Worst service I have ever come across

I have been trying to cancel my Vodacom contract as I have immigrated. I have been trying since the 1st of April 2019 and am still nowhere closer to having this matter sorted out.

I was aware that the contract would only end in August and that there may be penalties to pay. I phoned on the 1st of April 2019, and held the line for 20 minutes before being able to speak to a consultant. The consultant told me at that point that they only process requests for early cancellations after the 4th of the month.

I then discovered that the debit order for March was put through too early on my account (and not on the last day of the month as specified by me), the debit order failed at the end of March 2019. I phoned on the 2nd of April to request my account be debited again. I was told that this is possible, but the lady helping me could not request it without logging a call. I asked her what that meant. She told me that it meant the query would be escalated. I promptly received an sms stating that the query had been escalated with a reference number. On the 5th of April 2019 I received an sms telling me that my account is in arrears and I had to pay by that day.

I then phoned Vodacom again, held for about 22 minutes before being assisted. The lady I spoke to this time told me that she could see on the system that I had made an arrangement to pay, but that the lady I spoke to the first time had placed a message on the system that I would be paying by cash. I explained that I wanted my account to be debited again and this lady told me she would arrange it. She then told me that she would have to get the original lady I spoke to to place the request as she cannot do it from her side.

I asked her to put me through to the cancellations department in order for me to cancel my account. I was then told that I would not be able to cancel my account before the money owing had been received. I explained to the lady that I was going to leave the country on the 9th of April 2019 and really need this problem sorted out promptly. She then told me that the debit order would go through that day, or only on Monday the 8th, but that I would be able to cancel my contract then. I requested to be put through to the cancellations department so that I may enquire about what I would need to do to cancel. The cancellations department then told me that there would be a fee to cancel, but was unable to tell me how much as my account was in arrears. I explained to them the entire situation and they assured me that it would be a quick process once they have received the money.

The debit order did not go through on the 5th of April. I phoned Vodacom again on Monday the 8th of April to enquire about this, where they stated that they could see that it should go off and it should be soon. Vodacom then proceeded to debit my account twice that day.

I phoned Vodacom again on the 9th of April to cancel my account as I was leaving for Australia that evening. I was then informed that I could still not cancel my account as it takes 3 working days for the money to reflect in their account after the debit order had been placed.

At no point prior to this had I been informed of this delay of 3 working days even though I told 2 separate Vodacome employees that I had to have this process completed by the 9th of April. I explained the fact that I would be leaving the country and need to cancel the contract that day and enquired as to what can be done about the situation. The lady I spoke to at that point told me that I would need to email them a bank statement to ********** and then they would be able to help me. I asked her how fast they would be able to help me and she told me they would notify me, I explained again that this had to happen on that day and she assured me that it will.

I explained that I will not be able to phone them once overseas as I need to hold for on average 20 minutes every time I phone them and I will not be able to make an international call for that amount of time as the cost to me would be astronomical!

I sent through the bank statement and heard nothing back from Vodacom, fearing that my time was running out I phoned Vodacom again. I was then told that I could not be assisted as the staff do not have access to the email address ********** and that I would have to wait the 3 working days. I then told them again that I do not have 3 working days as I was leaving the country that evening, they were unsympathetic to my plight. I then enquired about whether I would be able to cancel my contract via email as I will not be phoning internationally. At this point I was completely exasperated and not my friendly self on the phone any longer. The lady I was speaking to advised me that I would be able to cancel my contract via email, but that I would need to get the email address from the cancellations department as she could not give it to me. I asked this lady whether the call was being recorded, she assured me that is was. So I confirmed with her that she knows that Vodacom will be able to check this record and she had assured me that I can definitely cancel via email. She told me that this is absolutely correct. She then put me through to the cancellations department and the call was dropped.

I phoned again and got into contact with the cancellations department. I asked for the email address that I would need in order to request a cancellation. The lady I spoke to at that point asked me to hold the line in order for her to get the email address. I was placed on hold for about 10 minutes whereafter she gave me the longest email address in history. The email address was: ********** I checked the spelling of this with her twice.

I left for Australia that evening assured that I would be able to sort this problem out from Australia via email. I emailed the email address above on the 13th of April 2019 only to receive a note that this email address could not be found. I then went onto the Vodacom website to find alternate email contacts to use, only to see on the website that Vodacom stated that they are no longer communicating via email apparently in order to "speed up their process of communication and improve their service".

I was quite desperate by that point and proceeded to find Vodacom on Facebook. I have sent them a message via Facebook messenger and up to date (25 April 2019) I have not received a reply.

It would seem that the only way to rid myself of this horrible disaster of a company will be to rake up a massive bill and phone them once again. This is just not acceptable to me.