Vodacom Service Non-Provider

Dear Vodacom,

For a number of years now, we have been writing to you, calling your customer care and contact centres, more times that we can even count to try and rectify the issues that we have with signal in our area. It seems we are just pawned off to another *********** person in your call centre, with another reference number each time, and when you give the reference number to the people at the call centres, most of the time they cannot even find anything for that reference number, and you have to start all over again.

We are in a rural area, where we are trying to run businesses, offices, households and security measures. We are not the only people affected by this. There are many farmers, businesses, households, clinics, doctors and old age homes with frail and elderly people who are suffering the same extreme frustration at Vodacom’s inability to provide the effective service that they are so willing to advertise for on televisions and radios across the country, yet they are unable to provide the service required and promised. Nothing further has happened.

A couple of years ago, we even had top guys from Vodacom come out to test the signal towers, because at their own admission, these had not been upgraded for a very long time and were not working as they should. Where are we now? With the same towers, with the same poor service and no further along in rectifying this situation. We know of a couple of people who have actually changed service providers because of the frustration experienced with Vodacom and their general disregard for our area/community being without signal or with poor and inadequate signal.

Often we experience the following: 1. Calls are dropped as soon as you answer them; 2. You can phone someone and it will send you through to their voicemail and you can put down and immediately phone again and it goes through; 3. Voicemail messages are sometimes never even delivered, and if they are, they are generally a day or two later; 4. Sometimes we have missed calls but the phone didn’t even ring; 5. We sometimes have conversations with staff, clients or suppliers in trying to run our business, and it sounds as though they are busy snorkeling off the great barrier reef or as though they have handed their phone to a fish! (underwater sound); 6. Sometimes it sounds as though the person has put the phone down and is slowly walking further and further away from it as the sound just gets quieter and quieter and eventually you just put the phone down and try again.

We cannot continue like this, especially when we are close enough to even be able to see the tower from where we live, and wor**** We do not have landlines, because they were ****** years ago and Telkom just got tired of replacing them, only for them to be ****** again. So we rely heavily on our cellphones and radioes to be in contact with our neighbours, families and businesses & staff. Being on farms, and in rural areas, it is not only the businesses that are struggling. The man on the street, the farm worker, the little old lady down the road, or the staff that run the frail care are all struggling with the signal issues.

It has got to the point where our patience is wearing thin, and we are tired and frustrated. Should it not be resolved, we will truly consider moving to MTN (all our individual contracts, our staff contracts and I’m sure other farmers and business will also consider migrating).

Please fix this problem immediately!

Kind Regards, Werner Meyer