Vodacom connectivity nightmare

It is with great regret that I have to right this review.

After being a loyal customer of Vodacom for about 12 years, I reached absolute breaking point today. I've been living at the same premises for 10 years and never had any connectivity issues. For the week from the 4th of March until the 9th of March I had intermittent connectivity issues with my mobile data and signal going off at various times of the day. From the 10th of March up until the 18th, this has now come permanent with absolutely no connectivity what so ever. I provided Vodacom with time thinking that they must be experiencing technical difficulties. Because I'm paying close to R 3, 000 per month in service fees, with no service being rendered anymore, I decided to phone the customer care line today and book a query to hopefully be handled and resolved. Please note that I'm now using Telkom and Man mobile data through a router to gain any access to the internet (since the 10th of March). Please also note that I can only do this from my place of work as I cannot even phone the Vodacom customer care line from my phone at home due to the connectivity issue explained. This call was made at 14h23 today. I was assisted by a lady called Angie and she booked a query, Ref-No. 1- ********** ********** . I received a call from a Vodacom representative later on at 15h14 from a number ********** 516. I could not talk to the individual due to not having any signal. The call was dropped, stating Call Failed. At 16h41 I received an sms from number ********** 011 with the message: "Thank you for your patience and cooperation. Your query with ref number 1- ********** ********** has been resolved". I ASK YOU, WHAT HAS BEEN RESOLVED VODACOM? I then tried continuously phoning Vodacom from my phone to try and find out what was happening. As I have no network, this was impossible. Once my wife returned home, I HAD TO PHONE VODACOM'S CUSTOMER CARE LINE FROM A MTN NUMBER! Can you understand the level of frustration if you cannot even phone your service provider due to not receiving network from them! I wasthen "assisted" by two ladies, Buli and Innocent who told me that their system is not showing the query as resolved and they do not know why I received this message.

People of South Africa, can I just indicate that my frustration in such an explanation and answer goes past the point of anger. I'm livid! How there you, Vodacom! Charge me for services I'm not receiving, providing me with no solution other than using your competitors to make contact with you and providing me with call centre agents with absolutely no way of being able to help me. Giving me a query ref number THAT IS RESOLVED WITH NO WORK BEING DONE AND THEN NOT GIVING ME ANY OTHER AVENUE TO GET THIS SORTED BUT TO TALK TO THE SAME CUSTOMER CARE LINE THAT COULD NOT HELP IN THE FIRST PLACE? I've taken photos of my connection issue at home at different times of day, showing my GPS location, I've also taken photos of my connectivity away from home, showing my GPS location to demonstrate that it is not my devices but your network.

I'm sure that this constitutes an issue that can be taken up with the National Consumer Commission due to an absolute unsatisfactory consumer help line and process.

The level of disrespect that I've been shown by you as Vodacom, after being such a loyal customer for so long, to have to go through such bad service delivery and then such unhelpful treatment from a customer services perspective and not having a single number, nor e-mail to register this complaint outside of your call centre is atrocious. I have lost all respect ever held for your business and I truly hope that you feel the pain in your financials for treating customers so badly and disrespecting them. You made me feel helpless as a consumer today and in my view that is the highest level of disrespect you can ever show a consumer, especially one who has supported you so faithfully for so many years.