No accountability at Vodacom & LG

I bought a new LG K4 cell phone on contract from Vodacom in July 2017. A few weeks later we left for Europe. At the airport before our flight took off , I activated sms roaming on my & my husband's phones, something we had done for many years before when travelling overseas. When we arrived in Geneva I tried to contact my family & the message would not go through. This could have been a disaster if it wasn't for my husband travelling with me as we were able to send a message using his iphone. The holiday involved visiting France, Portugal & Switzerland but my phone would not connect to any of those networks. When I returned I reported this problem to Vodacom who sent me to their repair centre who reported that there was nothing wrong with the phone so couldn't understand why it wouldn't connect overseas. I never had this problem with my previous LG L40 or any of the many other phones I've had. Even before I got a smart phone we used sms roaming every time we travelled overseas. And that included Europe & North America. The next year in August 2018 once again we were in Europe & again my phone would not connect. This time we were cruising so I took it to the IT man on board & he confirmed that there was something wrong with the software which prevented it connecting to networks is Europe. Once again I complained but was told by the manager of the Vodacom shop that they had contacted LG who said there was nothing they could do. Finally I got hold of the Vodacom regional manager before our next overseas trip - this time to ****et - & she lent me a phone to use if the same problem occurred. But it didn't. In ****et it did connect. So clearly there it has a problem with networks in Europe but not Asia. Once again I asked what was going to be done about it & was told very bluntly - NOTHING. My contract expires soon so for the full duration I have had a phone that I cannot use outside of SA. I am frankly disgusted at the complete lack of accountability of both Vodacom & LG