Why to avoid Voacom Fibre like the plague.

I have never had such shocking service from any company prior to my on-going battle with Vodacom Fibre. I have been shoved from pillar to post and have tried every possible avenue to get things resolved. In December 2017, there was a sales team who came around to our area explaining that fibre would be installed by Vumatel in February 2018 and that they were partnering with them. We filled in an application and I asked specifically if I could cancel it if I wanted to before it was installed. The sales person said that nothing was in place until Vodacom installed the router in our home and that they would call beforehand to arrange it. Fibre actually only came to our area in October 2018 and during that entire time I had no contact with Vodacom Fibre. In November, I called Vodacom to be reminded of the cost of the monthly instalments that I app**** for and was quoted a totally different price to the one I was offered at the time of the application. I explained that I had got a different price due to the special that was running but apparently that no longer app****. I wanted to cancel the order then but they couldn’t find my details on the system.

I assumed that because it had been close to a year from the date of the application, the application had fallen away. I then started calling other service providers and decided I would go with another ISP as their product offering is vastly better and cheaper than the one I app**** for back in 2017. Included in this month-to-month contract (with no confusing details in the fine print), is the installation of the Vumatel box. A few days later, Vumatel came and installed the fibre. I assumed the new ISP had arranged it with them. I then received a call, which I thought was from the ISP I’d agreed to sign up with, to arrange to come and install the fibre and deliver the router so I set up an appointment. It was in fact Vodacom who had called. The Vodacom technician came to my house with the router at which time I realised I’d misunderstood over the phone so explained it to the technician and apologised profusely for having wasted his time. He then phoned his agent and she kindly said she’d look into things the next day and that she would sort the cancellation in one day and that she would email me something proving that it was done. This occurred on 6 December. At no point did anyone from Vodacom come into my home to install the router and activate the fibre. I tried phoning the agent about 7 times on Monday (10 Dec) to check that the cancellation had been done. I couldn’t reach her so I called the Vodacom call centre. I asked if they could look up on the system whether the cancellation had been done which it wasn’t so I asked the person on the line to cancel it. She then gave me a reference number and said it would take up to 14 days. I was incensed as I had my ISP arriving the next day to install the router. My husband eventually sent the agent a message from his phone (in the hopes that she would get back to a different number) and she got back to him immediately. I then answered and spoke to her (I think she was shocked to find it was me) and she again promised to sort the problem immediately and that it would definitely be done by the morning and that I had nothing to be concerned about. I called her again the next morning (11 December) and she sent a message saying she couldn’t take my call as she was busy with another call and would get back to me. Again, she didn’t call me back.

The ISP arrived to install their router and saw that the line had not been released.

I tried calling her many times but she didn’t take my calls so I gave up trying. I received a call from another sales person from Vodacom the next day to schedule the installation and I explained the whole story to him. He said he would sort the problem out for me immediately and would get back to me. Of course, I didn’t hear from him again. I phoned Vodacom the next day to check if I had been released and was told that the cancellation process would now take 30 days. The conflicting information was enough to blow my mind!

I sent an email of complaint to customer care on 13 December detailing what had happened and I still have not had anyone reply to me.

On day 37, after calling almost every day, I received a quote for the Vumatel installation which needed to be signed and payment made before being released.

My so-called “contract” has been cancelled but I cannot get my line released without paying for what would be free going with my chosen ISP. As mentioned before, I was told (back in November) that my details were nowhere on the Vodacom Fibre system. I have wasted about 40 hours on the phone to the Vodacom Fibre call centre and am getting progressively closer to the end of my tether. It has been 6 weeks that I have been trying to resolve this issue.

I finally resorted to going to one of the Vodacom retail outlets yesterday. I explained my story and was told that there is nothing that they can do, other than to call the dreaded call centre. There I was advised to write to Hello Peter… It speaks for itself that even employees are frustrated by the system, or lack thereof.

I shudder to think what service I would have received from Vodacom had I gone with them as my ISP!!