Vodacom deleted my number without giving notice

Early this year I defaulted on a vodacom contract as I was having financial difficulties, I had been receiving sms before advising me that the number will be soft locked, however there was no contact number to call on those SMS's, to my surprise yesterday I could not make or receive calls and after painfully waiting to talk to a Vodacom agent (I was holding for about 15 minutes), I was told that the number was deleted, I was handed over to the collections department. Vodacom tells me that the number has been deleted and I cannot retreive that number. I am surprised because I was not contacted, Vodacom did not make any means to contact me via cellphone or email or give prior notice that the number will be deleted, it just decided to delete the number. Please help as I would like to have this number back, due to business reasons.