Misleading bundle sales leads to loss of upgrade

I had an overdue handset upgrade on my Vodacom contract for more than three months.

On 31 August 2017, I received a telemarketing call offering me a new data bundle from Vodacom at R100 per month less than what I was paying at the time, without changing anything on my contract as I thought I was using it.

Unbeknownst to me, signing up for this bundle led to a renewal of my contract, which excludes a device upgrade. I asked the operator twice how this offer would impact on my contract, and he emphasized that it would only impact on data prices which would be lowered by R100 per month. Within two or three weeks, when I finally had time to action my device upgrade, I was informed that the device upgrade was voided due to the data bundle offering that I accepted, which brought a change in my contract to effect.

The concequence of the data upgrade - being the loss of a device upgrade - was not communicated to me in full, and in my view, an opportunistic attempt to make more money out of me, a vulnerable, gullable client. I feel I was taken advantage of. Considering that I have been a Vodacom client, with the same number, for more than 20 years, this kind of treatment is unacceptable.

I laid a complant, after which I was told that Vodacom would have to listen to the recording of the sales pitch that was made to me. They then informed me that they still have grounds to stick to their part of the story because I should have cancelled this bundle upgrade within two weeks from signing up, and that I gave consent for this to happen. None of this was communicated to me during the sales pitch. I will never, ever, listen to another Vodacom sales pitch again!

In my further defence, I would like to emphasize that I only was billed for this new "deal" four weeks after signing up for it. How can Vodacom expect me to cancel an agreement within two weeks, before I actually have proof of the agreement/deal in writing?

During the procedure I followed with my direct complaint to Vodacom, they also did not offer me an opportunity to listen to the recording that they made of a pitch that was made by an outsourced call centre. I believe this is a misleading sales pitch, which does not allow me to fully defend my case.

As a result, I would like to put all of this on the record here on HelloPeter.com and am very curious to see how they are planning to respond in the open.