Vodacom baffles brains

Vodacom is up to its thievery tricks again. My wife's contract was coming to an end and we decided to go onto prepaid. In trying to give notice last week (28 March) to Vodacom to cancel the contract at the end of the period, the lady who assisted (Pelele - who was super helpful) informed me of a special they were running - the Uchoose Flexi 220 which gave R220 airtime and 2GB of data per month. This sounded pretty reasonable so I decided to take this option.

So the deal was to implement the deal on 1 April and I would pay off the 2 months of the handset fee from the previous contract. On 1 April Vodacom activated the R220 airtime but not the 2 GB data and by the 11h19 on the 2nd the R220 had all been used up. More on that later. So after many attempts to get through to Vodacom call centre (each time we pressed to speak to a consultant it told us that option was not available) we eventually got through and the consultant told us that they forgot to activate the data - she put through a request to activate and we were informed that it could take between 48 hours and 7 days to activate.

My wife therefore purchased 100 mb of data to see her through.

Today - the 3rd we got notification that the 2 GB data had been activated. The strange thing about this is that it was actually 1.87 GB.

In trying to understand that we called the call centre again. We were told the following by Katlego: - We were given 1.87 GB because it was pro-rata for the month as it was a promotional deal. I was under the impression that we were buying (whether a promotion or not) 2GB per month! - The R220 was used up in a day and a half because the phone was running background apps. This despite the fact that we were at home and the phone was running on wi-fi virtually all the time. - He explained that no matter that we were running on WiFi the phone will always use the mobile data first and only when it runs out will it start using the wifi. This is the first time we have ever heard of this - the belief has always been that phones default to WiFi when you connect to it. It also does not make sense as my wife's previous 24 month contract gave her 300 Mb per month and it lasted throughout the month, for most months. According to Katlego the data rate on the R220 is R1 / Mb. So go figure how on the old contract 300 mb was enough for 30 days, but on the new "promotional" contract 220 Mb goes in a day and a half! Funnily enough, since we bought the 100 Mb additional bundle 1 day has passed and only 5 Mb has been used running background apps - strange how the data usage changes so quickly!

It is worth noting that we are not rookies at this either. My wife and I have both had cellphones from when they were launched in SA and we have travelled locally and abroad ever since and managed our data use effectively. Only essential apps are permanently connected, our WiFi assist is turned off, etc.

So I would love Vodacom to explain these issue - and credit us the R220 seeing as they did not activate the data on the 1st as they should have, and while we are about it I think you should also refund me the 48 minutes of my and my wife's time it took talking to your call centre to fix and try understand the problem.