Non existant customer service at Vodacom. What a joke.

It's sad that I even has to post this here...I app**** for an upgrade on my cellphone contract with Vodacom on the 11th of March 11:41, the lady on the line was helpful and assisted me in ordering a green Samsung S23 Ultra as an upgrade, she advised me there was a back order for the stock and there would be a slight delay, which I had no problem with. I didn't receive any Emails or SMSs confirming this either.

I was then contacted by a Vodacom Representitive on the 14th of March at 11:12 where a lady confirmed delivery of my device within the next 3 and 5 working days and confirmed all the details of my order and delivery. There was a public holiday during this time and I decided I would wait a little bit longer, still not receiving any SMSs or Emails or Tracking Numbers confirming this.

After not hearing anything further thereafter, I called in on the 27th of March 3 times with the call centre putting the phone down in my ears each time until around 09:42 where a lady answered and said that my order was showing as pending, followed by the device I had chosen showing as "obsolete" on the system and no longer available... I was asked if anyone had contacted me regarding this and I rep**** no that I was not contacted and was unaware, and I asked if I would have to resubmit my upgrade from scratch now that the order was cancelled/obsolete? She confirmed I would have to start the order process from scratch and then shortly after she said actually no I won't, I could instead take a different colour that was in stock on the same contract which was a Cream/White colour, I accepted as I really honestly don't care about the colour. She hastily confirmed all my details and ended the call as soon as possible. Still no SMSs, Emails or Tracking Numbers confirming this...

I then called in today 29 March AGAIN to follow up and ensure that everything was in fact on track this time(wasting who knows how much airtime with all these calls and getting nowhere and different stories), this was at 15:57 where a male answered (who didn't seem very interested on being on the call) and told me that there was no order at all for me on my account, my account was also blocked on the system for any type of Online Upgrade due to "Suspicious Activity on my account" (now I wonder why that is, could it be THAT A PERSON IS TRYING TO FIND OUT WHAT THE HELL is happening with their contract??? With the amount of times I have been asked for my ID, Bank, Bank Type, Physical Address, Full Name, Email... you would think that if there was in fact some form of suspicious activity someone would contact you ON SOME FORM RIGHT???) and I would have to visit a store to place an order. At this point I'm fuming, and I asked how is this possible, I have had 3 different agents either confirming my order or confirming delivery of my order and so forth, being messed around with this back and forth... I asked if I could speak to a manager and he told me he was a supervisor and all the managers were in a meeting (convenient and helpful right???), and I repeated what these agents had told me previously and he told me that that was my conversation with those agents and he won't know what we said, so I asked him to then bring up the recordings of all this, but he honestly couldn't be bothered or cared and as fast as he humanly could transferred me to customer care before I could finish talking... And of course Customer Care was so helpful because there 1. isn't an option a person can select to even remotely help with all this unnecessary nonsense I have been put through, 2. you get prompted to input a number AND YOU GUESSED IT... it doesn't work....

So back again in circles with trying to find out what the hell is happening with my order and so forth, I phoned 4 times, first agent couldn't hear me of course (my line was crystal clear on any other human being I contacted), second person broke up every 5 seconds and after 5 minutes of repeating my ID I just gave up... until eventually the third person I spoke to who ACTUALLY took the time to listen to me, finally confirmed that my account is not in FACT blocked due to suspicious activity! And that my original order for the Green S23 Ultra was in fact still active on the system, although there was some system error at the time (honestly can't remember anymore) that she would arrange for a manager to contact me tomorrow(I'd honestly be surprised if that even happened).

I have to say the level of service I have received is terrible, I'm sure I'm not the only customer. I can't say I will be recommending Vodacom to anyone going forward for any services.