Vodacom lies to and bullies their clients.

Been called by the Vodacom upgrades department regarding a data contract that is expiring. Was told if I do not upgrade the 20 gig data package would be put over to a month to month bill rate of R600 if I do nothing regarding the contract before it expires. I was also offered a 40gig package at R250 per month for 24 months. Now I have a few problems with this:

1) In the past, when ones contract had expired one would just roll over each month at the same price with the same package. This is not what was told to me during the upgrade agent's call.

2) Vodacom are taking away the consumers power in trying to force them to stay in a contract instead of allowing them to decide when they'd like to cancel the contract once the contract's term is complete.

I was instructed by this upgrades agent to call the cancellations number. I had asked this agent for the cellphone number linked to my data package and was told that the cancellations department would be able to pick this number up.

So I call the cancellations department and wait for 15 minutes before speaking to anyone. Before I'm put on hold to speak to a consultant I'm asked for all cellphone number with which to make the cancellation on. I provide their system with all the information that it asked for and then received an sms saying, "You will recieve an SMS and EMail with your exact cancellation date. Until such time, your Vodacom Contract Cancellation is not confirmed." Most people would hang up thinking that their contract would be canceled, I didn't fall for this and held the line.

This is a cancellation and my feeling is Vodacom makes it as difficult as possible to cancel. They almost seem to rely on people giving up on the cancellation because their system for cancellation has been set up to make it as difficult as possible for people to cancel contracts that have come to an end.

Good, so I EVENTUALLY get through.

When speaking to the retention agent I'm told that the information regarding the roll over to the prepaid rate of R600 was not true and that it would just carry on as a month to month contract with the price and package intact.

I'm also offered 40gigs of data at the original rate of R200 to retain the contract for another 24 months.

So here some new problem arise:

1) Vodacom lies through their teeth. 2) They are prepared to bully customers into renewing their contracts. 3) When the customer refuses to be bul**** and catches their lies they try to make a compromise.

Another problem I have is once the contract is cancelled they still bill you for a full month instead of a pro rata rate. One has no choice, the sim becomes a prepaid sim card whether you like it or not. This is, in my opinion, a tactic to **** how many numbers are active on your network. That's ***** mate! Vodacom is making use of creative accounting by forcing their clients to port to prepaid when they want to completely cancel a number and sim card out of existence. The consumer should have the right to permanently cancel any number connected to their name once the consumer has fulfilled their side of the contract. When I canceled a Telkom number Telkom was able to cancel and remove the number from their network while I was in store.

I will proceed to port and cancel all of my Vodacom products as their contracts come to an end. This will be done as I don't take kindly to being bul**** and **** to.

Sadly I'm just a drop in the ocean, but I would love to see others end their contracts with Vodacom based on the fact that this company will lie to their customers and bully them into renewing contracts.

Hope you get what you deserve Vodacom!