Ruined our entire credit record because of bad service

<p> </p> <p>My fiancé purchased an Iphone5 on contract around about late 2015. Early 2016 (before June) we stopped at the Cradlestone branch on our way to a family function in Limpopo, to pay that months Vodacom bill. After waiting in a queue for several minutes, being taken from counter to counter with less than enthusiastic employees, we were finally helped by a female employee who then went on to tell us the system is offline. We told her it is the last day for us to pay the bill and she then took our number and said she would call us as soon as it came back on and she will assist us over the phone with a credit card payment, which we were happy to do.</p> <p>On our way home on the Monday we realised she never called us so we went by the same store to find out if we could pay. She wasn’t on duty that day and so we started the process all over again, they typed the number into the computer and no record of the number was found. They called the accounts department who then put us through to legal who then told us that we would receive a letter of a balance to be settled with an attorney. Obviously furious we left.</p> <p>My fiancé is an expat and works on a 4month work-3week home rotation. Both he and I have called Vodacom as well as gone into branches several times, no less than 20 times trying to sort this matter out, after all his credit record is at stake. Every time we get the same response, they can’t find his number on the system. We eventually offered to just pay lump sums into his account and sort it out later with the accounts department when they eventually contact us but this was also refused.</p> <p>We waited and called and waited and called, but they never sent anything, never called nor emailed. Symington & De Kok sent us a letter on 28 March 2017 with a bill of R1316.53 which was paid that same day and the handover letter sent within 24hours.</p> <p>To this day I have received two other bills from Vodacom. 28/03/2017 for R1200.01 and another on 03/04/2017 for R2061.02. Yet, when we go into a store or call to see if they can track the cell phone number on the system, they have no answer for me. Why am I paying for a line that has conveniently been cancelled?</p> <p>I call and they tell me they cannot give me the settlement amount because I am not the account holder, I respect this policy but they seem to have no care in the world when I explain that he will only be able to call them in October when he is home. After nearly an hour on the phone I get told I will be put through to legal and my call gets dropped. Great service.</p> <p>I have personally been a Vodacom client for many years, 10+ and so has my fiancé. Never have we ever come across such poor service. Blacklisting someone after they have tried numerous times to pay their account is absolute nonsense. The money was never an issue and nor was paying the bill, in fact it’s all we have been trying to do the last two years. He will not continue his use of Vodacom services after this ordeal and to be quite frank I am just waiting for my contract to end so I can terminate it. And believe you me we have many friends and if this matter isn’t resolved by the end of this month, none of us will be bragging about your excellent “deals” or service to anybody we know, quite the opposite, really.</p> <p>So, my dearest Vodacom. Please get back to us with a settlement amount. We don’t want compensation or free data. We want to settle the account, that is it.</p> <p>Yours truly,</p> <p>An incredibly frustrated and annoyed customer.</p> <p> </p>