FoneYam, often written phone yam, is a smartphone rental service you apply for at PEP and Ackermans stores. The store is only the application point. The rental account itself belongs to FoneYam, which is why PEP staff cannot see your balance or fix a payment problem.
Official contact channels
- Telephone: 0860 900 900
- WhatsApp: 0860 900 900
- USSD, free of charge: *134*33011#
- Email: [email protected]
- Message form at foneyam.co.za/contact-us
- Head office: 1 Industrie Street, Kuils River, 7580
The same number takes both calls and WhatsApp messages. The USSD string is the one worth remembering, because it is free to dial and works with no airtime, no data and no smartphone, which matters when the phone you are asking about is the one that has stopped working.
Contact centre hours are Monday to Friday 08:00 to 18:00, Saturday 08:00 to 17:00 and Sunday 09:00 to 16:00, with public holidays covered from 09:00 to 17:00. Seven day cover including public holidays is unusual for this kind of account service.
What this organisation provides
FoneYam rents smartphones rather than selling them outright. You apply online or in a participating PEP or Ackermans store, and the published calculator works on device values around R3 000 within a rental range of roughly R1 300 to R7 000, repaid monthly over twelve months. At the end of the rental term the customer has the option to buy the device. The site also lists device insurance, a customer stories section and a Learn About Rentals explainer, and it publishes its retail partners separately.
Address and operating information
The head office is at 1 Industrie Street, Kuils River, 7580, in the Western Cape. It is a head office rather than a walk in customer counter: applications happen in a PEP or Ackermans store or online, and account queries are handled on the phone, on WhatsApp, by USSD or by email. Going into a PEP store to resolve an existing account will usually just result in being given the 0860 number.
Support and escalation routes
FoneYam publishes a dedicated fraud page, and a suspected fraudulent application or account should be reported through that route rather than the general support queue. For an ordinary account dispute, start on 0860 900 900 and get a reference. Because a rental of movable goods with an option to purchase is treated as a credit agreement under the National Credit Act, the National Credit Regulator on 0860 627 627 is the regulator for the agreement itself, and an unresolved dispute can go to the National Financial Ombud Scheme South Africa on 0860 800 900. A fault with the handset as a product, rather than with the rental account, is a separate matter and runs through the manufacturer warranty and the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud on 0860 000 272.
Sources
- FoneYam contact page: foneyam.co.za/contact-us
- FoneYam website: foneyam.co.za
- National Credit Regulator: ncr.org.za