Vodacom fails me as customer and consumer.

I lost my job in September 2019. On the first of October I contacted Vodacom to ask them to cancel my, already expired, contract and to downgrade me to a lower package. The consultant assured me that I would pay the lowered amount(R350) at the end of October. But end October, I was notified by my bank that my Vodacom debitorder(R889) did not go off, I immediately contacted Vodacom to ask why they requested the higher premium and not the premium as per the requested downgrade. Vodacom told me that they could see the request to lower my package, but that the Vodacom consultant never prosessed the downgrade. I later learned that the consultant was not an employee anymore. So I tried to get someone to rectify their mistake, but was told nothing could be done because my account was in arrears. I borrowed money from my Mom to pay the arrears premium(R889) on 7 November. I emailed the proof of payment to pop@vodacom. co. za and various other vodacom employees that phoned me during the course of November, to tell me that my account was in arrears.It took Vodacom a whole month to allocate the premium to my account on 28 November. For a whole month my query was not handeled because of Vodacom's empoyees being *********** yet again. Guess who had to sc**** money together to pay yet another R889 in Desember, for their incompetance? Because I couldn't afford to pay yet another(R889), I dilligently tried to get anybody to assist me with my complaint. Not even the Vodacom shop could help me. They kept refering me to the costomer care(or don't care) call centre.On 11 December, Vodacom suspended my account. I paid in the money for the premium(R979) , that I had sc****d together. Phoned in and sent the proof of payment to a collections call centre Supervisor, requesting for my account to be unlocked because my frail 78 year old mother was ill and I needed my phone for me to be able to be there for her if she needed me. My children and I stay alone and can not afford to be cut off if a threatening situation should arise, specialy at night. My contract is still locked, as it was since 11 December, yet Vodacom still wants R889 at the end of December. On Sunday, 5 January 2020, I decided to try again to get someone to help me, but to no avail. A reference number was sent to me by sms that someone will contact me, but as in the past, no one has contacted me yet. On 18 December I spoke to a consultant in the Retensions department, who promised that he will get my complaint sorted out. I have got him on recording, saying that Vodacom should in actual fact pay back the premiums and the debidorder charges above R350(or as per the douwn graded contract that I requested on1 October) He even said that the department that he is escalating my complaint to, will calculate what needs to be paid back to me. The only thing that happened, was that I got a notification from vodacom that I was moved to another contract. I did not autherise the package, I don't even know what the package offers. I don't know what to do anymore. I can not afford to have a bad credit score, but I can also not afford to just keep on paying for Vodacom's incompetence. As a responsible consumer I made the request to downgrade immediately after hearing that I lost my job. Seems to me that is not the right way, should one just stop paying and become part of the crowd that owes companies like Vodacom money with no intention to pay it back.

Since I subsequently had to pay for various debit order fees and 2 months of the old contract (R 889.00 pm), all avenues are depleted and I can not afford to pay even the new contract that I wanted to downgrade to for R350 pm. This is the second time that Vodacom's personnel, cost me money, due to their incompetence. And Vodacom refused to take responsibility for their employee's lack of competence. Kind regards Loraine Gouws Welkom