Vodacom is giving 500MB of free data to customers affected by recent billing problems on its network.
The data will be valid for three days and customers can check if they have received it by dialing *111#.
Many Vodacom subscribers complained that their data was depleting for no apparent reason on 21 August.
Vodacom acknowledged the problem and corrected the issue before working to reimburse customers.
The provider later confirmed it had reimbursed all affected customers and apologized for the inconvenience – which was caused by a billing system issue.
“We are allocating FREE 500MB data valid for 3 days to those customers, for the inconvenience caused,” said Vodacom.
IT glitch
Vodacom confirmed on Tuesday that an IT glitch lead to the sudden disappearance of customers’ airtime and data balances.
“The issue was caused by a configuration change on our prepaid and top-up billing system that was problematic. We were able to isolate the cause and roll back this process during the course of last night. It impacted top-up and pre-paid customers that were on the network‚” the company said.
Vodacom apologised throughout the day and has returned data to customers.
Because many people had bought extra data when their data ran out‚ spokesperson Byron Kennedy said Vodacom was ensuring all data would have a 30-day expiry window.
Even if customers bought a fortnightly data bundle or an hourly bundle it will last 30 days and then roll over for 30 days to be used after that month’s data is used.
If they bought a 30-day data bundle this would last the usual 30-day period.
The National Consumer Commission (NCC) was inundated with calls from frustrated customers on Tuesday afternoon and it approached Vodacom saying it didn’t want this to happen again.
Distress calls
The NCC will be engaging with Vodacom further to get to the root causes of the supposed billing glitch.
“We want to satisfy ourselves that there won’t be a recurrence of this problem. As the NCC we realise that there may be consumers who have as a consequence of the data disappearance suffered challenges in other areas‚ and we urge these consumers to come forward and lodge complaints with us so that they can be assisted‚” said spokesperson Trevor Hattingh.
Vodacom confirmed to the commission that it has reimbursed customers affected by Monday’s billing issue.
Vodacom‚ which is SA’s largest network with 39.3 million subscribers by the end of June this year‚ would not say how many customers lost their airtime.
“We are conducting an investigation and will be in a position to determine numbers once this process concludes‚” the company said.
Vodacom would not reveal the total value of the missing data