One really would have thought that Neotel would be the great saviour of the Telecoms monopoly in South Africa and that they would finally provide an alternative for everyone who was always stuck with Telkom. That is simply not to be and they've been in business long enough now to prove that they are more inefficient than Telkom ever was or will be.
First of all the quality of Neotel service is useless, phone lines are scratchy on at least 50% of all calls and the internet is so damn slow that it's quicker to get in your car and go and collect what you want on a usb stick. This is despite our instruments being located in an area that is well serviced by Neotel and a location that has near perfect signal strength.
Complaints in this regard just go unanswered or completely ignored but come billing day and you don't pay and they will cut you off from their absolutely smashing service within a day of not paying.
On the subject of billing, during the creation of our accounts with Neotel we ordered 4 lines and some bright spark at Neotel could not find it in his computer skills to assign all 4 numbers to the same billing account and instead assigned it to 2 different accounts yet both accounts are for the same company. What would then happen is that every month we would receive two bills, our accountant would add the two up and pay them as one amount.
This sadly is just too much to ask from the brainpower of Neotel's staff and computing systems who then took the full amount and kept applying it to one account. This resulted in one account being overpaid and the other being underpaid which further resulted in lines being cut off earlier this year which cost us another entire day in phone calls and faxes and laying out of more money to get them re-activated.
It was at this point that we came to realise what Neotel had been doing with the money we had been paying them and it was also at this point that Neotel saw the fault and admitted that they owed us money from the one overpaid account. We then asked them to simply move that credit to the other underpaid account but "the Computer said nooooooo" and they said we must pay the other account separately and they will refund us the credit into our banking account.
While still on the subject of Neotel's billing system, each invoice has a fax number to which proof of payment must be faxed. Unlike any other Telecom's company in South Africa, Neotel simply does not have the brain or computing power to pick up reference numbers from payments into their account and simply assign them to an account, no that is simply too much to ask of the geniuses at Neotel so instead you have to fax them every month with your proof of payment. That's all fine assuming the fax number printed on their invoice is the correct number which in fact it is NOT.
Neotel's billing department back in April this year after lines were cut off, told us they never got any of our proof's of payment because we were stupidly faxing them to the fax number specified on their invoice, how stupid of us to make such a silly mistake. Neotel's billing department then gave us the correct fax number to fax proof of payment to which we now do religiously but 7 months later and you will still find the incorrect fax number printed on their invoices and it makes me wonder just how many people have their lines disconnected every month due to this silly mistake.
This promise of refunding us has now been going on since about April this year. Every month our accountant has to spend several hours fighting with someone at Neotel who then promises we will get the money back and in numerous cases we were given exact dates we would see the money in our account yet we are still waiting and all the while Neotel keeps earning interest on the R9000+ they owe us all the while continuing to provide an appalling service.
Neotel most certainly has NOTHING over the service Telkom provides. We've had credits owed to us from Telkom many times in the past and it takes just one phone call and your credit is applied to your account, just like that.
Neotel has had a license to operate in South Africa for long enough now to have ironed out their quirks and to become a valid competitor to Telkom but they seem stifled with a shoddy network, shoddy computer and billing systems and a staff compliment that seems unable to perform the simplest of tasks and who know diddly squat about customer care.
This country really has no need for such shoddy services and Neotel should have their operating license revoked by ICASA if they are unable to provide services like everyone else does. Least of all Neotel should throw their entire billing system out, fire the programmers who wrote it and get a new one that could see them start to compete efficiently in this market place.
Although we must give credit where credit is due - the one good thing about Neotel is that you have made Telkom better.
Thumbs down to you NEOTEL
and we look forward to hearing from you regarding the money you owe us.
Copies:
Various Media Outlets
First of all the quality of Neotel service is useless, phone lines are scratchy on at least 50% of all calls and the internet is so damn slow that it's quicker to get in your car and go and collect what you want on a usb stick. This is despite our instruments being located in an area that is well serviced by Neotel and a location that has near perfect signal strength.
Complaints in this regard just go unanswered or completely ignored but come billing day and you don't pay and they will cut you off from their absolutely smashing service within a day of not paying.
On the subject of billing, during the creation of our accounts with Neotel we ordered 4 lines and some bright spark at Neotel could not find it in his computer skills to assign all 4 numbers to the same billing account and instead assigned it to 2 different accounts yet both accounts are for the same company. What would then happen is that every month we would receive two bills, our accountant would add the two up and pay them as one amount.
This sadly is just too much to ask from the brainpower of Neotel's staff and computing systems who then took the full amount and kept applying it to one account. This resulted in one account being overpaid and the other being underpaid which further resulted in lines being cut off earlier this year which cost us another entire day in phone calls and faxes and laying out of more money to get them re-activated.
It was at this point that we came to realise what Neotel had been doing with the money we had been paying them and it was also at this point that Neotel saw the fault and admitted that they owed us money from the one overpaid account. We then asked them to simply move that credit to the other underpaid account but "the Computer said nooooooo" and they said we must pay the other account separately and they will refund us the credit into our banking account.
While still on the subject of Neotel's billing system, each invoice has a fax number to which proof of payment must be faxed. Unlike any other Telecom's company in South Africa, Neotel simply does not have the brain or computing power to pick up reference numbers from payments into their account and simply assign them to an account, no that is simply too much to ask of the geniuses at Neotel so instead you have to fax them every month with your proof of payment. That's all fine assuming the fax number printed on their invoice is the correct number which in fact it is NOT.
Neotel's billing department back in April this year after lines were cut off, told us they never got any of our proof's of payment because we were stupidly faxing them to the fax number specified on their invoice, how stupid of us to make such a silly mistake. Neotel's billing department then gave us the correct fax number to fax proof of payment to which we now do religiously but 7 months later and you will still find the incorrect fax number printed on their invoices and it makes me wonder just how many people have their lines disconnected every month due to this silly mistake.
This promise of refunding us has now been going on since about April this year. Every month our accountant has to spend several hours fighting with someone at Neotel who then promises we will get the money back and in numerous cases we were given exact dates we would see the money in our account yet we are still waiting and all the while Neotel keeps earning interest on the R9000+ they owe us all the while continuing to provide an appalling service.
Neotel most certainly has NOTHING over the service Telkom provides. We've had credits owed to us from Telkom many times in the past and it takes just one phone call and your credit is applied to your account, just like that.
Neotel has had a license to operate in South Africa for long enough now to have ironed out their quirks and to become a valid competitor to Telkom but they seem stifled with a shoddy network, shoddy computer and billing systems and a staff compliment that seems unable to perform the simplest of tasks and who know diddly squat about customer care.
This country really has no need for such shoddy services and Neotel should have their operating license revoked by ICASA if they are unable to provide services like everyone else does. Least of all Neotel should throw their entire billing system out, fire the programmers who wrote it and get a new one that could see them start to compete efficiently in this market place.
Although we must give credit where credit is due - the one good thing about Neotel is that you have made Telkom better.
Thumbs down to you NEOTEL
and we look forward to hearing from you regarding the money you owe us.Copies:
Various Media Outlets
