metoman78
Active Member
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2014
- Messages
- 36
- Reaction score
- 8
My Vodacom eSim expectations down the drain.
In Sept 2021, I decided to upgrade my 15 year standing number with Vodacom for another 24 months when it was due. At the time I bought an iPhone 13 Pro Max separately prior to the upgrade.
When contacting the sales consultant at Vodacom to do the entry level contract upgrade, I asked the consultant what will be the chance that I can get an eSim with a data package as well as airtime to use as a secondary sim in my iPhone.
At the time, I had a physical sim from Telkom. The consultant advised me that she has not done so previously but is willing to explore my request and to my surprise, was able to accommodate my request. She further explained that she does not know how to implement this, but that I should visit a Vodashop to implement the eSim and I acknowledged this.
She also advised me that a QR code will be sent to me via email that I need to insert on my iPhone which I later received. After activating the QR code, everything was working as expected, I could make and receive calls/sms and use the data plan attached.
From that point forward in 2021, everything was working as expected for 14 months up until 1 month ago now when the sim suddenly stopped working.
In the duration of the working period of the sim, I saw that I was billed R25 extra each month to use the eSim function.
When I enquired at Vodacom why my sim was not working as it was before, no one at the call centre or their backend support could help me. After continuous and persistent enquiry, I eventually got a ridiculous answer. That service has stopped out of nowhere and I need to go back to Vodashop to swap my eSim for a physical one.
When enquiring as to why this suddenly changed, the answer I received was that this product isn’t available anymore. I made many enquiries afterwards to get an adequate explanation as I could not understand how something that was working more than a year into a 24 month contract suddenly was unavailable.
Every consultant gave a different explanation. Eventually I called the Vodacom Campus switchboard and insisted on talking with one of the CEO client liaison officers. After I explained my situation, they said they would investigate and come back to me.
Mr Rudzani Lithole came back to me and explained that he cannot understand how it was possible for me to manage to receive this product from Vodacom, as according to him, this product wasn’t launched at the time.
My argument is, how can an unlaunched product have been available to me and operational for 14 months. What has suddenly changed?
He said he would listen to my call in Sept 2021 when I spoke to the sales consultant, he then explained that the consultant did nothing wrong and that I knew what I wanted and the consultant just gave me what I requested. It is just unfortunate that that product was not supposed to be in the market yet.
I agreed that the consultant did nothing wrong in honouring my request. Nowhere in our recorded conversation did she mention that the product was not supposed to be available nor did the consultant receive any indication from their system that this product was not ready.
I asked for a product and the consultant gave me the product I wanted. If I knew that this product was not ready or that it would fail more than halfway through. I wouldn’t have committed to it.
To tell me to just get a sim swap to a physical sim when I have become accustomed to my eSim setup for more than half the contract period is ridiculous. I have no secondary device to use it in. When I then put forward the suggestion that I am supplied with a device for this physical sim, I was denied by Mr Rudzani Lithole and his reporting manager Mr Mbuso Ntshingila. Their argument being, that their product didn’t damage my device therefore they cannot replace a device for me.
I told them that their explanation is contradicting their argument. I can’t be blamed or take the fall of a faulty product implementation as there was no foul play on my end in just asking for and receiving as well as paying for the product I requested.
For over a month now, I have been without the number as well as all business related to that number. Vodacom has been unsympathetic to my plight and I’m not at all happy with this outcome. I will make an effort to expose this on any public cconsumer platform.
In Sept 2021, I decided to upgrade my 15 year standing number with Vodacom for another 24 months when it was due. At the time I bought an iPhone 13 Pro Max separately prior to the upgrade.
When contacting the sales consultant at Vodacom to do the entry level contract upgrade, I asked the consultant what will be the chance that I can get an eSim with a data package as well as airtime to use as a secondary sim in my iPhone.
At the time, I had a physical sim from Telkom. The consultant advised me that she has not done so previously but is willing to explore my request and to my surprise, was able to accommodate my request. She further explained that she does not know how to implement this, but that I should visit a Vodashop to implement the eSim and I acknowledged this.
She also advised me that a QR code will be sent to me via email that I need to insert on my iPhone which I later received. After activating the QR code, everything was working as expected, I could make and receive calls/sms and use the data plan attached.
From that point forward in 2021, everything was working as expected for 14 months up until 1 month ago now when the sim suddenly stopped working.
In the duration of the working period of the sim, I saw that I was billed R25 extra each month to use the eSim function.
When I enquired at Vodacom why my sim was not working as it was before, no one at the call centre or their backend support could help me. After continuous and persistent enquiry, I eventually got a ridiculous answer. That service has stopped out of nowhere and I need to go back to Vodashop to swap my eSim for a physical one.
When enquiring as to why this suddenly changed, the answer I received was that this product isn’t available anymore. I made many enquiries afterwards to get an adequate explanation as I could not understand how something that was working more than a year into a 24 month contract suddenly was unavailable.
Every consultant gave a different explanation. Eventually I called the Vodacom Campus switchboard and insisted on talking with one of the CEO client liaison officers. After I explained my situation, they said they would investigate and come back to me.
Mr Rudzani Lithole came back to me and explained that he cannot understand how it was possible for me to manage to receive this product from Vodacom, as according to him, this product wasn’t launched at the time.
My argument is, how can an unlaunched product have been available to me and operational for 14 months. What has suddenly changed?
He said he would listen to my call in Sept 2021 when I spoke to the sales consultant, he then explained that the consultant did nothing wrong and that I knew what I wanted and the consultant just gave me what I requested. It is just unfortunate that that product was not supposed to be in the market yet.
I agreed that the consultant did nothing wrong in honouring my request. Nowhere in our recorded conversation did she mention that the product was not supposed to be available nor did the consultant receive any indication from their system that this product was not ready.
I asked for a product and the consultant gave me the product I wanted. If I knew that this product was not ready or that it would fail more than halfway through. I wouldn’t have committed to it.
To tell me to just get a sim swap to a physical sim when I have become accustomed to my eSim setup for more than half the contract period is ridiculous. I have no secondary device to use it in. When I then put forward the suggestion that I am supplied with a device for this physical sim, I was denied by Mr Rudzani Lithole and his reporting manager Mr Mbuso Ntshingila. Their argument being, that their product didn’t damage my device therefore they cannot replace a device for me.
I told them that their explanation is contradicting their argument. I can’t be blamed or take the fall of a faulty product implementation as there was no foul play on my end in just asking for and receiving as well as paying for the product I requested.
For over a month now, I have been without the number as well as all business related to that number. Vodacom has been unsympathetic to my plight and I’m not at all happy with this outcome. I will make an effort to expose this on any public cconsumer platform.
