Stay far away from Vodacom - they will de***** you!

Phoned Vodacom upgrade dept. on 14 March 2023 as existing contracrs were expiring on 31 March 2023.

Explicit instruction, and agreed by sales agent, was for new contracts only to start on 1 April 2023.

Vodacom *****ulently activated the new contracts on the same day, 14 March in stead of 1 April, and proceeded to take more money from my account via debit order the following month.

I reversed the debit order and cancelled the debit order instruction with Vodacom. Almost immediately Vodacom sent a threat that my account was not paid… This *****ulent early activation was eventually sorted and the excess invoice amounts credite to my account. This took months to get right!

But from the first cancelled debit order, I paid the account in full every month via EFT according to the quoted amounts received on 14 March 2023.

From the very first invoice, the invoices were more than the quotes received on 14 March 2023. First they said it’s the VAT that has been added. Here is a quote from Vodacom’s Contract Terms and Condition’s very first page: point 3 “ For more details ask in store or visit www.vodacom.co.za. E & OE (Errors & Omissions excluded). All prices shown include VAT.” I rest my case on this point and their claim that is is VAT is *****ulent.

After a few more weeks trying to get this sorted, and no call backs from the team leaders that they promise every time, it was advised that the increased invoice amounts were actually the contract price increase for the year.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? On 14 March 2023 Vodacom knew the prices will increase on 1 April 2023 and this should have been factored into the price on their website and the quite received. Yet they omitted this…

The only conclusion is that Vodacom deliberately activated the new contracts on 14 March as this will then validate their price increase on 1 April as it would have be an ‘existing’ contract.

On 17 July 2023 I have had enough and the matter was referred to the National Consumer Commission (***). Nothing was heard from the ombud, until a lot of email queries later, an admission of receipt on 31 July 2023 that it is at ‘pre-assessment’.

In the mean time, Vodacom proceeded to bar my 2 contracts from any outgoing calls, including using the data on the contracts. This was instituted on Friday, 4 August 2023 at 09:20.

The papertrail with Vodacom and the NCC will be added to the legal paperwork in any event that my family is harmed or injured in any way due to the fact that Vodacom cancelled the ability to make calls and the long time the NCC is taking to attend to the referral to the ombud.