Let me tell you a little story.
On October 3rd, my Vodacom debit order was returned when I was R100 short on my bank account.
My fault. I totally get why it was returned.
What happened was that my debit order went through on October 3rd * instead of Saturday October 1st. Because they don’t do them on a Saturday. WHY CAN’T THEY DO IT ON A SATURDAY!??! Do they need someone to sit in the bank and push a fucking button!?!?
Anyhoodle.
I called Vodacom the same day to ask them how to go about making payment so that my phone didn’t get cut off, and I paid by EFT the next day, calling Vodacom again to make sure they saw the payment had gone through.
I thought it was sorted.
Then today, TEN DAYS LATER, I get a text message from Vodacom telling me my debit order bounced, and will I please call 082-blah-blah-blah to make a payment arrangement!!!!
Worried that something had gone wrong and they hadn’t seen that I had actually paid my account, I called them.
When I told her I was calling about a text saying my debit order had not gone through, she immediately launched into the script for making payment arrangements, and when I interrupted her to say I had already MADE the payment – she had to go INTO ANOTHER SYSTEM to verify this and ensure that my account was indeed up to date!
She then tells me the text message is automatic, and that I don’t need to worry about it. She couldn’t tell me why I would STILL get the text message EVEN THOUGH MY ACCOUNT WAS UP TO DATE!!
Vodacom, WHY oh WHY are there SEPARATE SYSTEMS for these things!?
Absa, WHY oh WHY can’t you run debit orders on a weekend?!
Its not nineteen-bloody-sixty! Everything is electronic now FCOL! I mean, I can watch an American presidential debate LIVE, but you can’t get your systems up to date in real time!??!??
* which I stupidly assumed were automatic payments, set up so I that wouldn’t forget to MAKE payments