Upgrade? Nope, not at all

<p>I am appalled at the handling of my Vodacom contract upgrade at the Vodacom 4U shop in Brooklyn Mall:</p> <p>On 4 June 2016 I was due for my next upgrade and went to the Vodacom 4U shop in Brooklyn Mall where I was assisted by Chris. <br />I used to be on a Smart L contract and now looked at an upgrade. I considered the Smart XL contract with the LG G4, which Chris then informed me would cost a total of R729 per month (give or take a few cents) for the entire package - 800 MB data, 400 minutes, 800 SMS's, phone, caller ID etc. <br />I also looked at the uChoose Flexi 350 and 500 deals. He explained that with the uChoose deals it would cost me R0.79/minute for calls and using that calculation, we estimated that if I only used the airtime for calls, at that rate on the uChoose 350 deal I would get an estimate of 443 minutes for calls per month. Because of this calculation, based on Chris's information, I chose the uChoose Flexi 350 contract, along with an additional 1GB data package which would then amount to R657 per month. <br />I also enquired of him that if I should come to realise that the new uChoose flexi contract is not sufficient, would I be able to upgrade to the initial contract of the Smart XL deal of R728 per month? He informed me it would not be a problem to do so, if I do it within 30 days. Thus, I "upgraded" to uChoose Flexi 350 with an additional 1GB of data.</p> <p>After my upgrade was activated, I realised within a few days that the cost of R0.79 per minute was not the case after almost depleting my R350 of airtime in a few days. Apparently it costs R1.80 per minute on uChoose Flexi, which makes a huge difference. So I returned to Vodacom 4u Brooklyn within the 30 day period to revert to the Smart XL package.</p> <p>This time I was assisted by Louis (for Chris was no longer working at the shop). I informed Louis of my predicament, that Chris had given me the wrong information and thus I wanted to upgrade to Smart XL. He took down my details, said he would request such an upgrade with no penalties and assured me that if I upgraded to the SMART XL package with my LG G4 I would still qualify for the amount of R729 per month. He promised to contact me when this was done.</p> <p>He never contacted me (as I assume he never requested the upgrade).</p> <p>So when I returned later in July, neither Chris nor Louis was working at the shop anymore and I was assisted by Jacq, who has assisted me kindly ever since. He had tried to request the upgrade which Louis had not done, but since this was done after the 30 day period (which was not my tardiness, but Louis' mistake), it was not allowed. Jacq informed me that we should try to revert the upgrade after 90 days and then retry. When I returned in September and he requested the upgrade to the Smart XL package, the final deal would cost me around R968 per month (nearly R250 more than the initial upgrade).</p> <p>This is ridiculous and unacceptable! If I had not been misinformed by Chris at the very beginning, I would never have chosen the uChoose Flexi 350 option. When I realised the mistake, I returned within 30 days and requested the correction, which Louis never did. Thus I am stuck with an insufficient, costly contract because of the lack of s**** and competency of store personnel, not of my own doing. And now, if I wish to upgrade to the Smart XL package (which I had originally planned to do), it will cost me 30% more than the initial price.</p> <p>So the mistakes of these *********** Vodacom's personnel, have left me with a contract costing me time and money. Not impressed at all!</p>