Can Someone Please explain this one to me?

November 2007 my wife took out a Weekender plus contract with Vodacom and received a Samsung U700 phone with the contract.

Around Feb 2008 she then migrated the contract to a talk 200s and then a few months later to a talk 500s for various reasons.

This contract has now been active for around 18 Months, but bare in mind, originally signed on a Weekender contract and the phone provided was for that Weekender contract.

So, yesterday we call V/C customer care because she now no longer requires the high volume calls because she has changed jobs and has a work cell. We requested the package to be dropped back down from the talk 500s to the talk 200s. Now logic says to me that if the contract was originally signed on the Weekender package and voluntarily upgraded, there should be no problems or penalties going back, not so?

Well, she was mailed a migration quotation, with a pay in amount of R 1568.00 for handset recovery fees!!!!!!!!! Good grief!!! How on earth can V/C want to charge this when she is not even migrating below the original contract signed for, but in fact to a bundle which is still higher than the original? Surely its daylight robbery to now still want to charge an amount of R 1568.00 handset recovery fees in this case, while for the last 15 months they have been benefiting from her having been on a FAR HIGHER MONTHLY talk contract than originally signed for?

So my question is this: Am I missing something here? Can someone please explain this one to me? Are we wrong to expect to go back without any problems or penalties when the package that we want to go to is still higher than the contract originally taken out?

i don't think you are wrong i think actually that Vodacom is trying to make money out of everyone... and they don't even give you a new phone if you migrate up... but dare migrate down and you pay through your nose...

dont pay em a cent. Go complain on hellopeter

Be carefull... I know that when my sister migrated from weekender they took all the free minutes and added them on to her new Talk100 contract. She got about 500 weekender minutes converted in to Anytime minutes.
This could also be the reason why they are charging you to downgrade... as you do get some value from those minutes.

Other than that i can't see why they are charging you for that phone...

Nerfherder said:

Be carefull... I know that when my sister migrated from weekender they took all the free minutes and added them on to her new Talk100 contract. She got about 500 weekender minutes converted in to Anytime minutes.
This could also be the reason why they are charging you to downgrade... as you do get some value from those minutes.

Other than that i can't see why they are charging you for that phone...

Click to expand...

According to the quote the balance of the current minutes available will be transferred over to the new 200s package, but that makes sense, those minutes available have been PAID for in full. What does not make any sense at all is that they want to charge a ridiculous amount for handset recovery fees when we are still one or two packages HIGHER / MORE EXPENSIVE than the original one taken out!

There should be no charge at all as the original contract package is NOT being downgraded. I can fully understand if this were the case and would have no problem paying in if for example we were downgrading from the original weekender contract to a top-up or something in that line.

I fully agree with you Gary... in fact they should have given you a reduced rate on the migration as you took a phone that was free on weekender.

I think that what has happened is that because you migrated to the talk 500 it looked like that was your original contract.

The simple solution.... you had the contract for 18 months, wait for 4 months and there will be no migration fee.

Nerfherder said:

I fully agree with you Gary... in fact they should have given you a reduced rate on the migration as you took a phone that was free on weekender.

I think that what has happened is that because you migrated to the talk 500 it looked like that was your original contract.

The simple solution.... you had the contract for 18 months, wait for 4 months and there will be no migration fee.

Click to expand...

I think what has really P'D me off is the fact that during the conversation I pointed out that the original contract was a weekender and this was then verified by the "consultant". Then, to top it all off, I am told that if we wait until August, she can "migrate" down to the talk 200s for free? All of this when 1-We shouldn't have to pay anything at all 2-If she converts to the 200s in August, its actually an upgrade from the original contract and we should then get a nice new expensive phone with it! NOT a oh well, you can then go back to higher package than the contract one without charging you! FFS! I agree with your point, but the fact remains that in my opinion, we shouldn't have to wait four months, or any time for that matter, and there should be no penalties at all, because the "migration" is not to a lower package than the one originally taken out.

Sorry, but in all my years in business, this is a first for me and to be honest, goes beyond understanding.

yep, they take chances. Go to hellopeter.com and getclosure.co.za and see them become all 'consumer friendly'

Peder is a hobbit? How does one become a hobbit? Oh and yeah just vodacom ripping people off again. Goodluck dude