Afrihost Billing / Advertising

[MichaelR87]

Hi guys,

Just a heads-up. Not sure if anyone else has had any problems like this but for the sake awareness, I'm putting it out there.

I signed up for a fibre deal at Afrihost in November 2017. I am at a point now where I want to cancel, but when I asked about how much I would be charged, I got the following from Afrihost support:

"There will be charges of R2,993.62 as you will be cancelling before the end of 18 months period."

According to Afrihost website:

"Should you cancel your Afrihost Fibre less than 6 months from installation, or your account falls into arrears, you will be charged a cancellation fee of R999. (Only applicable for signups done on or after 05 October 2017)."

So my issue is:

- Afrihost can give me my signup date and time (down to the minute),
- They have different terms for deals signed before 05 October 2017 than those signed after 05 October 2017,
- It is clear that my sign-up took place after the 05 October,
- Afrihost has informed me that I will be liable for charges as though I signed-up before the given date, and not after (as is clear from the dates)

I opened a support ticket, was told that I needed to contact "accounts", accounts then told me that the issue needed to be corrected by the "dev" department, all of this was last week, and still no reply. Attempts to reply to the email thread from last week results in a failure to deliver and raw HTML being output in the mail body along with the failure response.

Please be aware. Thank you.

 

[ADRAM3L3CH]

Thanks Michael , I was looking at signing up with afrihost but 18 months is a long time!

Has your internet service been great ?

 

[MichaelR87]

Hi ADRAM3L3CH,

The period shown on their website is 6 months, but when I enquired about my account I was told 18 months, and that's when I became concerned and figured out what had happened.

As far as the internet service is concerned, the 10Meg Fibre line I had was decent for the most part, but not great.

 

[Johnatan56]

It's still there:

10.8 Applicable to signups before 05 October 2017 - Should a user cancel their connection with us before 18 months of service, they will be charged a pro-rated amount to recover the initial offer extended. What this means is, for example, if a user receives an overall credit of R3600 on signup, and cancels after 8 months, that they will be charged an amount pro-rata for the remaining 10 months – in the case of this example that would equate to R2000. This is to cover the capital outlay incurred by Afrihost to provision infrastructure and hardware required in facilitating the fibre connection to users.

10.9 Applicable to signups on or after 05 October 2017 - Should a user cancel their Afrihost Fibre less than 6 months from installation, or their account falls into arrears, they will be charged a cancellation fee of R999.

This is either the 5th or 6th months but that's irrelevant as you signed up to 10.9. It should just be the R999. What's the procedure if you stick in for another month?

Btw, you signed up to: https://www.afrihost.com/site/page/terms_and_conditions_outdated/fibre_broadband_31_10_2017 There are no differences in regards to your case though.

 

[MichaelR87]

Thanks Johnathan,

Honestly, I never read 10.8 or 10.9, I only looked at the fine print detailed on the same page as the deal (which is basically 10.9). Since I signed up after 05 October, 10.8 should never even have entered the equation, right?

To me it's clear, but throughout my tedious dealings with Afrihost support and accounts, I still cannot get them to confirm the error. Am I missing something?

I have since decided to keep the fibre account until my 6 month period has elapsed, after that I will again enquire as to any cancellation fees, and since it should be all clear by then, that is the day on which I will cancel this nightmare service.