Complaint

I am Hennie Conradie from JH Maintenance. I have a Business Red Premium Plus account with Vodacom. This is my business phone and I run my Maintenance Business from this account. I need to stay in contact with my clients and they with me, in order for me to generate an income. Since the beginning of Lock Down where I did not generate enough income, I phoned Vodacom to make arrangements as I could not afford to pay the monthly installment for end of March 2020. *** on 31 March 2020 I made an arrangement to pay R1500. They accepted my arrangement and I duly paid it. *** on 31 March 2020 I made the payment as per my arrangement. *** on 6 April 2020 I made an arrangement again and I told telephonically them I am trying to get business in to pay the full arrears amount. *** on 30 April 2020 again I could not pay and I made arrangements that I will pay when I get money in. Lockdown prevented me to do any business for the entire month of April 2020, and they accepted it. Luckily the debit order was also stopped during this time which I was thankful for, in order for me to make payments as per telephonic arrangements. On 7 July 2020 I again made a telephonic arrangement. I only needed to pay R3600 according to the service consultant, but I tried to be nice and show my honor to pay and duly made payment of R4000. They accepted it and promised me that they won’t switched off the phone as long as I made the payment of R3600 (remember, I paid R4000!). But a few hours after my R4000 payment, they cut my phone and my lifeline to my clients. I was furious and phoned them to ask why. Their excuse was that I needed to pay my full amount that was in arrears (R9000) before they can switch me on again. I tried to talk to anybody that would listen at Vodacom to ask for any help and understanding. Nobody wanted to listen and accept my arrangements. I eventually went into a Vodacom Shop and a very friendly guy tried his best to talk to the Vodacom service consultants and spoke to about 5 different consultants and explained to them what my problem was - nobody wanted to listen to me when I tried talk to them, and apparently not even to him either. They kept on saying that I had to pay the full arrears amount of R9000 immediately. I cannot pay that all at once. They promised me that a Supervisor will call me back and I am still waiting for someone to phone me back to resolve my issue. My argument is: I made arrangement since the beginning of Lock Down and I was under the impression that Vodacom will support me during this difficult time, as everyone was in the same boat. It was not as if I didn’t pay them nothing, I made arrangements every time at the end of the month and explained that I will honor my payments as arranged with them. Now I ask, how can I generate an income (TO PAY VODACOM) when I can’t do any business? Why haven’t the Supervisor called me back? I quoted all the reference numbers if anybody can assist me PLEASE! Hennie ***