Vodacom cellphone insurance *******

<p>I was a customer with Autopage cellular for around 15 years and had my handsets insured through them. Autopage was taken over by Vodacom earlier this year and all accounts went to Vodacom with their insurance arm Cellsure taking over the handset cover. </p> <p>Needless to say my daughter damaged her handset post takeover and so around 3 weeks ago I approached the local Vodacom store and handed in the handset for repair as it was covered by the phone insurance. It took a week for the handset to travel from my local store in Pinelands to the repair centre in Tygervalley. Thereupon followed a backwards and forwards with a complete lack of communication from the original store concerning the repair. The quote was apparently issued on the the 13th of May (a Friday) and rejected by the repairer on the Monday the 16th when they hadn't received a confirmation from myself accepting the repair. I was NOT informed by the original shop that I needed to personally sign or confirm that the handset was in fact COVERED by said insurance. One would think that they would have this on their own records. CLEARLY I have egregiously overestimated their competency. I attempted to visit the Pinelands branch today but they are currently closed as of the 21st of May for a revamp. AND although the staff were in the shop, the doors were closed and they refused to communicate with me in any way. Upon contacting the Tygervalley branch I was THEN informed that my daughters phone was "somewhere" but the shop assistant could not help me. I had to FIRMLY demand to speak to the manager of the store who after some investigation on her part informed me that Cellsure had rejected the claim due to some issue regarding the sim card. The FACT that the Pinelands branch had failed to ask for the sim upon handing in the handset is neither here nor there. This is clearly a blatant attempt by the insurer to avoid carrying the cost of the repair on a contract that is technically only 3 months old (having taken over from Autopage in March ) This is an appaling example of complete disregard for the norms of customer service. SO after a near month long battle my daughter is still without a handset and it is being sent back unrepaired regardless of the fact that the insurance premium had been debited against my account. If Cellsure or Vodacom insist that the phone is not covered I INSIST that I be reimbursed for the last 3 years of insurance premiums I have paid. I will be contacting the cellular ombudsman and ICASA to request that this matter be investigated further. </p> <p> </p>