Vodacom Call roaming deposit.

I am extremely disappointed, and somewhat angry with Vodacom.

I have been a loyal customer for over 17 years, with the same number. I have never defaulted on a payment, I have never given any issues, and I am a customer in good standing.

I recently moved my contract from a corporate contract, back to my personal name.

I recently travelled to Germany, on the same number and same contract, without issue. I was also travelling to Turkey, and realizing that I had moved accounts, I thought I would just confirm that my call roaming has remained active.

During the call, it was understood that call roaming was not active, and I need to pay a R5000 deposit and complete a number of forms to enable this. I was incredibly busy at the time, and I noted that all in all, focused on just trying to pay, with inconsistencies in account reference numbers, and issues on Vodacom's side, it took me over two hours of personal time and effort to have this activated.

The lady I spoke to, then said that the call roaming is active. (you are welcome to go through the call logs to verify this).

I subsequently reached Turkey, and pulled out my phone, where I had downloaded offline maps, and a pin to my hotel, and was going to use Google maps to navigate me. I just needed quick access to my mobile data to ping where I was, and show me how to navigate to the hotel using teh underground. Upon opening my phone, there was no service, and call roaming was not active.

I had no option, and had to spend money on a taxi to take me to the hotel instead. This was at a great expense to me.

Upon arriving at my hotel, and having access to wife, I realised that there is no email address to contact Vodacom on for customer services, after using my vacation time to navigate Vodacom's website.

I resorted to accessing twitter to log the complaint. I also eventually found this email address, where I too logged the complaint.

I then spent the subsequent week trying to have call roaming activated. It was the most painful experience, as Vodacom could not understand that I had no access to a phone to call in, because my phone was not active, due to a fault on Vodacom's end.

They wanted my hotel numbers, which I duly provided, but they could not even contact the hotels.

Furthermore, they needed some voice activation, which not a single person would overlook.

Eventually, after threatening to put my Twitter conversation, attached to this email, online, it was miraculously resolved.

I offered many suggestions, and asking even to speak to one person via a whatsapp call, when I had internet access, but none of this was accepted.

I have now app**** to have my R5000 deposit refunded. I asked the lady on the phone, whether my call roaming will remain active, as suggested by the previous agent, and she suggested that it will be disabled, and if I travel again, I would have to re-deposit the R5000.

I do not believe that that is acceptable. Each time I travel overseas, I must deposit my money into your account, and allow you to get interest on that amount, and that's besides the administrative effort of two additional hours, each time I travel. I am also not willing to keep the deposit in Vodacom's account. as that is my money, and belongs to me, not to Vodacom, who is currently getting interest.

It has been over 3 weeks, and I have not yet received my deposit back.