Vodacom deducts money as they wish

To whom it may concern:

On the 6th of August 2018 we renewed our contracts as we do every 2 years in the past 6 years. On the 1st of November 2018 we were supposed to get our monthly airtime, but instead noticed that Vodacom has deducted over R900 + from both of our contracts.

As per usual when Vodacom makes a mistake on our accounts we phoned the customer service at 135 to provide us with a solution and as always they were not able to assist us and referred our problem to their so called solution experts. In the first call the customer service agent logged the query incorrectly, thus leading to a barrage of SMS's with no solution at all.

Seeing that we did not come right via the customer service centre, we went to our nearest Vodashop to try and find some answers 2 why our accounts have been debited with over R900 + on both accounts. The response we got from the vodashop assistant manager was that Vodacom is not allowed to deduct money from your monthly subscription at any point. It was at this stage that the Vodashop assistant manager escalated the problem at her end as well. 5 working days later we received an SMS from Vodacom stating that their monthly subscription airtime allocated as part of the new uchoose Flexi plans will carry over up to a maximum of 2 months allocation.

This is absolutely ridiculous, is it ok to change terms and conditions of a contract already renewed 3 months ago and then changing the terms and conditions without prior notice to us renewing the contracts, vodacom has just decided to deduct monies already paid as they see fit. This is not the best part of my complaint, when I went to the Vodashop assistant manager even they were not even informed of these changes and assured us that Vodacom will never deduct any money from your monthly subscription. If we were given any kind of notice this was the plans of Vodacom in the upcoming months after renewing our contracts we would have chosen a different contract from their packages available. But as always Vodacom is never transparent in their contracts and did not even do the effort to inform a loyal customer the past 21 years of their intention to suddenly deduct monthly subscriptions over 2 months.

As of yet we have not been able to get an answer on how they calculate these amounts and what we need to do from our side to ensure that we get our moneys worth and not just throw it into Vodacom's already stuffed coffers.

Is there someone at Vodacom that can please give me a clear and precise answer on how this has happened and how we are going to address this as I am not willing to pay for monthly subscriptions where Vodacom will just decide that you did not use the service as they want you to use the service and then deduct it.

Awaiting your soonest reply

Marlize Kotzé **********