Unbelievably poor service

<p>Mid way through September 2016 I called Vodacom customer care, waited 15-20 minutes to get through after having selecting "Cancellations" from the voice prompts, only to be told that I need to be put through to "Cancellations"?? Needless to say the call was dropped when being put through to cancellations by cancellations. After another half hour with the call centre jingle burning my ear, I eventually got through, and was transferred successfully from cancellations to cancellations where I requested that my account be downgraded to prepaid from 1 November, once the contract had expired. I was told that this had been done and that I only needed to switch my phone off and remove my SIM card on the evening of 31 October 2016 and put the SIM back in and switch the phone on in the morning on 1 November 2016 and the account would be downgraded.<br />I followed these instructions and surprise, surprise, my account was not downgraded to prepaid, but I now have a contract continuing on a month to month basis.<br />So, after searching for self-help options to no avail, I bravely dialled 111 again yesterday, hoping, praying, that somehow, there was some small improvement in service. After 40 minutes, I was cut off twice and gave up for the day. I tried again today and got through to cancellations after 20 minutes and again needed to transferred through to cancellations?? After choosing the same options more times than I can recall, I get through to a call centre agent who tells me that the "system" is currently down!<br />This is about the 3rd or 4th similar experience trying to do something simple on one of my Vodacom contracts. I am filled with dread everytime I have to try and do something or make some change to one of my contracts. I actually feel like I am dealing with a government department, rather than a listed company who is supposedly the leader in cellular networks in South Africa. I am beyond the end of my tether Vodacom! Please can someone tell me why we have to enter the number related to the call when we get asked by the call centre agents to provide the number everytime anyway?? <br />On top of all that, I get "No service" at home and have always battled to get a decent data signal anywhere I have lived, be it Johannesburg, Cape Town and now Howick. I suppose living in a small town like Howick I can't complain too much about signal, but I have been told that it wasn't always this bad, and people used to get 3-4 bars of signal where I live until the Soccer world cup a few years back?<br />I don't suppose I'll get much more than a standard scripted response from your social media coordinator. If I truly believed the competition in this country was significantly better I would port my number and be done with you.<br />My last attempt at getting some decent service. Please get someone to call me and resolve this issue.<br />Regards,</p> <p>Gareth</p>