Dishonest service

In October 2018, i did an upgrade on my contract at Vodacom in Shelley Centre, KZN. At the same time, I handed in my samsung s7 edge phone to have the screen repaired. I was told the insurance will cover most, but there will still be an excess of around R1000. I told them to go ahead.

On 25 October 2018, I went to to collect the phone from Vodacom in Shelley Centre. As I switched on the phone, it didnt want to recognise my pass code to unlock the screen. I assumed my finger was dirty/oily, and wiped my finger as well as switched the phone off and on. After this, the phone worked, so i paid the excess and took the phone. Since I had just recently upgraded, I had no immediate need to use the phone, which was supposedly fixed by vodacom, a trusted service provider, so why would i doubt their quality???

In December, my sister had trouble with her phone. So I told her not to get a new phone, since i had a perfectly well working, relatively new, samsung s7 that she could use. So i gave her the phone, which she placed on new insurance and started using.

But she had the same problem with the screen - it would struggle to do certain things, but after some effort and wiping of fingers, it would work. Eventually, out of pure frustration, she went to vodacom in middelburg to have the phone checked in middle January. They told her they can see there is fault with the screen repair, but they cant tell her what exactly. They will have to send the phone away for the technicians to do a full assessment (which will take 2 weeks, after which it will be sent back, before being sent to get repaired). After enquiring, they told her it will be faster to take it herself, since the technicians would be able to tell her immediately what is wrong and then take it in to be fixed. Since the phone was semi functional, she took the second option to take it in herself.

So on 25 January she took the phone to Vodacom in Centurion, where the technician told her: yes, the screen repair was not done properly. So she went to book the phone in, where she was told that the phone is still under warranty, and she can book it in, but she will lose all the data on her phone. So she asked if she can come back in 2 weeks to hand it in. And she was told it wont be a problem.

On the 15th of February, she returned to Centurion to check the phone in. So big was her surprise when she got told the guarantee has expired and she will have to pay R5600 to have it fixed....because they told her 2 weeks earlier that it wont be a problem?!?!

So on the 23rd of February, I decided to personally pay Vodacom in Centurion a visit to see if we can sort the problem. Once again we got told: yes, it is Vodacoms fault. But unfortunately they wont be able to fix it. It will cost me R5600. We even spoke to the manager: the best he could do, was get us a discount - but it would still cost me R4100 to fix what Vodacom already got payed to fix??????

After some emails, i got through to Edlin Naidoo, the executive client liaison. The best he could come up with, was a 50% discount on the repair price. This still comes down to about R2000, to repair something Vodacom, South Africa's leading provider, failed to repair in the first place.

This is really not the dishonesty I was expecting!!!