Vodacom Free Phone Contract Renewal Without Notification

I have been customer of Vodacom for a long time. On my last contract upgrade, I received a free phone as part of the upgrade package. I never planned on using the phone, but was required to activate a sim for it none the less. 2 years went by and I never once used the free phone or sim. After the main contract expired I decided to go to pre-paid and notified Vodacom with plenty of time to spare I will be doing so. After 2 months I noticed that Vodacom was debiting my account with R60 a month. I had no idea what this charge was for so I called the Vodacom call center (which if you don't have a contract is nearly impossible to talk to a real person by the way). After eventually getting through, they explained to me that this was from a different number linked to my account, presumably the free phone and sim I received with the upgrade 2 years previous. This free phone was apparently on a separate discounted contract as well and was now not discounted anymore and was automatically renewed (without my knowledge or me being notified) to a contract that costs R60pm. I'm not really bothered by the amount, but this is a blatant breach of the consumer protection act and should have been reversed by Vodacom when I explained to them what had happened and they acknowledged the line was never used, but it was not. Rather the following month was added to the bill and the debit order kept coming off. After getting in touch with them once again the contract was finally canceled and debit orders where stopped. Since Vodacom gave me no choice I reversed the debit orders with my bank. Now I am being harassed by VVM debt collectors to pay the 'outstanding' amount of R120 and threatened with a negative credit record. Vodacom is taking advantage of these situations and I can only imagine how many people let these small amounts slide and end up paying the amounts.

According to Section 14(2)(c) of the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (CPA), service providers need to provide customers with 40–80 business days’ written notice or “any other recordable form” of the fact that their cell phone contract is coming to an end, thereby giving you the opportunity to cancel the contract on time.

I never received any such notification for this contract. Not a single phone call, sms, or email. I was also not informed when switching to pre-paid on my main contract that the contract linked to the free phone was even still active or coming to an end. I emailed VVM to inform them that if Vodacom can provide me with proof of this notification as required by the consumer protection act then I’ll be more than happy to pay the outstanding amount. I have not received any response from either Vodacom or VVM, but still receive sms's demanding payment.

As I stated before, this is not about the amount, but the principle.

For a R120, they are willing to lose a loyal client who would have spent a whole lot more than that in the future.