Webafrica Customer Support/Billing gone to the birds?

Adeptus Mechanicus

Adeptus Mechanicus

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I've been with WA since I started buying local bandwidth separate from my usual Telkom blended cap (+/- 2 years) and stuck with them due to their customer support system and those involved behind the scenes.

Lately however the whole speil has been up to schit in my opinion, culminating in the suspension of my account despite me making my payment as I usually do. Granted it was a bit later than it should of been, but it was still at least a week before the end of April.

My entire account, consisting of a few prepaid services and a monthly 30gig, has now been suspended as of the 1st of May instead of just the monthly service which I was supposedly late in settling (NOTE however this has never been a problem in the past)

I went so far as to send a separate mail to their billing support notifying them that the amount was paid in full after receiving a warning about a possible suspension to make sure that this did not happen. Lo and behold the pathetic peons still killed my (entire) account which still contains pre-paid services I have credit on.

No luck or even a simple reply when this was queried with their billing and support sections. Seriously considering a move to Openweb or similar after seeing similar issues from fellow forumites :sick:
 
all these WebAfrica complaints lately...

Maybe they need to really look at their billing system (although I have never had problems)

or

There is a concerted effort to discredit their name.
 
Iwojima said:
I went so far as to send a separate mail to their billing support notifying them that the amount was paid in full after receiving a warning about a possible suspension to make sure that this did not happen. Lo and behold the pathetic peons still killed my (entire) account which still contains pre-paid services I have credit on.

No luck or even a simple reply when this was queried with their billing and support sections.
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Same thing happened to my best friend on Monday, but they didn't even send him a notification. They just killed his internet without any such warnings then ignored the queries for until Friday :mad: And I was considering switch to them until now :(
 
good luck with openweb,

i'm thinking of going over to www.nexus.co.za so far with their customdsl i had 100% issueless account.

everything has just ran perfect, no miss billing, no accidental account deletion, no refresh reminders, no lawyer letters....
 
Garyvdh said:
all these WebAfrica complaints lately...

Maybe they need to really look at their billing system (although I have never had problems)

or

There is a concerted effort to discredit their name.
Click to expand...

Most of the complaints I have read have been based on what has happened, so "a concerted effort to discredit their name". Please. At the moment I think WA is doing a fine job of discrediting their own name by poor service. I am still waiting for a response to an email sent to head of Billings on Tuesday morning and have had no response to my post on this forum from any WA reps.

In summary - first option is the one. What have any of us got to gain by the second option? All I want is decent service from a company who claims to be so good.
 
well they closed my ticket and did not even solve the problem
 
Garyvdh said:
(although I have never had problems)
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http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=2656440&postcount=6
Garyvdh said:
There is a concerted effort to discredit their name.
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i seriously doubt it. its a known fact that there is issues with their account cancellation button and billing at times.
Garyvdh said:
Maybe they need to really look at their billing system
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might good idea. especially what goes on between support and billing.

-no one is out to get webafrica, it is as far as i can see merely an escalation of complaints, undealt issues and mistakes. i can say one thing in though, they at least don't just swap over from Saix to IS without consent.
 
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Necuno, I can see why you are a super grandmaster.

Brilliant post and spot on.
 
Garyvdh said:
or
There is a concerted effort to discredit their name.
Click to expand...
That would imply that those complaining have something to gain from WA being badmouthed. Unfortunately the only thing I stand to gain is my problem being resolved quicker by posting the issue on a well known/read forum and hopefully having someone from WA (Yes, Mariet Visser, I'm talking to you!) stand up and take notice.

The excuse I've seen mentioned is that the billing system is undergoing a revamp of sorts. I'm sorry but I call bollocks on that one. It worked just fine before and all issues of late relate to turn around time on issues and staff incompetence.
 
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You say you been with them for 2 years, after probaly 100 goods things from them it only took 1 wrong thing for you to blow your nut.

There is this thing that people are thinking that companies are not allowed to do something wrong otherwise they make a mistake and lose business. Regardless of what good they done in the past. Certain people really do take advantage of some of the companies and tend to walk all over them and threaten to move over.
Dont get me wrong on this thinking i'm bad mouthing you, i'v done this sort of thing in the past before. And thats why i think of it differently now aswell as seeing others do it.

I dont work for web africa, and i am not even one of their customers.(i have been before) but i will vouch for them cause when i was with them they were fine, aswell as hearing from others having good service.

Maybe there is a new person working in the sales department, or the department manager is new. Did you speak to the branch manager? did you send am abrupt e-meail the minute all this started? that could be a reason why the lady will not answer your email in a hurry and give you kuk service.

Dont blow the okes off for one thing, if it happens often and then all the time, then do ur nut and stop with the company.
 
wHiTe*LiGhTnInG said:
You say you been with them for 2 years, after probaly 100 goods things from them it only took 1 wrong thing for you to blow your nut.

There is this thing that people are thinking that companies are not allowed to do something wrong otherwise they make a mistake and lose business. Regardless of what good they done in the past. Certain people really do take advantage of some of the companies and tend to walk all over them and threaten to move over.
Dont get me wrong on this thinking i'm bad mouthing you, i'v done this sort of thing in the past before. And thats why i think of it differently now aswell as seeing others do it.

I dont work for web africa, and i am not even one of their customers.(i have been before) but i will vouch for them cause when i was with them they were fine, aswell as hearing from others having good service.

Maybe there is a new person working in the sales department, or the department manager is new. Did you speak to the branch manager? did you send am abrupt e-meail the minute all this started? that could be a reason why the lady will not answer your email in a hurry and give you kuk service.

Dont blow the okes off for one thing, if it happens often and then all the time, then do ur nut and stop with the company.
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Understandable and i agree, but i would say:

That one can only take so much and then you are fed up period. Broadband in south africa already costs an arm and a leg, and i am sure that what you pay for you except a proper well ran business. The ability to work does demand that you do it properly and double check what you are doing before you go the final step, that is what you are paid for. One definitely does not go about your job on the wings of, if i cockup its ok, everybody does this and i am very well allowed to do it as well.

Furthermore, simple stating that you are thinking or considering to moving over to another company is definitely not threatening; I'm going to ****ing move over if you guys don't ****ing fix your **** now. that is more in the lines of what you are talking about.

Lastly if you are serious about your customers, you will pretty damn well make sure that you don't employee rookies in the places of importance and that those that work there knows the seriousness of their position.
 
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Garyvdh said:
all these WebAfrica complaints lately...

Maybe they need to really look at their billing system (although I have never had problems)

or

There is a concerted effort to discredit their name.
Click to expand...

I can't speak for the original poster but...

After being with Web Africa for several years, it was my opinion that they were an exceptional company offering exceptional service. I don't often say that about any company.

But after having to deal with endless problems (and I do mean endless) with their billing department, I've had enough. I no longer refer anyone to Web Africa and have taken my business elsewhere.

It's very sad that Web Africa has actually alienated their loyal customers by rude and demanding emails (received by many of us), charging interest even though they made the mistake. Demanding money even though it had already been paid and confirmed on their side. Not being able to cancel an account because the cancellation button/link has not been working forever. Then not cancelling the account even when they say they will and then still charging for it again the next month. And on and on and on it goes.

As far as I remember, Web Africa said they are aware of the problem with the billing department and intend to fix it, but too little too late for a lot of us.

From the amount of complaints on MyADSL, the problem has not been fixed as yet.

So Garyvdh, Web Africa has managed to discredit their own name with little or no help from anyone else.
 
wHiTe*LiGhTnInG said:
You say you been with them for 2 years, after probaly 100 goods things from them it only took 1 wrong thing for you to blow your nut.
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See below:
Iwojima said:
Lately however the whole speil has been up to schit in my opinion, culminating in the suspension of my account
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i.e. They have screwed up many times, the latest being the straw that broke the camel's back.

wHiTe*LiGhTnInG said:
Maybe there is a new person working in the sales department, or the department manager is new. Did you speak to the branch manager? did you send am abrupt e-meail the minute all this started? that could be a reason why the lady will not answer your email in a hurry and give you kuk service.
Click to expand...
Again, read my first post. I sent multiple emails to the billing and support addresses with no response from either. Even if this was just an abrupt post after the fact how can you seriously justify the manager in charge giving me bad service as a result of it? They must not want my business if that is the case.

Sure it could be that the billing section is under new management, but do I care? Not a damn! These problems have been going on for a few months and cannot be blamed on just "teething problems".
 
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As I am one of the people battling to get support from WA billings, I would like to make some comments.

I do expect service when I am paying for it; I will aim to give the company concerned a chance to redeem themselves before I "go public"

The person who I have been battling to get some response from is Head do Billings and is not new to the position. Prior to my post, I have gone through a list of steps trying to resolve the problems.

So speaking for myself - I have not just lost it (but yes, I have lost it with billings a few times in the past due to their poor service); the person I need to respond to me is the head of department.

At this stage I am not going to go through the hassle of changing ISP (but if a good option comes up...) and I no longer promote WA to my friends. After all this I am now talking to them about WA in terms of AVOID.

Web Africa - time to build bridges, be honest about past mistakes and give customers respect and support.
 
Well I've exhausted all avenues of contact incl. their live chat system, messenger, etc with no luck. They either did not work or I did not get a reply despite an indication of the responsible parties being online.
 
Iwojima said:
Well I've exhausted all avenues of contact incl. their live chat system, messenger, etc with no luck. They either did not work or I did not get a reply despite an indication of the responsible parties being online.
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something is wrong with the live, i have noted it on 1st May 09, 07:35 PM. It is been taken care of.
 
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My 5 cents worth.

I have a complete dsl package and have been having connection problems for the last 3 weeks, I’ve spoken to WA a couple of times and according to them my connection will "never" be dropped from their side and it must be a Telkom fault.

So Friday night at 10 my line dies again, the 5th time the last week, i phone WA and this dude tells me everything is good on their side, so I tell him but its not fine on my side, then he tells me oh yeah, I see the line just went dead, you have intermittency issues on the line will log it with Telkom.

Telkom phones me the next day, no the line is fine, its a WA problem, so I started a online discussion with some techies to try and get log files or something from them for when Telkom comes back to me again so I can show them that I do get dc'ed quite often, after speaking with a couple of WA's employee's I get a msg from the one lady there, stating I must contact Telkom and report the fault with them.

2 things, if this person took 2 seconds and checked my account she would have noticed that there is an open fault ticket with Telkom and that I asked for something else than the line being reported and the 2nd thing is I’m a complete DSL customer and I’m a customer of WA and not of Telkom and even if the Telkom line is dead its still something that must be handled WA or am I understanding the whole complete package incorrectly?
 
I wonder where all the WA reps are?

I downgraded from a 10GB account to a 1GB account this past month. Took one phone call. Was quick and painless.

I'm not saying you guys are telling lies, just surprised. that's all.

btw, when I run into a service issue with any company, I e-mail and call EVERY single day until it is resolved.
 
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