Vodacom Data Charges a Disgrace. Vodacom Customer Service Appalling

On the night of 2 October all the data on my phone contract was consumed. This was apparently due to an application that was running in the background. I was unaware of this and was asleep. All of the SMS's notifying me of my data consumption were sent in the early hours of the morning. (First SMS sent 00:55, last SMS sent 4:54). I was therefore not aware of, or able to stop, the usage or buy data, until I awoke. By the time I awoke my data was being charged on out of bundle rates. Vodacom does not end the mobile connection when the monthly data is consumed, one needs to be aware of the contractual data ending and purchase new bundles beforehand. If one is unaware, one is charged exorbitant "out of bundle" rates. This is what happened and I now have a R4699.94 additional data bill on my account.

I immediately queried this data usage. Here is a record of the queries and the responses I have received: 2 October 2018 1st query Said 7-14 days 3 Oct 2018 Computer generated SMS with Reference Number 18 October 2018 2nd query Said 7-14 days 18 October 2018 Computer generated SMS 25 October 2018 3rd query Said would call next day. No call. 28 October 2018 Computer generated SMS 31 October 2018 4th query (3 attempts) "Due to unforeseen circumstances our call centre is unavailable. Please try again later" 31 October Email to CEO (Shameel Joosub) 2 November 2018 5th query Said they are waiting for the bill run. The person who needs to deal with this will do so tomorrow. 7 November 2018 2nd email to CEO (Shameel Joosub) 8 November 2018 6th query Nosi in Cape Town call centre said my query is still to be assigned. She will call me back once she has feedback. I am waiting to see if anything happens this time around.

I have excessive and unexplained data charges on my account and after over a month of trying to follow this up, my query has not even been allocated to a consultant! What disgraceful customer service. I will definitely be moving to an alternative service provider once my current contract expires.