****** Phone inside Vodacom Chartz Store

Yesterday at around 11 am in the morning, I took in my phone (iPhone 6 Plus) and asked one of the staff members (Aviwe) to charge it. He told me i'm leaving it at my own risk, but he agreed to charge it for me, took it and I saw him charging it then I left the store. At around 3:30 pm, I went back to the store to go fetch it and they told me it's been ******. We tried calling it but it was switched off, we tried locating it with Find My iPhone but it couldn't locate as the phone was off. He offered to contribute R4000.00 to get a new iPhone 6 Plus from somebody he knows and works with regularly and gets it for R7000.00, he then asked me to meet him halfway with R3000.00. I came back to the house at 4:45 pm and immediately my mom showed me a message that was sent by Find My iPhone saying my phone was located at 4:31. I called the staff member and told him to trace the phone because this means it was on, I quickly rushed back to the store and when I got there the location and the tracker was removed. He told me he'll ask somebody he knows to try track the phone, that I should stay another night in Pretoria and we'll get it sorted. I stayed, at around 06:30pm he told me they traced the phone and it's in Centurion, they are just waiting for the exact location. We waited. This morning Aviwe tells us that my phone is off so they can't get the exact location and he'll get back to me. We called him twice at around lunch time and he didn't answer our calls. We used another number he doesn't know, some lady picked up and we asked to speak to the manager and they gave us Aviwe. We spoke to him and he told us it's not the stores fault and we can even go to the police station and open a case, we asked for the owner's number and he gave us Raymond's number. We called Raymond and Raymond said it's not the first time a customers phone has been ******, he is not going to replace it and this has nothing to do with them so they are not responsible. We got nothing from this phone call but rudeness and attitude. This is when we called you.

The manner in which the owner Raymond and the manager Aviwe handled this matter leaves very little to imagination. Their customer care is very poor, we have their telephonic conversation with my aunt on record and it's totally unacceptable that the owner and the manager can speak to a client like that.

If Aviwe works for Vodacom Chartz, where does he get an iPhone 6 Plus for R7000.00 from? How do we know that my phone isn't traded at black market? Where does this leave the image of Vodacom Chartz? If they know phones are being ****** in their shop, why are they not having a contingency plan of protecting the customers items? Why don't they refuse to charge customers phones if they know that they are at risk? We took it up with their head office and I was told there's nothing they can do. So must I accept that I left my phone at the store for free?