Vodacom customers flip between anger, humour as airtime disappear

File picture: Boxer Ngwenya/Independent Media

File picture: Boxer Ngwenya/Independent Media

Published Aug 23, 2017

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Pretoria - While some fumed over the loss of airtime and data from their Vodacom phones on Monday night as the network experienced a technical glitch, many took to social media to make light of the incident, creating memes and posting comments that left readers in stitches.

Coining the #VodacomStoleMyData hashtag and ensuring it trended the whole day on Tuesday, social media users brought in the issues of land, relationships, work and school.

On Twitter, Yashani D said: “I never even cheated on them. They are treating me like I don’t matter. #VodacomIsTrash never knew Vodacom would do this.”

Thabo Seete lamented: “When chatting to your Crush and Vodacom decide to Steal your Data #VodacomStoleMyData,” with an image of a sweating individual wiping their brow attached.

And while Vodacom posted apologies and stated its commitment to quality service delivery, Robert Komana asked what commitment that was when he was at risk of losing his woman to a man on the MTN network.

He said: “She waited for a call, text or something from me saying goodnight, and a guy from MTN could have stepped right in and stolen her!”

Some said they woke up in the middle of the night to use their night owl data, only to find they had none. “I almost fell off my bed,” YellowBone wrote.

The issues with Vodacom hit early Monday night, with messages updating the availability of data coming in thick and fast while amazed users watched in despair.

Screen shots were posted showing the messages they received, explaining, in some instances, that they were not even using their gadgets, and some had their data switched off in a bid to stop the problem.

Vodacom management scrambled to fix the situation and calm the nerves of the disgruntled, some of whom said they were hard at work when they suddenly could not use the internet.

“We are reimbursing customers affected by last night’s billing issue. All related out-of-bundle charges are being refunded and depleted bundles reinstated. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience,” the network said on Tuesday.

In response, online polls found that only an estimated 20% thought it was an honest mistake, 40% said it was deliberate, 30% said all networks did it and 12% said they were cancelling their contracts.

The memes continued through the day, with some purporting to be from rival networks like MTN: “That call to port your number was in anticipation of this,” a meme of a spider-man consoling a sobbing man read.

By the end of the day many confirmed they had been reimbursed their airtime and data, and it was time for other issues to trend.

Pretoria News

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