Hello, GOODBYE Vodacom

<p>After more than 20 years as a Vodacom business contract customer, I decided that, enough is enough of paying their very high call rates and stared the process of cancelling and migrating to Prepaid. (Can anybody explain why my call rate on contract is more expensive than Prepaid?)</p> <p>Anyway, being aware that any accumulated minutes/data would not be compensated for (legally ******? Can anyone help me here?) because of some very small print in a very small font contract, I thought I would give them the benefit and ask for compensation, before cancelling. My email request triggered a series of events and I got an SMS telling me the cancellation request, which I had not yet made, was being implemented. Being in the cc name, I always had to provide a letter and ID before any upgrade was effected - but not this time, hmmmm? After a few calls to them, the 'cancellation was reversed, but not before my voice mailbox was de-activated! Another call to have it reactivated - and then I had to re-record my voice message. So far, so bad.</p> <p>To cut a long story a bit shorter, I decide to go to a Vodacom shop so that I had a real person to hold accountable if anything went wrong, which it did. The lady(s) at the shop were great, pity they work for Vodacom! The lady could not record my cancellation online as the Vodacom cancellation system was DOWN. Interesting. Eventually they manged to fax (yes fax) it through. I called Vodacom a few days later and they said there was nothing recorded on their system. So back to the shop. The lady gave me the reference number which she got from Vodacom electronically a few days earlier when she sent the fax (yes, fax). So, another call and guess what, the reference number vey cleverly found my request and I was told the cancellation would be effected on 31 March. I forgot to ask 'when' on the 31st this would happen. Silly me for thinking it would at least be late in the day, if not 12 midnight! Even sillier of me to think I would get some kind of customer service to make the migration as painless as possible! NOT FROM THIS BUNCH! I got one SMS on the 30th telling me the change to Prepaid would take place on the 31st.</p> <p>This morning, 31st, early, I thought I would check my phone for texts and the weather.</p> <p>You got it already, hey? The migration had taken place, while I was sleeping – sneaky! Further, when I went back to the shop the lady checked and told me I was offline and it would take another 4 to 6 hours before I could load any minutes.</p> <p>So, having taken my accumulated minutes for which I had paid, they have now taken a whole day of my contract time during which I had a plan to use up these minutes.</p> <p>I am porting to Cell C asap. Their Prepaid minutes are less expensive than Vodacom’s and, a contact told me their service is good. Not difficult to be better than Vodacom, but watch this space!</p>