My cell phone took a bit of a fall 2 weeks ago and as a result it dropped calls when I tried to make phone calls. So I thought I would take my phone to the Vodashop in Century City... This was on the 2nd January 2007. On Thursday 11 January 2007, they eventually called me to guess what.... give me a freaking quote!!!

It took them 10 days to give me a quote... and I still dont have my phone 5 days later! To make matters worse they gave me a stoopid Motorola C113 loan phone, which by the way I had to pay for, and that gave out on me because the battery was now obviously low. And they didnt give me any charger with it, so I had to go borrow someone else's charger so that I could check my messages and stuff. Since the phone has a low memory capacity for messages, I have lost all my past smses because I had to delete them before I could read any of my new messages. In addition to that, my contacts are all messed up as well...

They told me it would take 7 working days maximum!! I expected to have had it back by the time I got out of hospital last week.. but NOOOO. It is so frustrating to be sitting with a half dead phone. And on top of all of that I get up to 20 smses a day from the number +7349 containing symbols and nothing else... so then the annoying phone goes off so loud, playing the worst ring tone ever!!

That sucks. Vodacom has always been fairly good to me, but yes I did have to shout at them a couple of times. They respond well to shouting.

Have you tried shouting? It helps if you have a deep voice on the phone, or if you weigh 135kg's and walk into the shop looking seriously pissed off, thats what did the trick for me last time.

no i havent done that.. but I dont have the deep voice and i dont weigh 135kg... i need a big strong pissed off looking man to go in there, pretend his my dad and cause a scene...

I am also having problems with my phone at the moment. Altech Autopage is useless.

Phones are impossible to fix in my experience, or at least I haven't found anyone who CAN actually fix phones

Good luck Shi Shi

give it to me... I'll bitch and moan and call them baboons and stll have them apologising to me

Mine is just a software upgrade. Can you believe they need to send it away for a software upgrade???

Wtf? useless bunch of baboons.

Yeah, and when I phoned them and asked them if they could do it there, they said yes. It will take a couple of hours, which I was happy with. Then I get there and they no longer do it there. Lucky I was in a good mood that day.

Omw word, I would have thrown my toys out the cot seriously.

Thats serious bad service and they should be put out of business on sheer principle.

This is SA though You kinda just live with it cause throwing your toys doesn't work (most times)

Was thinking of taking mine in, will wait a while and replace it via insurance I think. These places are usually a waste of time

Update on the situation:

I phoned them today and according to them it will take another 4 days to fix and then another 3 days to courier from Tygervalley to Century City!!!!!!!! And those are working days hey, which means I can only expect my phone some time at the end of next week!!!!

I gave them such a hard time over the phone because the girl who took my phone in said it would take maximum 7 days to fix and they have had my phone since 4 Jan. And like I said, my loan phone is dead because I have no charger to charge it with.. This is so frustrating...

Complain about them on hellopeter. Or give me their number, and your reference number and I will call them tomorrow and cause a scene.

Go cyfer!!
I would offer to go a walking with a baseball bat, but Im afraid its quite a walk from where I am!

Oh man, we sent a Nokia to Vodacare for repairs and SIX MONTHS later they still hadn't returned the phone. It had been so long I had just forgotten about it and apparently so had they. Anyway, I phoned the regional manager and vented and then they replaced the phone with a new model Nokia. Guess they lost it or couldn't repair it.

More recently I sent my Imate to Vodacare and they promised maximum seven days and repaired it in six days. Replaced the main board and now it works great.

Wow, two totally different stories!

Anyone else have any dealings with these dude? Or does it maybe have to do with which branch you use?

Could be the branch, could be the person you dealt with. I was pleasantly surprised by one lady at Altech Autopage. She said she would get back to me, and she did. She even called the next day to see if all was in order. This after I have fought with other people in other departments there. So, tomorrow I am going to get hold of her manager and compliment her on her outstanding work. Sandra.

Definitely, make sure her people know she is the reason they still have a business!

Well, I sent the e-mail to compliment Sandra.

But I also had to send a nasty e-mail today. I still don't have my phone back from it's upgrade... How long should it take. I asked for an update on it, and nobody could tell me. So I went through all my mails and found an e-mail addrress for someone. So sent my whole story and complaint to them. Wasn't expecting a reply, but I got one and apparently they will be checking it out tomorrow. The manager of the technical department has taken it on and will make sure I at least get some kind of feedback, if the software upgrade is not going to sort the problem out.

We shall see....

Good luck dude, these bastards will screw you around if they can, just for a laugh.

Not when I let rip. If I get p*ssed off enough, I make a big scene. It takes a lot, but you don't want to see me in a bad mood.

Well, my phone got sorted out and is now ready for collection. I will get it tomorrow.

It is sad that you have to complain before you get the level of service you should get from the start.

Thats South Africa for you!!!!!

Collected my phone earlier, and it is working like a charm. At least they got that part right.

Shi-shi, any news on your phone? I am on a roll recently with getting things done chop-chop when I complain. Let me at them....

i got my phone back on friday night

i called them the morning and they said my phone had been there for like 3 days!! I was like: how the hell i was supposed to know that? smell??

and to add to it all when i went to fetch the phone, the manager told me.. (i insisted on dealing with him only) that the girl had misplaced my phone, thats why she sent it off so late for a quote and that she was supposed to give me a charger with the loan phone, a phone which i was not supposed to get since it was very old... she can be so lucky she wasnt in for work that night...

Yo man! I'm new 2 dis community and 4 others, cos of terrible service... It doesnt matter which branch u use...Anything with "Voda" in the name SUCKS!