By: Harry Trisos


On Friday morning, 11 May 2007, I received a service SMS from Vodacom informing me that I had 431GB data bundles available together with the somewhat pathetic rider that it would expire on 16 May 2007.

In the first place I elected nearly two years ago to operate via prepaid 3G. This left me with the flexibility of using Vodacom, MTN and Cell C sim cards whenever connectivity problems arose, and believe me, they have been swapped frequently.

As most of those who have carried the burden of paying R2 per MB [megabyte] in the recent past will attest, it has come as quite a relief to hear that the networks are dropping their data charges quite substantially – down to less than 20c in the case of Vodacom.

Vodacom however has introduced a condition of “use it or lose it”, meaning that the data bundle you acquire must be used up in the period of a month or else you will lose it. This probably emanates from a manager who has been transferred from the rugby sponsorship department of Vodacom to the data department…. but that is another story.

Surprising end of an SMS

So, this leaves myself and hundreds or thousands of Vodacom customers at the surprising end of an SMS informing us that we have gigabytes and NOT megabytes of data left. A quick calculation tells me that I have over R86 200 worth of data bundles available [valued at 20c per meg] and to cap it all, I had four days in which to use it!

I made a call to the Vodacom data call centre on 082 155. I waited for long enough to launch a thousand ships… then talked to Rose who could not really understand what I was on about… then listened to all the Strauss waltzes [was this perhaps analogous to what was happening on the other side of the line?]... then spoke to a team leader… she understood enough to put me through to Etienne van Vuuren. He was in charge but on his way to a meeting… he understood that they had made a serious error if they had told me it was gigs and not megs… he would get another person to investigate and call back.

Would they call all hands on deck? Would they admit the error and rectify it with all their customers? What are the implications when a business advises customers that they have hundreds of thousands in value of data bundles to their credit?

I received a call from Noxolo at about 2.30 pm on Friday. The SMS was wrong she curtly informed me and that was that. Torpedoes aimed below the waterline and designed to sink any idea I had of riding my luck.

Drag an apology

I finally managed to drag an apology from her. For Noxolo this was about as painful as being keel hauled. Are Vodacom call centre personnel trained never to use the word “sorry”? More importantly, I suggested that she make a note for management to consider what they were going to do about the incident as far as all Vodacom's pre-paid 3G customers were concerned. Noxolo promised to take it further. Apparently she did….

On Monday, 15 May 2007, at about 10am I received a service SMS from Vodacom informing me of the following:

“You have a 411 GB Data Bundles available which expires on the 2007-05-16.”

I have not acquired data bundles so why deduct funds that I have in credit on my pre-paid account and then force me to use the data bundles?

Even if it is in megabytes and not gigabytes, why should I lose out to Vodacom again?

And what about my R82 200?!

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[15 May 2007 17:11]

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