Vodacom Refuses to Replace Month Old Phone with Factory Fault

On the 29th of September 2017 I went opted to upgrade my phone as my contract had expired. I went to the Tyger Valley store to do the upgrade and chose the Huawei P10 Plus, a premium device selected especially for it's features which would greatly assist in my job as a social media manager and journalist.

Not even a month later, on 26 October, the phone completely shut off. It would not turn back on or charge and left me unable to do my job for the rest of the day.

I called Vodacom in Tygervalley who assured me I could take the phone to any Vodacom store for assessment.

The next day I took the (completely useless) phone to the Vodacom store in the V&A Waterfront for assessment. They were unable to determine what was wrong with the phone and told me that booking it in for repairs would take 7-21 days. Instead, they sent me to the Huawei store in Canal Walk. I drove there especially and booked the phone in with Huawei's technician. The fact that Vodacom makes their customer drive around to various service providers to attempt to fix a phone that they sold as faulty is completely ridiculous.

The technician at Huawei called me the next day to inform me that the phone had a faulty main board which would need to be replaced and that this was at no fault of mine. They also let me know that they did not have the parts to repair it in South Africa and that I would need to wait until the shipment came in from China.

I then called Vodacom to tell them the results of the assessment. Even though Huawei had confirmed that it was a factory fault and that nothing can be done, Vodacom refused to assist. I even heard the sales assist mutter "this chick's trying to make her problem my problem" to his colleagues when he thought he'd put me on hold.

I am completely livid! I then explained that due to the nature of my job I need to have a phone and enquired about a loan phone. The sales assist laughed it off and instead sent me to Huawei again, telling me to ask them to give me one.

I am completely disgusted at the service I've received throughout this entire process and that Vodacom fails to take accountability for selling me a faulty phone valued at over R15 000 which I will need to pay for over the next two years!

As a media professional at a highly influential publication in South Africa, I will not take this experience lightly.

I refuse to accept anything less than a brand new device and would like to be contacted by a manager. It is ridiculous that I have had to drive around across Cape Town to get the phone seen to, call various stores and be spoken down to and be expected to accept a faulty device when it's not even a month old.

A repair is not enough.

I expect an urgent response from senior management.