Buying a Phone in South Africa: RICA, Power Cuts, Contracts and Your Rights
Buying a phone in South Africa means thinking about a few things buyers elsewhere rarely worry about: registering your SIM under RICA, coping with power cuts, and choosing between contracts that can run for two years. Consumer law is strong, though, and knowing your rights can save you money. This guide covers what is specific to the South African market. 1. RICA: register your SIM Under the RICA law, every SIM card in South Africa has to be registered to a person. When you buy a new SIM or a phone on contract, you will need your ID or passport and proof of address. Without RICA registration, a SIM will not work. If you are buying a second-hand phone, it is your SIM that needs to be registered, not the phone, but make sure the seller has removed their accounts from the device. 2. Plan for power cuts Load-shedding has eased compared with its worst years, but outages still happen, and long ones can affect coverage when mobile towers run out of backup power. Two things help: a phon...