Held Against My Will by Vodacom

If zero stars was an option, that’s what Vodacom would get from me.

I have been with Vodacom for over a decade. However, after a poor experience with customer care in June 2022 (a story for another day), I decided to leave the network and favour of one of their competitors. I paid up all early cancellation fees on my contact immediately and submitted the necessary paperwork. Vodacom subsequently sent feedback indicating that the contract had been cancelled and my number was migrated to Pay As You Go. This was at the end of June.

This past week I tried to port my number to one of Vodacom’s competitors and Vodacom blocked the port. After lengthy back and forth with various customer care departments, I was eventually told that the contact was not, in fact, cancelled. This even though I settled the exorbitant early cancellation fee and no longer derive any of the benefits. (And don’t even get me started on the cancellation fee – It was a SIM ONLY contract, for goodness sake. Cancellation literally cost you nothing, but I paid anyway because that’s how badly I wanted to leave the network).

Upon learning that the contract was somehow still not cancelled in Vodacom’s system, a consultant told me to phone the cancellations department. So I did, and I was greeted with a pre-recorded message stating “This service is not available to Pay As You Go subscribers”. The line was then cut. I mean, you must be joking, right???

So called 135, and once again jumped through all the hoops in the convoluted ritual forced upon us if we wish to speak to an actual human being.

The conclusion of all of this was that Vodacom allowed me to log a service request to cancel the contract. I will now have to wait an additional 72 hours for them to finalise something they told me they’d finalised weeks ago. Should this not have been resolved when you sent me confirmation in June that the contract had been cancelled? I have a pending contract with another network that is now on hold because I can’t port my number. This all because Vodacom can’t get their ducks in a row.

Vodacom are holding consumers at ransom to their network. If some pays the early cancellation fees, just give them what they paid for and cancel the contact.