VODACOM NOT FIBRE READY

Good day,

At the start of March of this year I signed on for Vodacom Fibre to my home, from which I work, after Vodacom advertised the service extensively in the estate in which I live. This was done via an advertising stall they erected just outside the main gate, which they manned for a few days, marketing the newly laid fibre service in the estate.

I visited the Vodacom Fibre website to have a further look at the product options, and decided to sign on after the website expressly indicated my address was “fibre ready”. The salesperson to whom I spoke clearly stated that, after the contract had been signed, the scheduling department would contact me for installation, and that the whole process would take no longer than a month. The scheduling department did so, and the routers and line was installed on April 11, but there was some fault with infrastructure, which only maintenance could mend. I was then handed a cell phone by one of the installers, to talk to another Vodacom official who assured me that maintenance would come to mend the infrastructure and activate my internet, no later than Thursday 12 April.

To this day, no Vodacom representative has near my house since April 11.

Since then, I’ve sent 100’s of emails to every conceivable department in Vodacom, and every single one of them refers me to another. Customer Care, Vodacom Complaints, Vodacom Business, Vodacom Fibre, to name a few, all useless, all unwilling or unable to assist. This whole experience with Vodacom, in my view, amounts to ‘bait’ marketing, in that Vodacom offered a competing product in the market, but one which they are ultimately unable to provide. The consequence of this is that Vodacom has now trapped me in a contract pertaining to a product which they cannot provide, prohibiting me financially from contracting with any other offer in the market. This of course is prohibited by Section 30 of the Consumer Protection Act of 68 of 2008, which states: “A supplier must not advertise any particular goods or services as being available at a specified price in a manner that may result in consumers being misled or deceived in any respect relating to the actual availability of those goods or services from that supplier, at that advertised price.”

The accumulative product of the above mentioned is that I’m now having to purchase data at ridiculously expensive rates, but then again, this may be an eventuality on which Vodacom was counting on.

I write this review not with the hope of being pleasantly surprised by Vodacom, and trust this review will by no means earn me fibre internet service, but rather a prompt automated response, followed by yet another fruitless referral.

Regards