Vodacom - the circus act

I am absolutely disgusted with Vodacom's service. It's been over a month of an uphill battle with them concerning my account being suspended around 4 times due to faults on their side, as well as random amounts being billed to my account.

It all started with upgrading my contract online. This was supposed to be effortless and the more cost effective route. Boy was I wrong!

Firstly, after submitting the request for an upgrade online, none of the call centre agents called me back like it was stated in the mail I received. I ended up having to call them myself to get the ball rolling on the upgrade.

Next the phones arrive with a hefty invoice of R2671.68 stuffed in the box. The reason, no one at Vodacom could give me an answer. The staff only admitted that it was done in error and my account would be credited. This, after I followed up with them on the same day of the invoice appearing - 16 April 2018.

With this mystery invoice came the suspension of my account as my credit limit had been exceeded due to the fault of Vodacom. This meant that I needed to call their customer care to have it re-actviated. I had to repeat this procedure the following day as well as it takes 48 hours for them to increase the credit limit.

I carried on with life as I believed that Vodacom had sorted out all the issues as they had promised me.

Just before the long weekend end of April/beginning of May, I double checked my statement on the Vodacom app and saw that the R2671.68 still had not been credited from my account so their customer service got another call from me. They once again promised and assured me that the amount had been credited and would not, under any circumstance, be credited from my account...

2 May 2018 comes around and I try to make a call on my cellphone, only to be met with an automated message stating that my account had been suspended. I go and call their customer care to have it unblocked, only to be told that they have no idea why the account has been suspended as the credit limit issue has been rectified and they would get back to me. No one did, so I made a number of calls to the customer care and ended up requesting to speak to a supervisor. Apparently all supervisors were busy at the time and they would get one to call me back. Just letting you know that it's now 11 May, and I'm still waiting for this to happen.

My brother got hold of me and gave me a contact at Vodacom to assist with sorting out account suspension. I made contact with them and was put in touch with a guy that was going to put all my worries to rest. He mentioned that the account had been suspended as the migration for my phone contract had hit a snag on their side and would only come into affect in June. I had him check up on that mysterious invoice as well and he informed me at that point, it STILL had not been credited. And the best news.. They had taken my money already - R2913.26 just gone from my account. Including another R97.85 on 23 April 2018 (I don't know how they justify taking money from your account when I've only given permission for the debit to come off on the first of every month).

He proceeded to tell me that my account would now be credited with the amount on the invoice and that he had done it while I was on the call. On to fixing the phone suspension, he would give me roughly 200 minutes, 2 gigs of data and some SMSs in order for me to be able to use the phone in the interim until the RedSelect+ contract came into affect 1 June 2018.

Fast forward to today, 11 May 2018. I received a statement last night from Vodacom STILL not reflecting the credited amount on my statement. But now they're also now charging me the upgrade fee (that's supposedly free if done online) AND charging me for the full RedSelect+ package that I have not been given.

I contacted the same guy again this morning and he states that the statement I received from Vodacom is out of date. Firstly, how does the company even operate?! How do you send your customer an out of date statement? I then mentioned the upgrade fee that I want credited from my account as well as some of the package fee seeing as I never received this. His response regarding the package amount, "it shows up on my systems so you should have it". I proceeded to tell him that that was in fact incorrect. He argued with me and I raised my voice and asked to speak to his boss. His response was that he didn't want me to speak him that way and hung up. How does that solve anything? I still want to speak to your boss..

I'm still waiting with bated breath for the upgrade fee and a portion of the package fee to be credited to my account. Knowing this company, it may take them another month. They'll rather take my money first, let me complain and then credit it. Not very efficient but it seems they enjoy working this way.

I'm also waiting for them to rectify this package issue as on their system it's showing that the RedSelect+ package to be in effect, yet when checking my balances on the phone, it only reflects what was given to me to get through the month. I'm guessing more promises will be given to me and action will only take place in a month's time.

I'm at my wits end with this company. I'm not sure how they do business but something needs to change. How is it fair that you treat your customer like this? Am I supposed to just take this lying down and allow all these extra costs?

To top this all off, no one has apologised to me for any of Vodacom's errors or for all the inconvenience caused in this whole process due to their mistakes.

I can honestly say that I regret continuing on with them as my supplier and will be taking my business elsewhere as soon as this new contract expires.