Terrible Turnaround Times and Pointless Politeness

<p>The above rating should be blank to denote something worse than terrible! Along the lines of unacceptable/inexcusable!</p> <p> </p> <p>My Interactions with Vodacom it seems have gone from dealing with rude, abnoxious unhelpful and *********** personnel to polite, prompt but nevertheless *********** personnel. The total number of competent people I have interacted with has now grown to whopping 2!</p> <p> </p> <p>My issue is NOT COMPLICATED - Someone who was UNAUTHORISED to do so, **********LY obtained a cellphone upgrade (new Handset and new airtime subscription package) in my personal name. I reported the incident as soon as it came to my attention as early as <strong>4 July 2016 - 7 WEEKS AGO - </strong> The documents clearly refelcted foul play and as the customer my contract and any incorrect charges should be reversed while Vodacom pretends to do any investigation - </p> <p> </p> <p>On a visit to the Vodacom Store in Woodmead I met with a helpful lady, <strong>Charmaine</strong> - competent Vodacom person #2 - who helped me obtain copies of the ********** contract which from which I immediately noticed 3 glaringly obvious issues with the upgrade:</p> <p>1. The ID COPY used as proof of identification is illegible - one cannot make out the face of the person in the photo and it DOES NOT match the ID copy I have submitted to Vodacom on more than 1 occassion previously and the upgrade should have been rejected for this reason alone.</p> <p>2. The initials on the contract are incorect as they exlcude my middle name and the contract is not fully signed - It does not have my signature under "<strong>customer signature</strong>" and where a signature does appear it is VERY OBVIOUSLY not mine - it does not correspeond to any signature I have ever used to sign any one of the many documents I have signed with Vodacom</p> <p>3. The Contract was finalised and captured by one <strong>ABDUL</strong> who works at the Vodacom Shop at the Mall of Africa - However, this person is not a sales consultant and therefore should not have been the one to process this contract - CLEAR RED FLAG FOR *****.</p> <p> </p> <p>It took me all of 20 min to obtain a copy of the contract with the help of the Vodacom Shop in Woodmead and yet it took 2 weeks, countless complaints and posts on <strong>twitter</strong> and HELLO PETER for my case to reach the forensics department. When I spoke to the forensics department they refused to tell me how long the matter would take to investigate but PROMISED to give me a call on or before Friday, 19 Aug, end of business. I didn't receive a call - NO PROMISES KEPT! I had to wait until 2pm on Monday when I called the foresensics department to receive anykind of feedback on my case! -</p> <p>Until this afternoon they had still failed to obtain these documents! I had to find the documents myself and arrange for them to be sent directly to the forensics department. WHAT, OTHER THAN INCOMPETENCE AND LACK OF INTEREST IN CUSTOMER SERVICE, IS IT THAT TAKES SO LONG TO RESOLVE MY MATTER IF IT TOOK ME 20 MIN TO OBTAIN AND SEND THE DOCUMENTS?</p> <p> </p> <p>What is DISAPPOINTING is that tomorrow or the next day, I will receive a call from Vodacom. They will fail, AGAIN to actually resolve my matter, but they will be polite and tell me that they have referred my matter to someone who will never call! Then they will VERY QUICKLY ask that I delete this post from Hello Peter instead of actually RESOLVING MY ISSUE and giving me actual CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!</p> <p> </p> <p>There are no formal channels of compliant on the vodacom so called "customer service" line! I was advised to send an email to ********** which no doubt is a bottom-less pit with automated computer generated responses and NO ACTUAL CARE or RECOURSE to my legtimiate grievances as a "valued" consumer!</p> <p> </p> <p>I believe I have been reasonably calm, polite and clear in articulating my issue and my commitment to sorting it ASAP. I am afraid, my patience has run dry! It takes less than 24 hours to receive TOP NOTCH service when VODACOM is attempting to convince me to take on more data or a new contract but its taken more than 7 WEEKS of NON-EXISTENT service to resolve such a SIMPLE matter!</p> <p> </p> <p>If my account is incorrectly debitted AGAIN this month - I plan to reverse the charges (this will temprarily hurt my credit score, I know) - I will then wait for Vodacom to follow up, twice a day on average, followed by threats of legal action - I wil then advise them that I am still investigating the matter and never bother to get back to them - If they in fact follow through with the legal action - I will proceed to defend it, sighting only their own precedent in dealing with customer related issues as my defence - All the while highlighting to the world the lack of customer-centric thinking, behaviour and treatment which seems to prevail across the organisation -</p> <p> </p> <p>Following this experience I have no doubt that I will seek to CANCEL each of my contracts in the quickest time possible - If I never deal with Vodacom again it will be too soon!</p>