Things seem to be getting worse for Vodacom. First Vodacom faced the Blackberry outages saga across Africa, The Middle East and Europe, which RIM are currently trying to resolve and now the service provider is having technical issues with what it is calling ‘softlocking’. The company is receiving a number of complaints from Twitter users who are expressing frustration.
One customer wrote the following to hellopeter: “I received a message from Vodacom at 6pm last night informing me that my account has been softlocked. I tried calling the call centre but i was unable to contact them because my account was softlocked. The sms gave no reason as to why my account was softocked. I know my account is up to date as it automatically debited off my bank account.
I contacted the call centre by calling from someone else’s phone only to find out that I needed to contact the accounts department the next day (today). I have been calling the call centre number since 8am and have been cut off every single time. Vodacome has the “call back” option where they promise to contact yo within an hour. I did receive a call but when I answered, all i heard was silence on the other end.
This is absolutely unacceptable. I am losing a lot of business as a result of this since i am unable to receive emails or contact clients. This is also a safety hazard since I will not be able to contact anyone in the event of an emergency.
If I do not receive assistance from Vodacom within the next 2 hours, I will be taking legal action.”
Vodacom has acknowledged the technical issue it is calling ‘softlocking’ and are currently working on fixing the problem as soon as possible.
More details to follow..
Update – some users have fixed the issue by switching their phone’s off and on again:
