No notifications upon depletion of mobile data
<p>I subscribe to daily account notifications and received throughout march / April a continous daily notification of R 0.00. Until the 6 th April when I received a daily account notification of over R 18000 which in a space of hours had from to 25 000 and eventually to over 39000 Rand . Vodacom sends reminders out once you mobile data comes close to depleting and eventually when it is depleted they via SMS urge you to buy a new data bundle . I did not receive a single notification that my mobile date was going down nevermind depleted . I called the call center on the 6 th and spoke to a very disinterested gentleman who said he escalated it . The next day I received an email stating 'as a once of gesture Of good will they will reduce the bill of over R 35000 to just under R 5000 ' just for data nevermind my usual basic cell phone bill. But they urge me to be more careful with the usage of the mobile data. My bill kept on rising to over R 39000 and have kept on phoning and promised phone calls back ( i am still waiting ) and eventually got told not to phone again as it is under investigation. I phoned back on the 24 th and it got escalated again . I asked them previously for an email address to write to , nobody was willing to give me one . I eventually found a customer care email address yesterday and stayed my case in writing . No answer yet . I had in the meantime purchased a data bundle and check my account on their app daily , no notifications from them what's so ever about the mobile data bundle going down . I just run my banking now , emails , phone and google on mobile data and am very careful not to use it . Yesterday I had to use it for a few emails . No notifications what's so ever about data bundle low nevermind depleted and my bill today is at over 42000. </p> <p>I am a single mother with my own small business and Vodacom has a debut order against my account , this can and will cripple me on the day of debit and bounce and so on . I am devastated and scared . I get absolutely no help from them and feel that Vodacom is using this as a way of exploiting people. </p> <p>If my phone gets shut of due to non payment of account I have no way in running my business.</p>
Dear Customer,
Thank you for making us aware of your complaint.
Kindly be advised that a consultant will make contact with you in due course to assist with your query.
***Please note*** Beware of phishing ****s.
Vodacom will not contact you via Whatsapp to request your personal details
Regards,
Vodacom Consumer Website Team
Dear Customer,
Thank you for making us aware of your complaint.
Kindly be advised that a consultant will make contact with you in due course to assist with your query.
***Please note*** Beware of phishing ****s.
Vodacom will not contact you via Whatsapp to request your personal details
Regards,
Vodacom Consumer Website Team
email to vodacom 25th april reference of receipt 003S-SCR4
To whom it may concern ,
I am a long standing vodacom customer and generally tell everybody that I would not go to any other service provider as the service is much better than with vodacom’s competitors.
However at this stage I would not only discourage people from joining vodacom but take this story to the media like twitter , News24 and Facebook.
I am a single mother with a good standing with vodacom and to get me in such a state that I feel physically sick is certainly not fair.
I can not tell you the date when it started exactly as I thought vodacom had implemented a new service and only notify the amount over and above my standing bill of averaging R 1474.36. But as you can see on my statement I subscribe to daily account notifications via sms and pay for them .
For most of march I received everyday a daily account notification of R 0.00.
I thought this was odd but as explained above the reason I didn’t worry about it further. On top of it Vodacom as you know provides like their competitors the free service that if your Mobile Data bundles run low ,Vodacom notifies the customers with sms notification at several stages until the final notification tells the customer that their Mobile data bundle is finished and if they want to avoid extra out of bundle charges they need to purchase a new Data Bundle.
I did not receive a single notification like that.!!!!!
On the the 6th April 2017 I received my normal account notification which to my horror stated R 18000 and something , I deleted it by accident. I than in an absolute state phoned the Vodacoms customer care and got told by a gentleman that this will be escalated and checked and I will receive an email. Reference Number :1- ********** ********** .
My phone bill escalated literally by the hour which I could follow o the vodacom app.
I did receive on the 7 April an email from Marvin Timm ( senior account specialist)with the following statement
AS A ONCE OFF GOODWILL GESTURE, Vodacom will reduce the data Current Data Charge of R35083.74 incl vat to R4911.72 incl vat. This will be submitted at the end of April Bill Run.
Please manage your Data Usage for the remainder of April.
Needless to say that I was thank full for the reduction , but the point was missed totally .
I did not receive any notifications !!!
As you can see in my account history there is a pattern in my account and unless I am away or my unlimited wifi is faulty ( I work from home and have unlimited wifi through Afrihost ) I renew my mobile data bundles asap once I get notified.
My account balance is now at R 39269.48 which you have to admit is an astronomical amount !
I have a debit order with Vodacom and even the R 4911.72 offered in the email will not be met by my account as this is totally out of my means .
I have phoned and phone repeatedly and been told every time that this is still under investigation and that I should not phone anymore , I will be contacted when the investigation is over. One of Vodacoms call center agents stated that a technician will phone me back and explain why I never got any notifications and R 0.00 daily account notifications . Nobody ever phoned me.
Today I phoned again ,told my story again ,and was put through to the solutions department to tell the story again and told it will be escalated and I will receive an email within 24-48 hrs.On top of it the call center agent offered me a new service that if I am out of data bundle the data bundle will be automatically renewed. I told her she had missed the point off my conversation
My concern is, that it is impossible to reply to an email like the one you send out the last time , I than have to start a chain of phone calls again and not only will my debit order be return unpaid, I occur more charges on my standard bank account and as you see below I can certainly not afford to have my phone being disconnected as I run a Business from home .
This whole business has as said left me in such a state that I like to put this letter and my story to the media to make other cell phone owners aware that this is obviously one way Vodacom earns their vast profits.
I also will cancel my debit order with vodacom as I hesitate to put my trust into vodacom with debit orders .
e-mail to vodacom onthe 26th april
As in continuance to the e-mail below ,
I still don’t get any notifications regards mobile data running low or mobile data being depleted. In fact I need to use mobile data to buy a new data bundle and check it on my app.
I am extremely careful with my data and send a few urgent e-mails yesterday and as I didn’t receive any notifications was sure my mobile data was still sufficient. I discovered today that my bill was raise by vodacom from R 37837.49 to R 40465.63 !!!!!
I am now more than distraught and have forwarded for now the matter also to’Hallo Peter’as I seem to get no help from you and this can cripple my business and as a single mother this is more than frightening .
email to vodacom 25th april reference of receipt 003S-SCR4
To whom it may concern ,
I am a long standing vodacom customer and generally tell everybody that I would not go to any other service provider as the service is much better than with vodacom’s competitors.
However at this stage I would not only discourage people from joining vodacom but take this story to the media like twitter , News24 and Facebook.
I am a single mother with a good standing with vodacom and to get me in such a state that I feel physically sick is certainly not fair.
I can not tell you the date when it started exactly as I thought vodacom had implemented a new service and only notify the amount over and above my standing bill of averaging R 1474.36. But as you can see on my statement I subscribe to daily account notifications via sms and pay for them .
For most of march I received everyday a daily account notification of R 0.00.
I thought this was odd but as explained above the reason I didn’t worry about it further. On top of it Vodacom as you know provides like their competitors the free service that if your Mobile Data bundles run low ,Vodacom notifies the customers with sms notification at several stages until the final notification tells the customer that their Mobile data bundle is finished and if they want to avoid extra out of bundle charges they need to purchase a new Data Bundle.
I did not receive a single notification like that.!!!!!
On the the 6th April 2017 I received my normal account notification which to my horror stated R 18000 and something , I deleted it by accident. I than in an absolute state phoned the Vodacoms customer care and got told by a gentleman that this will be escalated and checked and I will receive an email. Reference Number :1- ********** ********** .
My phone bill escalated literally by the hour which I could follow o the vodacom app.
I did receive on the 7 April an email from Marvin Timm ( senior account specialist)with the following statement
AS A ONCE OFF GOODWILL GESTURE, Vodacom will reduce the data Current Data Charge of R35083.74 incl vat to R4911.72 incl vat. This will be submitted at the end of April Bill Run.
Please manage your Data Usage for the remainder of April.
Needless to say that I was thank full for the reduction , but the point was missed totally .
I did not receive any notifications !!!
As you can see in my account history there is a pattern in my account and unless I am away or my unlimited wifi is faulty ( I work from home and have unlimited wifi through Afrihost ) I renew my mobile data bundles asap once I get notified.
My account balance is now at R 39269.48 which you have to admit is an astronomical amount !
I have a debit order with Vodacom and even the R 4911.72 offered in the email will not be met by my account as this is totally out of my means .
I have phoned and phone repeatedly and been told every time that this is still under investigation and that I should not phone anymore , I will be contacted when the investigation is over. One of Vodacoms call center agents stated that a technician will phone me back and explain why I never got any notifications and R 0.00 daily account notifications . Nobody ever phoned me.
Today I phoned again ,told my story again ,and was put through to the solutions department to tell the story again and told it will be escalated and I will receive an email within 24-48 hrs.On top of it the call center agent offered me a new service that if I am out of data bundle the data bundle will be automatically renewed. I told her she had missed the point off my conversation
My concern is, that it is impossible to reply to an email like the one you send out the last time , I than have to start a chain of phone calls again and not only will my debit order be return unpaid, I occur more charges on my standard bank account and as you see below I can certainly not afford to have my phone being disconnected as I run a Business from home .
This whole business has as said left me in such a state that I like to put this letter and my story to the media to make other cell phone owners aware that this is obviously one way Vodacom earns their vast profits.
I also will cancel my debit order with vodacom as I hesitate to put my trust into vodacom with debit orders .
e-mail to vodacom onthe 26th april
As in continuance to the e-mail below ,
I still don’t get any notifications regards mobile data running low or mobile data being depleted. In fact I need to use mobile data to buy a new data bundle and check it on my app.
I am extremely careful with my data and send a few urgent e-mails yesterday and as I didn’t receive any notifications was sure my mobile data was still sufficient. I discovered today that my bill was raise by vodacom from R 37837.49 to R 40465.63 !!!!!
I am now more than distraught and have forwarded for now the matter also to’Hallo Peter’as I seem to get no help from you and this can cripple my business and as a single mother this is more than frightening .
In fact my bill this morning on Vodacom's app is R 44849.55
I am more than sure that this is ******* and I will contact the NCR.
In fact my bill this morning on Vodacom's app is R 44849.55
I am more than sure that this is ******* and I will contact the NCR.