On Friday 08 Feb at 17h00 I upgraded to a Samsung S3 LTE smartphone on contract, and was advised that the SIM swap could take up to 24 hours.
By 21h45 I did not have signal on my new phone and called the Vodacom call centre 082 111 from a borrowed phone to be told I should wait for the SIM swap. After kicking up a bit of a fuss, I was transferred to another "data" department, where I was told the same story. Again a fuss on my part rewarded me with a Call reference number and my problem being escalated to the "Advanced data" department.
I called 082 155 on Sat morning at 11h30 and again had to force the conversation to escalate the problem. I received a return call as promised, and happened to be near Vodacom Newlands. After trying a few processes the call centre technician confirmed that the problem was with the phone and I would have to return it. The Newlands staff then located the problem on the Vodacom website as a "network lock" common to 5000 LTE handsets and after 5 more minutes with a call centre, solved the problem.
How can 5 staff not know about this "Network lock" and would I still be waiting for the Sim swap to be concluded if I didn't kick up such a fuss?
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