Vodacom - Internal e-sim link fraud & Google Play purchases.

RaptorSA

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EDIT: Heading should rather be:
Vodacom - Internal e-sim swap link fraud & Google Play purchases.

Woke up this morning to find a nice string of messages telling me that an e-sim was activated/linked on my account while I was conveniently asleep (and today is supposed to be my debit order date).

1751868544884.png

Checked my billing account, and yup, someone had linked a number to my account and bought a R2K voucher for themselves.
Best part is it won't show up on your actual Google Playstore account since they're probably using another google account for the purchase then just adding it to your bill, so I'm assuming a dispute will be near impossible unless Vodacom takes responsibility.

I can't believe that in this day and age they still allow hores**t like vouchers to be bought so easily on these mother**ing cellphone platforms, or that they don't have a more robust two-way authentication system for adding esim devices. Purchases added to a billing account should NEVER be allowed without explicit consent and opt-in to the feature. What a brain-dead fraud vector to have in this day and age. Anyone and anyting that even remotely knows something about scams and fraud know that vouchers are the preferred method of stealing.

You also can't do a vodacom onenumber activation outside of business hours from the site/app so yet another sign that this is done internally and not via access to my Vodacom login details, which I initially thought was compromised. So that must be an app /account restriction instead of a back-end restriction on their systems. Absolute insanity.
They also changed my billing account email address, another back-end process that requires "verification". Bloody nuts that they don't have systems to identify this.

The support staff mouth breather on the phone kept telling me I can only dispute if it shows up on my Google account.... the support staff are conveniently clueless.

1751868620802.png

This company is rotten to the core.
Will be moving to another provider as soon as I can, I don't even care if they all suck.

Has anyone had something similar happen to them?
Would love to know if you can even do anything. I can't find any info on this online apart from a message on the play store complaints section so this must be a pretty new scam.

I put a debit order stop with my bank for an amount range between 500 and 3000, but it's probably too late.
I also submitted everything to Vodacom's FraudDisputes email address.
 
Last edited:
EDIT: Heading should rather be:
Vodacom - Internal e-sim swap link fraud & Google Play purchases.

Woke up this morning to find a nice string of messages telling me that an e-sim was activated/linked on my account while I was conveniently asleep (and today is supposed to be my debit order date).

View attachment 1832900

Checked my billing account, and yup, someone had linked a number to my account and bought a R2K voucher for themselves.
Best part is it won't show up on your actual Google Playstore account since they're probably using another google account for the purchase then just adding it to your bill, so I'm assuming a dispute will be near impossible unless Vodacom takes responsibility.

I can't believe that in this day and age they still allow hores**t like vouchers to be bought so easily on these mother**ing cellphone platforms, or that they don't have a more robust two-way authentication system for adding esim devices. Purchases added to a billing account should NEVER be allowed without explicit consent and opt-in. What a brain-dead fraud vector to have in this day and age.

You also can't do vodacom onenumber activation outside of certain business hours so yet another sign that this is done internally and not via access to my Vodacom login details. They also changed my billing account email address, another back-end process that requires "verification". It's absolutely insane that they don't have systems to identify this.

The support staff mouth breather on the phone kept telling me I can only dispute if it shows up on my Google account.... the support staff are conveniently clueless.

View attachment 1832901

This company is rotten to the core.
Will be moving to another provider as soon as I can, I don't even care if they all suck.

Has anyone had something similar happen to them?
Would love to know if you can even do anything. I can't find any info on this online apart from a message on the play store complaints section so this must be a pretty new scam.

I put a debit order stop with my bank for an amount range between 500 and 3000, but it's probably too late.
I also submitted everything to Vodacom's FraudDisputes email address.

I'd suggest trying to get a definitive statement from Vodacom ASAP, and if negative, take the COO (or relevant party) to the small claims court in your juridiction. They will probably bluster and threaten, try and play hardball until the day before. Also make sure every news reporter between here and Cairo knows about this.
 
It’s a blind one it’s via Vodacom billing because you can't do a chargeback, now you have to deal with the orcs on their support staff :(
 
EDIT: Heading should rather be:
Vodacom - Internal e-sim swap link fraud & Google Play purchases.

Woke up this morning to find a nice string of messages telling me that an e-sim was activated/linked on my account while I was conveniently asleep (and today is supposed to be my debit order date).

View attachment 1832900

Checked my billing account, and yup, someone had linked a number to my account and bought a R2K voucher for themselves.
Best part is it won't show up on your actual Google Playstore account since they're probably using another google account for the purchase then just adding it to your bill, so I'm assuming a dispute will be near impossible unless Vodacom takes responsibility.

I can't believe that in this day and age they still allow hores**t like vouchers to be bought so easily on these mother**ing cellphone platforms, or that they don't have a more robust two-way authentication system for adding esim devices. Purchases added to a billing account should NEVER be allowed without explicit consent and opt-in to the feature. What a brain-dead fraud vector to have in this day and age. Anyone and anyting that even remotely knows something about scams and fraud know that vouchers are the preferred method of stealing.

You also can't do a vodacom onenumber activation outside of business hours from the site/app so yet another sign that this is done internally and not via access to my Vodacom login details, which I initially thought was compromised. So that must be an app /account restriction instead of a back-end restriction on their systems. Absolute insanity.
They also changed my billing account email address, another back-end process that requires "verification". Bloody nuts that they don't have systems to identify this.

The support staff mouth breather on the phone kept telling me I can only dispute if it shows up on my Google account.... the support staff are conveniently clueless.

View attachment 1832901

This company is rotten to the core.
Will be moving to another provider as soon as I can, I don't even care if they all suck.

Has anyone had something similar happen to them?
Would love to know if you can even do anything. I can't find any info on this online apart from a message on the play store complaints section so this must be a pretty new scam.

I put a debit order stop with my bank for an amount range between 500 and 3000, but it's probably too late.
I also submitted everything to Vodacom's FraudDisputes email address.
Check your children's phones before pointing the finger... They are the first suspect until proven innocent. If you don't have any children then forge ahead.
 
You are not alone. I have discovered today that this has happened to my account as well. Everything that's happened to you verbatim. And it's been going on since June. I do not have my sim card activated all the time because of roaming charges so I only saw the messages today..

Further the problem I have is I'm not in south Africa anymore and moved abroad. So any recourse is difficult.

Did you also have a credit note on your statement? It's very fishy and there's a subscription charge now as well for 92 per month for this fictitious esim..

I've gotten my statement from the vodapay app and spotted the number of the esim linked to my vodacom portal contacted vodacom and they removed it from the account but the 2k purchase is still there and I found smses with otps and statement email changes.

Now I have an ongoing investigation with vodacom on this but best of all is they are going to communicate via email because apparently vodacom support are not allowed to telephone international numbers..


I'm hopeful that this will be resolved.. But I'll update the case here ongoing.
 
EDIT: Heading should rather be:
Vodacom - Internal e-sim swap link fraud & Google Play purchases.

Woke up this morning to find a nice string of messages telling me that an e-sim was activated/linked on my account while I was conveniently asleep (and today is supposed to be my debit order date).

View attachment 1832900

Checked my billing account, and yup, someone had linked a number to my account and bought a R2K voucher for themselves.
Best part is it won't show up on your actual Google Playstore account since they're probably using another google account for the purchase then just adding it to your bill, so I'm assuming a dispute will be near impossible unless Vodacom takes responsibility.

I can't believe that in this day and age they still allow hores**t like vouchers to be bought so easily on these mother**ing cellphone platforms, or that they don't have a more robust two-way authentication system for adding esim devices. Purchases added to a billing account should NEVER be allowed without explicit consent and opt-in to the feature. What a brain-dead fraud vector to have in this day and age. Anyone and anyting that even remotely knows something about scams and fraud know that vouchers are the preferred method of stealing.

You also can't do a vodacom onenumber activation outside of business hours from the site/app so yet another sign that this is done internally and not via access to my Vodacom login details, which I initially thought was compromised. So that must be an app /account restriction instead of a back-end restriction on their systems. Absolute insanity.
They also changed my billing account email address, another back-end process that requires "verification". Bloody nuts that they don't have systems to identify this.

The support staff mouth breather on the phone kept telling me I can only dispute if it shows up on my Google account.... the support staff are conveniently clueless.

View attachment 1832901

This company is rotten to the core.
Will be moving to another provider as soon as I can, I don't even care if they all suck.

Has anyone had something similar happen to them?
Would love to know if you can even do anything. I can't find any info on this online apart from a message on the play store complaints section so this must be a pretty new scam.

I put a debit order stop with my bank for an amount range between 500 and 3000, but it's probably too late.
I also submitted everything to Vodacom's FraudDisputes email address.
Hi there,
I know this was quite a while ago, but did you manage to resolve this and if yes, how? We have exactly the same, happened in December 2025 and we are yet to resolve this. We have R2000.00 added to the Vodacom account every month and they then go ahead and do an Admin Block on the account, no calls, messages or anything of the sort can be made or received. It takes about 5 days, endless calls and actual visits to the Century City Customer Centre to get this resolved. Phone is used for business purposes and this is an absolute nightmare to have the business owner completely cut-off
 
Vodacom will do their level best to provide the kakkest service possible, and hope you give up.
 
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