Last gripe against Vodacom (overbilling)
Posted on July 7, 2012I have moaned enough about Vodacom on here, and my last post was around my happy and seamless migration from Vodacom to Cell C. I am delighted with Cell C.
To have more grief from Vodacom was somewhat unexpected. I just received my last bill from Vodacom. For a little bit of background. I had a 24 month contract from my son on Vodacom (amongst three others), had many issues with Vodacom so cancelled and removed various contracts. This was the last of them, it was a discounted monthly fee contract and the cancellation fee was too high to warrant early termination.
After much fighting with in-store consultants I eventually had the @Vodacom111 social media team assist in getting the cancellation loaded (thanks to @uyspj) while the contract was still running. This was to have the contract cancelled on month 24. All good.
Today I received the last bill (which I now hope is the last bill). Imagine my surprise when I found that the monthly rental being charged is the full rental, not the discounted rental. See, I took a 24 month contract, cancelled so it would not run past 24 months, and I was supposed to get a discounted rental amount for that 24 month contract. If I am being billed the full amount then something is screwed up. Either Vodacom have now made my contract run for 25 months, or they have only given me the discount for 23 months. Neither is acceptable.
Sadly I have to confess to being sooo tired of fighting with them that I wont bother trying to call them. I no longer have any Vodacom phones, so calling them would be at my expense, and with past history of length hold periods, it would cost me more for the calls then it would cost to just pay them their blood money.
This, now finally will be the end.
Unless ….
The (expletives deleted) haven’t actually cancelled the contract ? See, there is nothing in the envelope or on the invoice or statement to suggest that it has actually been cancelled. Instead there is a nice notice telling me that I am due for an upgrade, and telling me that the contract may continue on a month to month basis when it ends. What the Heck? This is on my cancelled contract people. They are so kind as to give a Vodacom number I can call, at my expense, to do an upgrade or cancellation.
No thanks! I really hope this is just a matter of poor judgement and poorer customer service rather than a way of wringing extra money out of a customer who has jumped through all their stupid little hoops to cancel a contract.
Bye bye Vodacom. Really. No more phone calls, emails or payments. Whatever you do now is your problem.
Anybody else been fleeced during the cancellation period? Really would love to know if this is their normal practice for wringing an extra few rand out of disgruntled customers.
Tags: cancellation, contracts, moans, overbilling, Vodacom
Categories: Consumer Protection Act, Mobile, Pick On
This relates to the iphone 5. I’ve been poring over the detail, but its not that transparent (vodacom).
29.12.2012 09:47
Justin can you fathom the differences between the Vodacom and Cell C phone contracts? Consensus all round is that Cell C more competitive, but what is the difference between the way both companies minutes are structured? Thoughts please.
29.12.2012 09:47
Cell C make their contracts clear. You know exactly what you get. Vodacom make the issue grey so you think you get a better deal.
Ordered my iPhone 5 from cell C just a few days ago. R399/month gets you 200 anytime minutes, 200 SMS and 500 Meg of data. Calls are 99c/m out of bundle. All very clear.
Vodacom doesn’t haven’t anything close to that, from what I see no-one does.
29.12.2012 13:13