Once again, no joy from Vodacom.

I contacted Vodacom on 30 March to request that my contract be downgraded. I spoke to a consultant who submitted the request and did not point out at any time during the call that Vodacom requires 30 days' notice. The consultant confirmed that the downgrade request had been submitted and that she was also ordering a pair of complimentary earbuds for me. At no point did she note that the account could not be downgraded if the earbuds were on backorder. A few weeks later I contacted Vodacom as I received an invoice for my usual contract amount. I queried the downgrade and was advised that it has not been processed as the earbuds were still on backorder and that this was holding up the request. I was then advised that Vodacom requires 30 days' notice. I reconfirmed what the consultant had advised and that I had asked what my new debit order amount would be from 1 April. I requested that a senior manager listen to the recorded call as I had been provided incorrect information. I was advised that the matter would be escalated and that a manager would be in contact with me. To date, I am still waiting on this call. I then followed up again a week later as I wanted to understand if the downgrade has been processed. I was advised again that the earbuds were holding up the request. The consultant during this call promised to escalate the earbud request so that the matter could be resolved by the end of the week. I received a SMS advising that Kingsly Mokgabudi would personally attend to my request and contact me. Still waiting for this call.

I then called Vodacom on Thursday, 30 April (a month after my first call) as I was nervous that we were entering a new month with no resolution. I was advised that the only way to finalise the matter is to remove the earbuds as they were still holding up the downgrade. I was passed through to four different teams. The after sales team advised that they could remove the earbuds and pass me back to the retentions team to process the downgrade which would be done immediately. This was not the case. I got through to Mdeni who advised that he could not assist and required a manager to authorise this as I had received a huge 'discount.' I asked why this needed to be authorised at this stage, as the downgrade request was already submitted on 30 March. I asked to speak to the manager who was in a meeting at 17:00 on a Thursday. I noted that I wanted this resolved before the long weekend. No call from the manager. No call or follow up from anyone over the weekend either.

I have just called Vodacom to be advised that they cannot assist as there is an original amount now in arrears (the amount I queried and asked for the call recording to be listed to). I advised that I find this strange as I had already downgraded over a month ago. I asked to speak to a manager and was once again denied this request.

The service from Vodacom is shocking. I cannot believe that there is zero escalation process, you can never speak to a manager, they refuse to listen to call recordings, I am the one always following up on a request that I submitted over a month ago. I also cannot comprehend how a pair of earbuds has held up this entire process.

I am deeply saddened that we have so little choice for service providers in South Africa. This is exactly why Vodacom get away with shoddy service over and over again.