VODACOM SHODDY SERVICE

At 14.57 on Friday 6th March I sent an e-mail to *** explaining that I was in the process of changing my banker from Standard Bank to ABSA Bank and asked Vodacom to amend their records to deduct the monthly payments from my ABSA account number *** with immediate effect and to confirm that this would be done. I attached the ABSA confirmation and a certified copy of my ID to the e-mail. Please see the fourth page of the attached document herewith.

Shortly thereafter I received an e-mail requiring my response to be processed. After that a Customer Care agent would contact me within 24 hours. Vodacom required an ID, specific name of the current monthly price plan and which payment method is currently linked to my account. Please see the third page of the attached document herewith. At 16.46 on 6th March I responded, providing another copy of my ID and listing three of the four sim cards that I have and informing Vodacom that my payment is by debit order.

No contact was made by a Vodacom agent as promised.

On 10th March I received an e-mail from you asking me to wait until ABSA resolved the error on my account and also saying that the account number reflects as a third-party account, and the system cannot accept it. This last is absolute nonsense – my account is a standard current account in my name.

On12th March I called on the Caledon Vodacom shop and spoke to Shaaline Pfeiffer, who competed a Customer Detail Change Request and informed me that the change would be made forthwith.

On 1st April, the payment of R1,571.48 was again debited to the Standard Bank account!

On Saturday 4th April, I again called on your Caldon shop to remonstrate with them and was told that ABSA had the wrong ID number for me and that it must be corrected. Unfortunately the bank was closed by the time I arrived at the Caledon branch of ABSA, so I called on them yesterday and confirmed that they have the correct ID number for me. Please see the second page of the documents attached herewith. I then went back to the Vodacom shop and spoke to one of the agents there. She tried to get hold of Customer Care and eventually got through to Ntokozo, who then spoke to me. Eventually he said he needed to refer my case to a more senior person and put me on hold. After about ten to fifteen minutes the call terminated, without Ntokozo speaking to me again.

To say that I am underwhelmed by Vodacom’s attention to my simple problem is an understatement and I am very angry at the waste of my time and petrol to make the 75km round trip a number of times to try and sort this out.

I am considering sending this e-mail to Hello Peter to publicise the shoddy treatment meted out to me by Vodacom.

I now demand that Vodacom registers my request to change the bank details to ABSA Bank forthwith and confirms to me that this has been done.