Vodacom supplies faulty smartphone model, refuses to do anything about it, doesn't care about their customers.

For the last 3 years I have had the most pathetic service from Vodacom, and I am now fed up of dealing with them and this issue.

In 2015 I opened up a contract with a new mobile device. What I did not know is that this device would be the worst cellular device in the history of mankind, the LG H955. Within the first week I had problems with the phone where it rebooted constantly. I handed it in and received a new handset. With the second handset I received the same problem and also returned it within a week. After that the second (or third, it is difficult to keep track of how many new handsets I received) new handset I received gave less problems than the previous one, but stopped working again after a while.

In my contract period I had countless problems with my handset and it was in repair for a significant portion of my contract period. I received a few replacements of the same model as Vodacom refused to replace it with a handset of a different manufacturer (in what I assume was an attempt to save money, but they don't with all the repairs and new handsets I've been given), but they all stopped working eventually or gave countless problems. In November 2016 I received yet another new handset of the same model, and it did give countless problems up to now, but I dealt with it seeing as I did not want to deal with Vodacom and their terrible service again and needed a phone as I rely on a high end smartphone for business. My contract expired, but the device was still under warranty as it was a brand new handset they supp**** me with.

This brings us back to now. The handset I had finally gave in and stopped working completely, and did not want to come back on, or do anything. Nothing I've done previously made a difference. Now I have to sit for weeks without a phone as it is busy being "repaired" in Johannesburg, and will likely result in receiving yet another handset of the same model.

As if my experience itself is not bad enough, Vodacom stopped selling the model after the first few months because of the number of problems they had with it, but they don't inform their customers! LG themselves stopped sending out Android updates for it and only support repairs, but want nothing further to do with it. I have been dealing with the same Android version that the phone came out with, 5.1.1, which is faulty and lacks security and functionality updates that came out with the newer Android updates.

My experiences with it are not limited to South Africa, as I have seen thousands of people worldwide struggle with it.

I am sick and tired of dealing with this pathetic service where Vodacom are losing money and wasting my time and money on this terrible device. I do not want another handset of the same model that will break again in either weeks or months. Maybe this one will also last a bit more than a year, in which time I will have to struggle with it AGAIN, and deal with a broken model AGAIN eventually and repeat this process with Vodacom for another 3 years. I have spoken to their support department several times after lodging complaints, and they just kept feeding me the same rhetoric of how they can't help me, and that I am stuck with a device that is faulty. All in all I received probably 4 or 5 brand new handsets of this model, and that is completely ridiculous and unacceptable.

I don't expect Vodacom to actually do anything about it as they are completely useless and their greed is more important to them than proper customer service. After my struggle with Vodacom and this phone I have convinced my friends and family to not deal with Vodacom again. I know I am not important to Vodacom as a single individual with a problem because they just do not care about their customers and the satisfaction of their customers.