WebAfrica pulls 16GB Accounts

Johand

Johand

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I am slightly upset. After reading all the critics of WebAfrica on the forum, I have been telling myself they are not so bad, and besides their special offer is a really good deal. Oh boy did they manage to turn this promotion into a mess!

Bit of background - I have applied for their Complete 4 package before they ran the competition. In the extra comments for the MyBroadband promotion application I mentioned this and asked them to switch me to the promotion account if it were successful.

I got this e-mail from them yesterday:
Dear Applicant

We would like to thank you for taking part in the 16GB data with 4MB line for R499 special offer we recently held on mybroadband.co.za.

We are happy to inform you that your application was successful!

Your application will now be put in the active state, if you are bringing your line across from another provider, this can take between 7-14 working days to transfer. Transfers are seamless and there is zero downtime.

If this is a new line application, it can take up to 6 weeks for the line to be installed. Our support center will be contacting your shortly with more information about this service.

We hope you enjoy your reduced monthly bandwidth costs from Web Africa!
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This of course made me very happy. Last night I changed the settings on my router to the new details on the control panel and I was flying. Hence my account was already activated.

The only problem was that in my service panel both the Complete 4 and Complete 7 packages were listed (Complete 4 under status pending) - I kindly requested them to only continue with the Complete 7 MyBB Promotion package (both were on the same line). They then deleted both accounts and created a new Complete 7 account @ R999 per month. Of course I queried this. Their reply was:

Hi Johan

Your application for complete 7 (MyBroadband) special @ R499/month it was not successful, the order was added as normal Complete 7 package at R999/month.


Thank you
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Not only did they pull the package which they already awarded me - but they suddenly added a R999/month service to my account which I did not ask for!

Upon further query:

Hi Johan

We appologize for that confusion, looks like a message went to everyone who applied. We hope that you will accept our appology for inconvinience caused by that confusion...
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Which is obviously nonsense, because the account has already been activated and I already started to use it! This is not a wrong message - they actually pulled the prize!

Now I know I must be grateful that they run promotions. But is this really the way do things? Pulling
competition prizes after they have been awarded is at best a shady practice, but then automatically subscribing you to the prize at full price? Did I miss some fine print?

I am really considering of going through the schlep of just transferring my line again. I cannot work with people I cannot trust. Frankly - I would have thought more of them as an organization if they just didn't run the promotion at all.

So oh well - WebAfrica critics, you might have been right.
 
Dude seriously 499 for 16gb is not a good deal, you can get uncapped now.

Be happy they canceled it now phone mweb or afrihost and get uncapped :D. Afrihost would have been cheaper at 29/gb.
 
killadoob said:
Dude seriously 499 for 16gb is not a good deal, you can get uncapped now.

Be happy they canceled it now phone mweb or afrihost and get uncapped :D. Afrihost would have been cheaper at 29/gb.
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The R499 includes 4Mbps line rental. So it was a pretty amazing deal, and it still is. I am more cheesed off at the way they handled the entire situation.
 
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I applied for the same thing and I havent received any email saying that its been pulled Johand... neither has anyone else it seems...

EDIT: I think you've just been shafted by someone who didnt know what was going on and started cancelling and creating new accounts and stuff... Saiyan also had his account deleted but they assured him that he would get one on the 1st of april.. Some accounts were activated by accident. I would rather just phone them and sort it out... Im sure its just a misunderstanding, Lots of people would be bitching if the entire special was pulled.
 
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St3baS said:
I applied for the same thing and I havent received any email saying that its been pulled Johand... neither has anyone else it seems...
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I did not get an e-mail from them telling me it was pulled. I got an e-mail from them telling me I was successful but during the process of lodging a support message they told me the following:

Hi Johan

Your application for complete 7 (MyBroadband) special @ R499/month it was not successful, the order was added as normal Complete 7 package at R999/month.


Thank you
Click to expand...

and

Hi Johan

We appologize for that confusion, looks like a message went to everyone who applied. We hope that you will accept our appology for inconvinience caused by that confusion...
Click to expand...

I have not received an e-mail saying that the first e-mail was in error. I only received messages from the support desk telling me I was not successful and that the first e-mail telling me I was successful was actually sent in error to everybody that applied. If I didn't contact the service desk myself I would not have known.
 
so it was active.. and they said you were successful. and then they pull it!! i mean seriously...then they added the service at 999? not cool...
 
To be fair WA have had people applying, canceling and generally messing them about with this 16gb account so mistakes are bound to happen
 
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I can't understand why some people are saying this is not a good deal. I mean R499 INCLUDING line rental, which is R413 alone. That means 16GB for R87 (vs 3GB from AH which I'm currently using).

I only use about 3-5GB a month, so 4Mbps uncapped doesn't make sense for me at about R900.
 
Alan said:
To be fair WA have had people applying, canceling and generally messing them about with this 16mb account so mistakes are bound to happen
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yeah.. i hope webafrica sort him out though!
 
Alan said:
To be fair WA have had people applying, canceling and generally messing them about with this 16mb account so mistakes are bound to happen
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No they didn't. Their last reply is the one where they "appologize" for the fact that they sent out the original e-mail in error.

Mier said:
I can't understand why some people are saying this is not a good deal. I mean R499 INCLUDING line rental, which is R413 alone. That means 16GB for R87 (vs 3GB from AH which I'm currently using).

I only use about 3-5GB a month, so 4Mbps uncapped doesn't make sense for me at about R900.
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Yes - it is a pretty good deal. 16GB/month for me is essentially uncapped - the in-bundle prize works out to around R5.43/GB. Which is pretty awesome - even compared to the uncapped accounts (I am a download as I use user instead of a hoarder).

SaiYaN said:
yeah.. i hope webafrica sort him out though!
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Thanks. We'll see, but I am not getting my hopes up.

Alan said:
So they should. Customer care is paramount in the current conditions
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Customer care is always important :-)
 
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Yesterday I sent a ticket in asking them to cancel the service because there was no way to cancel it in the client zone.

Then I got an email congratulating me on being successful.

Then I got an ticket reply saying they will cancel it themselves. And that it should reflect shortly.

The I got an email saying my complete 7 has been activated.

Today it is still in my cleint zone "awaiting activation."

And still no way of cancelling it.

What next?
 
On top of it, their top brass has left the building. No more comments from them at all. In the reseller Section, resellers are talking to themselves. As you say, what next :confused:
 
I got one of these specials and I phone them today on when to expect my line. They didnt say anything about it being cancelled. They would have said something if it was the case. They did say it will take from 4 to 6 weeks though before I get my adsl line. I am contemplating doing the self install, maybe I can get it quicker and just move it to WA. will see how it goes.
 
Got home tonight. My router is still buzzing away gently while logged in with the account credentials they supplied for the MyBroadband special. So they have managed to remove the account from my profile, but it hasn't actually been deleted from their authentication system. Tempting, but oh well, I will do the right thing and voluntarily switch to another account :-(
 
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