VODACOM Treat LOYAL Customers like ********S

My husband has been a loyal Vodacom customer for 14 years, always having valid debit orders in place. For the last 7 years he has maintained 2 contracts loyally with Vodacom yet they are treating us like ********s with our current customer needs.

We moved our contracts over to prepaid a while back and have been trying for a week to move them back on contract. We keep getting errors and inaccurate advice across various Vodacom departments and platforms. We have wasted 3 hours in stores on separate occasions trying to get this sorted as well as about at least 5 hours on telephone calls with customer care, contracts, accounts, sales, upgrades, and possibly more departments I do not recall, being transferred back and forth and not having enough competent employees available to solve our issue.

Last Saturday after trying to unsuccessfully take out a new contract keeping an existing number via the iStore we were informed by the agent at the Vodacom store that our account is in areas of R5.12 that Vodacom did not debit or send us any notice or invoice of for some reason and that it now lies with the legal department. Further more, we can only phone them on Monday as that department is closed on weekends. My husband phoned legal on Monday and they advised that it was an error and that they will rectify it on their side.

Our account was then changed to "Settled", so back to the iStore we went on Wednesday to take out new contracts on our existing numbers only to be getting a list of other errors due to Vodacom's system. First it changed my husband's income to R0 meaning the credit status gets rejected, that needed to be cancelled and redone just to get an error requiring his passport details - while his valid SA ID was already captured. This resulted in yet another failed application, all the while affecting his credit status negatively with each vetting attempt.

From there the Vodacom back-end support line advised that the account now needs to be closed so that a new prospect account can be created, yet it is the Vodacom accounts department that needs to change the status on the account.

After numerous phone calls and conversations with too many people via the Vodacom online/ automated customer care portal and no one being able to successfully transfer me through to the accounts department so we can solve this issue, I went back to the Vodacom Shop today to see if they can assist.

Upon arriving there the consultant checked the account status had me pay the R5.12 that was apparently not sorted out as the legal department suggested and gave me the same direct number for the accounts department that does not allow me access because the number in question is now a prepaid number and their system is not setup to assist with the historical accounts connected to the number. I told the person in the Vodacom shop that I had tried that number before and it is not allowing me access and he didn't seem to give a damn, nor did he propose a way to assist me personally.

I was left to call customer care AGAIN and was greeted : "Oh, yes. You have phoned earlier today as well, multiple times, speaking to various people and departments. I advise you call from a different number as the system will flag you as a ***** and block this number." I asked him where he would like me to phone from, as this is my only number and I do not understand why I am being flagged as potential ***** because they cannot seem to resolve the issues they/ their system created on our account.

He tried to assist and referred me back to contracts. Upon getting through to contracts we thought we finally found someone that can assist. We got to the verification stage where my husband needed to verify his details so the consultant can access the account only to be told that the information he provided, that successfully verified him earlier today on call with a different department, was now not correct and he could not be verified.

It seems Vodacom does not want or need any more business and that they will rather treat you as a ******** because THEIR system is insufficient, and much of their staff ***********, than help you spend your money on their products.

It also looks like the only option we are left with is to port our numbers to a different network and service provider just to get our needs for new contracts on our existing numbers met. So save your time, patience, money and sanity and just use someone other that Vodacom from the start. They do not want your money.