuesday, 24 May 2016). Unfortunately the assistant who helped us on Sa****ay was not there at the time, but the new assistant (as well as the shop manager) informed us that the shop did not have a deal which includes the 2 year screen protection and that the lady could not have offered such a deal to us. My wife then insisted that they phone the original assistant and the assistant then denied over the phone that she offered a deal with the 2 year screen protection to my wife.</p> <p> </p> <p>Needless to say that my wife was very upset at being made out to be a ****, and she then asked the manager why any sane person would move contracts from one shop (where the deal was already approved) to another shop for the same price when the value of the contract was inferior to the original offer! The manager confirmed that she understood what my wife was claiming and that she also could not think of a reason for a person to have made the move to a contract with inferior value. But unfortunately she was not in a position to give my wife what she wanted, because they do not offer screen protection as a service! To try and compensate for the inconvenience she offered my wife a glass-tempered screen cover worth R200, this despite the fact that we already bought and fitted a glass screen cover for the phone. I instructed my wife not to accept the screen cover as it was not what she was promised when we concluded the deal and she returned the screen cover to the manager.</p> <p> </p> <p>I therefore took the matter up with the Vodacom Care Centre (082 111) and the agent I spoke to informed me that I should rather take up the matter with the branch manager where the deal was concluded. I informed him that we did but we were not able to resolve the issue and that we now wanted to take it further. He then advised me to log a complaint on the Vodacom website, but that it could take 20 to 30 days for someone to come back to me. I then said that that was not satisfactory to me, upon which he informed me that he does not know who I can speak to then, but that I was welcome to email ***.</p> <p> </p> <p>I then emailed the supp**** address and I cc-ed the store manager so that she could be kept updated w.r.t. the claims I was making about the service I received from their branch. To date, I have received no response from the Vodacom Customer Care department, but the branch manager has responded to my complaint on 26 May in which she admitted that the assistant was confused when she made the offer for the screen protection as that particular deal has expired in the previous month. She also told me that they are talking to Huawei in order to see if they could not arrange for screen protection. Since then I have had no response from her w.r.t. the progress of providing the screen protection (despite the fact that I followed up numerous times by email).</p> <p> </p> <p>I now want to find out what legal avenues are at my disposal to ensure that justice is being served as I believe that the store should be held accountable for not supplying what was promised in the 1st place.</p>