Bad & Beyond

<p>I don't even know where to start, sometimes you need help and all you get is shrugged shoulders and a pc voice telling you to press certain numbers. Vodacom has lost its accountability within this network of switchboards and wires. While we as customers experience the frustration of trying to sort out "their service" that we pay for, the big cats sit somewhere drinking ****tails blissfully unaware of what is happening on grass roots level. <br />I have the Vodacom app and are therefore constantly aware of my current bill, I also work from home and my phone is connected to wifi...<br />Since my glance towards my bill yesterday (on their app) and the billing run last night a R 1500 rands worth of data has all of the sudden been added to my account. This is now the 3rd or so time that this happens...Multiply this by a number of Vodacom customers, nice bonus package for somebody...Or is this the funding model for the “Vodacom play every day”. Wouldn't surprise me at all if this turns out to be the truth.<br />The previous time this happened I went to a Vodacom outlet, hence my initial remark about "shrugging shoulders"...They came to the conclusion that the fault lies with a setting on the phone (the last two months this setting of switching to mobile data has been disabled) And to have it fixed would need an LG software upgrade to the value of R 600 - I did not fall for this one, because this means LG is trying to make me pay for a faulty product still under warranty...</p> <p>My inclination is that service providers have a system whereby they can identify which numbers can be erroneously billed and get away with it by blaming a system fault or something, data is the new gravy train. So it becomes legal ***** and theft......they keep the ********** funding until it is claimed back by the rightful consumer, I would not be surprised if these companies have a bank account pool where my money is siphoned off to until claimed back and in the meantime, interest is earned on the customer's money...<br />Long story short, according to Vodacom (the app v billing) my phone used R 1500 worth of data from 20h30 until the billing run while being on airplane mode...I remember the amount from last month, I will from today take screenshots of my daily balance just to strengthen my argument.<br />But the CEO will sip ****tails, the store managers will shrug their shoulders while we the people try and fix their mess.<br />Thank you Vodacom for once again messing up the budget, the money you deduct does have other work, like paying bills and buying food. But I guess for the ****tail sipper who’s salary is of such a nature that budgeting is a strange concept an R 1500 is not much. But if that R 1500 is totaling school fees of food I as an average SA citizen can tell you it’s quite a lot of money.</p>