WebAfrica - 3'rd rate service?

D

dakeyras

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 1, 2006
Messages
739
Reaction score
0
Location
Centurion
debated long and hard on wether I should post the following. For one thing WebAfrica seems to be popular on this site. In the end I decided to post this in the hopes that it would either improve their service.

I signed up for their 1gb unshaped service around the end of February. Some time during March however I received an email saying that they will run the debit order some time between the 15'th and 18'th of March. I replied to the mail (this was the 11'th) asking that the debit order be changed to a date after the 20'th since my salary only gets credited then. They replied to the email, saying that it has been sent to the billing department for actioning.

Then when I looked at my bankstatement this morning I see that they went ahead and debited my account anyway. My main issue with this is that I did not have sufficient funds to cover the debit in the account, and the transaction was unpaid. This has 3 effects:
1. R99 unpaid fee

2. Damages my credit rating with the bank, I think everyone knows what bad consequences this can have

3. The most important and serious one of them all... I work the bank in question. As an employee I am expected to manage my account in an excellent manner. The reasoning behind this is how can I expect a customer to handle his account well if I, as the employee, cant do it? People have been dismissed from the bank's service because of a bad credit history (Credit Bureaux & Bad account conduct). Bottom line is that this unpaid can lead to a written warning, and in extreme cases (if the boss has a bad day) to disciplinary steps. As this would be the first time something like this has happened to me, I doubt if I would get into too much trouble, but rest assured that I will be called in because of this.

4. Full General Report... I dont know how many people have heard about this thing, but let me give you a quick rundown on what a Full General Report is. Lets say you apply for a loan at bank x. but your account is and bank y. Bank x will then request a full general report from your bank, bank y. This report will then include information about how your account is conducted. Now lets take it one step further. Lets say I want to put my daughter into a specific school. The school, being who they are, and wanting to be certain about the prospective parent, does credit checks and asks their bank to request a full general from my bank about my account. Guess what, its not going to be a good report on me. Guess what, my daughter isnt going to be accepted by that school. I hope to God for WebAfrica's sake that this doesnt happen, because I promise you, I will go looking for blood somewhere.

So this morning I sent an email to WebAfrica outlining my problem and asking for an explenation. I also asked that the service be cancelled, and for them to provide me with the outstanding balance and bank details so I could pay it. I received a reply basically dodging blame. It basically said that she can confirm that they tracked down my email, and that she will be taking it up with the person responsible, as the mail was never forwarded to her. She also offered to give me a discount on my next bill (even though I asked them to cancel the service?) amounting to the unpaid fee I am being charged.

I then replied asking for a full explenation of what happened. I received the reply that, and I quote, "this was due to the fact that the ticket you sent in this regard reached the dedicated person to whom it was sent only the afternoon of 11 March 2007 instead of immediately as by the time they received it, the batch had allready been sent to netcash. We usually give a space of 12 to 24 hour response time between sending our reminders off and sending the batch to them." I read that and thought to myself that the wording of the mail basically says I made the mistake. Wanting to clarify the matter, as she previously blamed someone else, and now me, I replied and asked her bluntly if it was my fault because I sent my request too late.

She replied that "That is partially correct, we received your request in time, however the person who attended to the ticket, emailed one of the ladies in the billing department, whilst we were experiencing mail delays, and she received the ticket only just after the debits had been sent through for completion." By reading this I now understand that it was due to a technical error (mail delays)... And yet at first another person, then me was to blame. I also dont understand how she can say it was partly my fault if she confirms in the same mail that they received my email on time.

At this stage I decided to leave the matter as this simply wasnt going anywhere. I again asked them for the outstanding amount and bank account details so I could settle this account immediately. I have no wish for them to list me at a credit bureaux for nonpayment. She was kind enough to reply with the outstanding amount due, but I am still waiting the account details. I guess I will just go through my mailbox and see if I have it somewhere in my archived stuff.

Lastly I also find it funny, that when I create a thread here saying that WebAfrica service rocks, there is a quick reply thanking me. So fast to accept positive feedback and take credit for it. And yet when I have a complaint, the manager (Grant I think he was called?) is nowhere nearby.

Alot of people will maybe think 'chill out, relax' etc. but I just cant take stuff like this anymore. Does 3'rd world country also translate to 3'rd rate service? Why should I accept that 1 person at a company can negatively affect my life in such a broad and serious manner? Am I not allowed to be upset about it? Isnt this the type of thing that we always accuse Telkom of doing?

I have always been, and will always be a great supporter of the 'little guys'. The small companies that stands again places like Telkom, @lantic, Mweb etc. but I just cant justify things like this to myself anymore. Maybe I should also just give in and sign up for a @lantic account.

I will post all the relevant emails on request.
 
My opinion which doesnt really matter, but here we go.

The account was created with the service provider which in my experience is indeed the best ISP I have ever worked with. OpenWeb is currently mostly lacking the debit order facility and the customer area WebAfrica has, else they would also be near the number one mark.

The e-mail you sent was on the 11th and I must honestly agree with you that there indeed was a very large delay in reply from WebAfrica. If the mail server was down it couldve created a delay in response from the team, possibly.

Did you use the WebAfrica Client Centre to open a ticket? You did use the word ticket above so I am going to guess yes. I have generally had a very good experience using the ticket system with timely fast responses.

I surely hope WebAfrica are not lying by saying they had mail server issues with receiving the messages with regards to the delay, but if they were having issues there is not much that couldve been done.

The refunds of the accounts in my personal opinion wouldnt of happened, possibly because its a per gig setup maybe it will work then, but if you wanted money back it would involve getting money back from Telkom SAIX and thats just lol. Has to be said.

Many people dont like debit orders for this very reason you describe above, so as I say if WebAfrica was just slow to your response, it truly is very bad service and they should work with you 100% to make you a happy customer again, but service levels do drop from time to time from all providers in SA, when it comes to something like mail since it invloves Telkoms network again, so that increases the possibility of downtime by 1000% :(

Waiting for WebAfrica to respond to read the response
 
Last edited:
Sorry to hear you're having problems with Web Africa. I've been with them for quite a while now and am a great supporter of theirs. However, I'm the first person to say that they are not perfect.

1 silly person at Web Africa has made a mistake and it should be up to them to sort this out asap. Passing the buck is a no-no.

I am 100% sure a WA rep will reply to this post and make sure this is sorted out. Have a little patience though, as it is now "after hours".

You do have every right to be upset by this and I'm glad you did post your story. I look forward to seeing how it is dealt with. As I've said in the past, it's not that WA doesn't make mistakes, its how they sort the problem out that makes them a step above the rest.

I hope this gets sorted out asap.
 
I do not want a refund. R99 is nothing. They offered me a R100 discount on my next bill, which I refused. At no stage did I say I want money back.
 
It is extremely regrettable that you have been at the receiving end, of what seems to be a possible case of either an employee slacking off, or as stated a genuine glitch in the system. I have always only received the best service from WA, however this IMO is not acceptable service from them. Yes people do make mistakes, but as MrG said, it's how they deal with those mistakes that counts. Passing the buck is becoming all to common place in SA retail, and, as you are rightly doing, should be exposed and addressed at the highest level.

Accepting responsibility for ones mistakes is not easy, but it is the right thing to do. Then face the music, and do EVERYTHING in your power to make good on that mistake. It is not acceptable to merely right it off to some techncal glitch and expect a customer to be satisfied with that. They should do everything in their power to restore your credibility with your bank and accept resposibility for the problem.

Eagerly awaiting WA's response.
 
Just another thing I wish to mention. I do understand that mistakes creep in. They only received the mail Thursday afternoon on the 11'th, which was too late for them to take action. I dont understand why they did not try to contact me when they had the mail in front of them, and they realised it was too late. I could have transfered money from my savings account in that case.
 
i know how you feel i paid them via eft on the 5th and they still go and debit my account on the 15th after i have spoken to them as well as mailing them so yes i guess the accounts department is not as good as the technical side which is close to being flawless
 
Hi Dakeyras

I must sincerely apologise for letting your down. We are always trying to keep our customers happy and will continue to do so.

Please would you PM me your details so we can get more info so we can see if there is possibly anything we can do to help you. As for the staff, the matter will definitely be reviewed to see where they went wrong.

From what I read it basically.

- Debit order went off as per previous month
- You asked it to be changed in time and we missed the boat.
- You received a poor followup explanation

Thank you as well for highlighting a current problem with our system. Since you mentioned you hoped your post would bring about change, we are KEENLY aware of it and it has been an ongoing thorn in our side.

Our new debit order system (with a direct bank feed) is almost finished (more than a year of red tape and development), which should eliminate the technical reasons for batch delays. It will allow one to choose any day of the month and will be handled automatically to eliminate human error and delays.

That said it's definitely no excuse for what happened nor makes it acceptable. Again my humblest apologies and hope to hear from you soon.

Warmest Regards
Matthew Tagg
Managing Director
 
Last edited:
We make mistakes, its what we do afterwards that counts.
Not like telscum in another threat canceling a subscribers account.
I have hope, if a MD can respond after 8 at night to a complain.
Well done.
I look at your company in a positive light now.
 
Thanks for responding. Just to clarify, this would have been my first payment for your service. Here is some info:

On 11/03/2007 @ 01:55 PM I received an email that my account will be debited between the 15'th and the 18'th. On the same day I sent an email requesting that it be moved to after the 20'th. This email was confirmed by Zolile Tyholweni as received and sent on to the billing department.

Today I spoke to Mariet Visser. She has all my details and email correspondence from today.

Edit: If needed I can forward all mail correspondence I had today.
 
dakeyras said:
debated long and hard on wether I should post the following. For one thing WebAfrica seems to be popular on this site. In the end I decided to post this in the hopes that it would either improve their service.

I signed up for their 1gb unshaped service around the end of February. Some time during March however I received an email saying that they will run the debit order some time between the 15'th and 18'th of March. I replied to the mail (this was the 11'th) asking that the debit order be changed to a date after the 20'th since my salary only gets credited then. They replied to the email, saying that it has been sent to the billing department for actioning.

Then when I looked at my bankstatement this morning I see that they went ahead and debited my account anyway. My main issue with this is that I did not have sufficient funds to cover the debit in the account, and the transaction was unpaid. This has 3 effects:
1. R99 unpaid fee

2. Damages my credit rating with the bank, I think everyone knows what bad consequences this can have

3. The most important and serious one of them all... I work the bank in question. As an employee I am expected to manage my account in an excellent manner. The reasoning behind this is how can I expect a customer to handle his account well if I, as the employee, cant do it? People have been dismissed from the bank's service because of a bad credit history (Credit Bureaux & Bad account conduct). Bottom line is that this unpaid can lead to a written warning, and in extreme cases (if the boss has a bad day) to disciplinary steps. As this would be the first time something like this has happened to me, I doubt if I would get into too much trouble, but rest assured that I will be called in because of this.

4. Full General Report... I dont know how many people have heard about this thing, but let me give you a quick rundown on what a Full General Report is. Lets say you apply for a loan at bank x. but your account is and bank y. Bank x will then request a full general report from your bank, bank y. This report will then include information about how your account is conducted. Now lets take it one step further. Lets say I want to put my daughter into a specific school. The school, being who they are, and wanting to be certain about the prospective parent, does credit checks and asks their bank to request a full general from my bank about my account. Guess what, its not going to be a good report on me. Guess what, my daughter isnt going to be accepted by that school. I hope to God for WebAfrica's sake that this doesnt happen, because I promise you, I will go looking for blood somewhere.

So this morning I sent an email to WebAfrica outlining my problem and asking for an explenation. I also asked that the service be cancelled, and for them to provide me with the outstanding balance and bank details so I could pay it. I received a reply basically dodging blame. It basically said that she can confirm that they tracked down my email, and that she will be taking it up with the person responsible, as the mail was never forwarded to her. She also offered to give me a discount on my next bill (even though I asked them to cancel the service?) amounting to the unpaid fee I am being charged.

I then replied asking for a full explenation of what happened. I received the reply that, and I quote, "this was due to the fact that the ticket you sent in this regard reached the dedicated person to whom it was sent only the afternoon of 11 March 2007 instead of immediately as by the time they received it, the batch had allready been sent to netcash. We usually give a space of 12 to 24 hour response time between sending our reminders off and sending the batch to them." I read that and thought to myself that the wording of the mail basically says I made the mistake. Wanting to clarify the matter, as she previously blamed someone else, and now me, I replied and asked her bluntly if it was my fault because I sent my request too late.

She replied that "That is partially correct, we received your request in time, however the person who attended to the ticket, emailed one of the ladies in the billing department, whilst we were experiencing mail delays, and she received the ticket only just after the debits had been sent through for completion." By reading this I now understand that it was due to a technical error (mail delays)... And yet at first another person, then me was to blame. I also dont understand how she can say it was partly my fault if she confirms in the same mail that they received my email on time.

At this stage I decided to leave the matter as this simply wasnt going anywhere. I again asked them for the outstanding amount and bank account details so I could settle this account immediately. I have no wish for them to list me at a credit bureaux for nonpayment. She was kind enough to reply with the outstanding amount due, but I am still waiting the account details. I guess I will just go through my mailbox and see if I have it somewhere in my archived stuff.

Lastly I also find it funny, that when I create a thread here saying that WebAfrica service rocks, there is a quick reply thanking me. So fast to accept positive feedback and take credit for it. And yet when I have a complaint, the manager (Grant I think he was called?) is nowhere nearby.

Alot of people will maybe think 'chill out, relax' etc. but I just cant take stuff like this anymore. Does 3'rd world country also translate to 3'rd rate service? Why should I accept that 1 person at a company can negatively affect my life in such a broad and serious manner? Am I not allowed to be upset about it? Isnt this the type of thing that we always accuse Telkom of doing?

I have always been, and will always be a great supporter of the 'little guys'. The small companies that stands again places like Telkom, @lantic, Mweb etc. but I just cant justify things like this to myself anymore. Maybe I should also just give in and sign up for a @lantic account.

I will post all the relevant emails on request.
Click to expand...

dakeyras said:
I do not want a refund. R99 is nothing. They offered me a R100 discount on my next bill, which I refused. At no stage did I say I want money back.
Click to expand...

I agree that Webafrica should have actioned this correctly, however, I'm gonna go off-topic and probably get some flak for saying this. You say you didn't have money to cover the debit and then you say that the amount is "nothing". This seems a little illogical to me, if its "nothing" as you say then why didn't you have the funds there in the first place?
 
Guys, Simple maths and Business ecc. Keep your money in the money market (+7.5 Intrest), only transfer what you need to your cheque account (+1% Intrest). This way you maximise the intrest you earn on your money market account ! WebAfrica, responded quickly, a model, I will try to keep in my mind as we develop our own business.
 
Last edited:
mercury1 said:
i know how you feel i paid them via eft on the 5th and they still go and debit my account on the 15th after i have spoken to them as well as mailing them so yes i guess the accounts department is not as good as the technical side which is close to being flawless
Click to expand...

This why I never pay via EFT an account which has a debit order. I cannot trust SA businesses to be able to suspend the one debit order.
 
dakeyras said:
My main issue with this is that I did not have sufficient funds to cover the debit in the account, and the transaction was unpaid.
Click to expand...

OK, I KNOW this is not AT ALL the point , but I would say everyone that has debit orders coming off their account is to some extent responsible to ensure that they have enough money to cover their outgoing costs... You can't take NO liability at all when there are payments coming off your account.

It's like buying a car that claims to get 20km/l and filling up exactly 75l to drive from JHB to CT, and then blaming the car sales team for running out of petrol!

In MY opinion : You are partly liable for what happened and if YOU wanted to take the risk of having NO money in your account (Come-on REALLY, not even R100????) and then trying to change the debit order two days prior to it happening, YOU carry some of the risk, cause you were negligent as well.....
 
Last edited:
ADSL Newbie said:
OK, I KNOW this is not AT ALL the point , but I would say everyone that has debit orders coming off their account is to some extent responsible to ensure that they have enough money to cover their outgoing costs... You can't take NO liability at all when their are payments coming off your account.

It's like buying a car that claims to get 20km/l and filling up exactly 75l to drive from JHB to CT, and then blaming the car sales team for running out of petrol!

In MY opinion : You are partly liable for what happened and if YOU wanted to take the risk of having NO money in your account (Come-on REALLY, not even R100????) and then trying to change the debit order two days prior to it happening, YOU carry some of the risk, cause you were negligent as well.....
Click to expand...

I am glad you said it.
I wanted to but didn't know how to phrase it.
I think the MD, Matthew Tagg, is gonna come out of this one smelling of roses and perhaps dakeyras should have thought longer before posting what he did.
;)
 
ADSL Newbie said:
OK, I KNOW this is not AT ALL the point , but I would say everyone that has debit orders coming off their account is to some extent responsible to ensure that they have enough money to cover their outgoing costs... You can't take NO liability at all when their are payments coming off your account.

It's like buying a car that claims to get 20km/l and filling up exactly 75l to drive from JHB to CT, and then blaming the car sales team for running out of petrol!

In MY opinion : You are partly liable for what happened and if YOU wanted to take the risk of having NO money in your account (Come-on REALLY, not even R100????) and then trying to change the debit order two days prior to it happening, YOU carry some of the risk, cause you were negligent as well.....
Click to expand...

I have to agree with this too. Sure WA made a mistake but blaming them for the potential loss of your job and and your daughter maybe not getting into the right school etc is pretty extreme. :rolleyes:
 
nay - its obviously the banks responsibility ;)

...don't count your debits till they have hatched ?
 
@ ADSL Newbie

How can I be liable for a debit order that is not supposed to go of on that day? Incase you missed the part where I said that emailed them to say to change the date, and the part where I received an email confirmation, this was not supposed to go off on that day. So how again am I partly responsible?

@RSAchoc

If you read my whole post you would have noticed where I said that I would have transfered money into the account to cover the debit order if I had known it would come off.

By the responses of the above two people it seems that we South Africans are so used to stuff like this happening that we automatically assume we are partly responsible for this happening. Noone else thinks that this attitude is wrong? This may be an extreme example, but its almost like blaming a women for dressing too sexy when she gets raped.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X