********* & Unfair Invoicing on ported numbers

<p>After many years with Vodacom (since the early 90’s), two of my existing Vodacom contracts expired in August 2016, and as Vodacom could not offer me a suitable upgrades, along with the fact my company has an agreement with another service provider, I decided to port my 2 remaining numbers (9th September 2016 ) to this new service provider, in order to obtain the benefits negotiated by my company(Actually the "new" service provider did all the work to port/cancel my contracts) </p> <p>After doing this, I then visited a Vodacom store in Pinelands, numerous times during September 2016, where I asked if a invoice generated by Vodacom on 01 September could be waved as my numbers had been ported on the 9th, and as there were minutes/data carried over from previous months, no data/minutes for September were actually used. I did however commit to paying for September if there were any issues, although I was not too happy about having to pay for something that I did not use. Nevertheless, the store assistants at the Vodacom store were very helpful and logged the query on their system (Vodacom System) and advised they would let me know…..unfortunately they never did and this process (me visiting the store and them logging a query on their system) happened a few times during September). Eventually I advised them that I would wait for them to contact me if there was an issue.</p> <p>5 weks went by and then I got a furthr invoice from Vodacom in November indicating that I owe them for the November month, which confused me, and made me re-visited the Vodacom store to enquire what had happened as the request (to waver the September invoice) which did not seem to have gone through and no-one had contacted me. After doing some checking, they then advised that the contracts had “never” being cancelled and as such Vodacom were still generating invoices each month and my outstanding bill was now accumulating.</p> <p>The Vodacom store assistance then asisted me by calling Vodacom Cancellation (from within the store) and I requested the cancellation of both the contracts with Vodacom Cancellation Reference Number: 1- ********** 3827 - (Friday 25 November 2016)</p> <p>In order to try and then sort out any outstanding monies owed by me, the store assistants then put me onto Vodacom Collections/Accounts ( ********** ), who advised that Advised I owed Vodacom R958-00, with an initial payment of R 477-00, after which they would then only confirm the balance outstanding.</p> <p>When I asked how they could invoice me for numbers that no longer existed on the Vodacom Network, they advised that they had generated a “Ghost Number” for each number I had ported, and then the monthly invoiced continued to be generated and the costs accumulated against my ID number. When I asked how they could do this without my knowledge or consent, they advised that this was due to me porting my numbers, without formally cancelling my contract. I was most upset as surely when you port a number, by default the contract is considered cancelled as you are no longer receiving any service, there are no allocations of minutes and/or data, so in respect you are getting "no" services from Vodacom and as such what would you be paying for? This on top of the fact I visited the store multiple times in September, and there never seemed to be any issue with me having ported my numbers at all and no-one once old me that ghost numbers would be generated and I would continue to be billed each month, heaven knows what for?</p> <p>I then called Vodacom again ( ********** ) on Wednesday 30/11/2016, to confirm my contracts had in fact now been cancelled, only to be held on the line for what seemed eternity, asking me multiple questions such as cell phone number (which were not found on the vodacom network), my account number, my address, my contract types and then without providing me with any info whatsoever put me through to customer feedback on the level service received? (Shoo .... not very professional)</p> <p>I then tried calling again at 11h33 (30/11/2016), to ensure that my contracts and actually been cancelled: I spoke to another Vodacom representative, who could not find anything on the cell phone numbers (they no longer existed on the Vodacom network) and then asked about any ghost numbers been assigned to me, where I advised that I was now fortunate to know of only 1 (provided to me by the Vodacom shop in November when this query started). She could not find anything so advised that the account/contract was probably closed and then advised I needed to call Vodacom accounts dept. on ********** . She also mentioned that the system should only generate a ghost number if I ported my numbers "before" my 2 year contract period had finished, which was not the case in my instance.</p> <p>Because my numerous visits (>10) to the Vodacom Store at Mutual Park, Pinelands), and my now multiple phone calls were not getting anywhere, I am logged a call with Vodacom Legal department ********** received the reference number: EC-04FE-22B07X., with a commitment that this would be resolved within 5 working days. To date I have had no response!</p> <p> </p> <p>In summary, Vodacom has continued to bill me for services I have not received. They have generated Ghost numbers without informing me and my outstanding account has grown each month, without me receiving a single service from Vodacom. Their excuse is that I never cancelled my contracts, even though I have no numbers on the Vodacom network and my 2 year contract period had expired. I believe that what they are doing is ********* and exploiting loopholes to continue to getting revenue while proving no service whatsoever. On top of this, they have no interest whatsover in trying to resolve the matter or providng feedback to their customers as I have managed to get no-where through my multitude of visists to the Vodacom store, numerous phone calls and email. So sad that a person can be treated so badly after nearly 30 years with Vodacom and that a company such as Vodacom (who actually have a very good network) has to go to such lengths to generate revenue. Perhaps they should focus on customer service, and value, instead in order to retain their customers.</p> <p>I do not expect a response to my query and intend paying my outstanding invoices, even though I received NO SERVICE whatsoever from Vodacom, and be done with them!</p> <p> </p> <p>So Sad!</p>