Poor service

A couple of months ago I lost my iPhone at the mall of Africa. I kept using my laptop to check it through ‘find my phone’. Two days later after I had done a sim swap and using an alternative phone that I had to buy, I discovered that my phone was found somewhere in Alexandra. Whilst I was still wondering how do I go about getting the phone,the phone I was using then rang and the person on the other side said she was at a Vodashop at the mall of Africa. She said her name was Thandi and also mentioned that she had found my phone, apparently someone had picked it up. She then asked for my ID number to which my response was how can I give away my ID number to someone I don’t even know, instead of responding to that question she said I was being rude.

While I was still wondering what was going on, another lady got to the phone and told me that she works at the Vodacom shop at the mall of Africa, (I never got her name), she told me that I was very rude considering that the lady I had spoken to before was doing me a favour by returning my phone. I tried to explain to her that she couldn’t possibly expect me to just give away my ID number when I didn’t even have any proof that either of them was telling the truth. Finally it was agreed that I meet the person who apparently found my phone at a police station nearby my house.

When we met, she explained that they opened my phone and they could see that it had a Vodacom SIM card. They then went to the Vodashop at the mall of Africa, they asked the staff to check if they can find my details and then called me. Apparently the staff at the shop refused to call me, instead they chose to give my number to the person that called me and asked for my ID number. I have never felt so insulted and traumatised considering that I was already dealing with the stress of having lost my phone. What I need to know from Vodacom is what was the reason that they gave someone my number without my concern, on to top of that, accuse me of being rude by refusing to give a stranger my ID number? Is that even legal in South Africa? What does the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 say about such? I’d like to know what does Vodacom have to say about this? I felt violated by the person who took my phone and came up with this story and Vodacom staff, instead of protecting my personal details as a customer, they chose to harass me as well.

I look forward to your response at your earliest convenience before I instruct my lawyers to look into this.

About three months ago, I wrote a review about Vodacom, few days later they called me to find out what had transpired. The gentleman that called said to me they have four shops at the mall of Africa. He said he was going to attend to the matter that has been brought to their attention and call me back. Three months later, I am still waiting. My major frustration is that all my attempts to get Vodacom’s customer care email address are not yielding any results and am I able to contact their Ombudsman because there’s information about their ombudsman anywhere.