My SO got a nice surprise last night. It started with 3 new debit orders from Vodacom suddenly going off her account. She then logged on to check her account only to discover that her balance was sitting at R45000. Looking at the detail she found that 5 new SIM cards had been added to her account, each of these presumably some new contract. Looking though the itemised billing it appears as if shortly after taking out the add-on contracts the criminal scum then applied for early termination which resulted in the full outstanding contract being billing which accounts for the large bill. I can only assume they request early termination in order to clear the handset of being blacklisted somehow.
She then called the call centre. The agent must have asked about 5 or 6 different security questions (oh the irony) before she could be helped. It took ages for them to actually understand what was going on and she kept have to say, no I didn't request these add-on contracts. The agent couldn't tell how or when these contracts had been added. Eventually she was instructed to go to the police station and complete an affidavit and send that through to the fraud department. She then asked if her account could be put on hold pending submission of the documentation and was told no, that couldn't be done. She then called her bank and stopped her account.
I cannot fathom how it is possible that there no checks or notifications in this entire process
1) Why is the primary account number not called to confirm the additional contracts?
2) Why is no SMS notice sent to the primary account upon activation of the additional contracts?
3) Surely no-one in their right mind opens 5 additional accounts and then shortly thereafter requests early termination (we all know Vodacom charge you the full amount, so it's actually not worth terminating early). Why does this event not raise any flags in the fraud department?
4) Where are the credit checks? How does someone on a sub-R500/pm account suddenly qualify for R45000 worth of credit?
5) If there is fraud on your bank account, you call, it gets stopped, they send you a simple form to fill in which you can send back. Vodacom certainly don't make things easy for their customers.
6) Surely it's for Vodacom to prove that she opened these additional accounts? She is now liable for this account while fraud do their thing.
If I was a betting man, my money would be on inside job. No checks and balances, no notifications, no sanity checks on early termination.
Not sure if things are any better at any of the other providers, but a big FU to Vodacom and your lack of controls.
She then called the call centre. The agent must have asked about 5 or 6 different security questions (oh the irony) before she could be helped. It took ages for them to actually understand what was going on and she kept have to say, no I didn't request these add-on contracts. The agent couldn't tell how or when these contracts had been added. Eventually she was instructed to go to the police station and complete an affidavit and send that through to the fraud department. She then asked if her account could be put on hold pending submission of the documentation and was told no, that couldn't be done. She then called her bank and stopped her account.
I cannot fathom how it is possible that there no checks or notifications in this entire process
1) Why is the primary account number not called to confirm the additional contracts?
2) Why is no SMS notice sent to the primary account upon activation of the additional contracts?
3) Surely no-one in their right mind opens 5 additional accounts and then shortly thereafter requests early termination (we all know Vodacom charge you the full amount, so it's actually not worth terminating early). Why does this event not raise any flags in the fraud department?
4) Where are the credit checks? How does someone on a sub-R500/pm account suddenly qualify for R45000 worth of credit?
5) If there is fraud on your bank account, you call, it gets stopped, they send you a simple form to fill in which you can send back. Vodacom certainly don't make things easy for their customers.
6) Surely it's for Vodacom to prove that she opened these additional accounts? She is now liable for this account while fraud do their thing.
If I was a betting man, my money would be on inside job. No checks and balances, no notifications, no sanity checks on early termination.
Not sure if things are any better at any of the other providers, but a big FU to Vodacom and your lack of controls.
