Afrihost ISPA ruling upheld

[Creag]

Sincere kudos to you, @MagicDude4Eva. Amazing effort and the time you put is commendable.

Seeing that they are appealing, I doubt they will have to do anything until the appeal has been finalized.

Their apology feels hollow and lacks sincerity if they're appealing the ruling... or is it just the Afrihost way of buying time in hope that the network switch will void their need to put tail between leg?

Either way, it's easy to lose all confidence in their handling of complaints. It reminds me of the way they handled my call in when I was experiencing problems; well and truly poor. The penny drops.

 

[fishfly]

I've been in the same situation as the OP... gave AH the benefit of the doubt and let it slide, I had logged two separate incidents but they only refunded me once after promising me they would refund me on the two separate occasions (a team leader and an senior engineer). I've let it slide, I have no qualms if my internet goes belly up now and then - lets face it what business doesn't have a few hiccups here and there. My only issue is the fact that they've wasted my time (working time in the evenings) asking me to do stupid speed tests, trace routes and testing with another ISP.

The most irritating thing was each time I logged a incident to AH via their portal a n00b engineer would respond with the standard template - "your exchange is congested", "I've reset your port", "I've re-synced your line", "please reset your router" and the best is "I've escalated it up" - to oblivion and no one will ever get back to you. This process took over two months - even Afriman, Afrigenie, afretc gave me the same story. Please run speed test, please run trace route, please get another ISP's account and do a comparative testing and in the end they give me the "oh my line never had any issues like what you were experiencing last night."
My last communication ended with a "senior engineer" telling me my upload speed is affecting my down speed... because my upload bandwidth was too high. So my 512Kbps upload speed supersedes my 4Mbps line and drastically reduces it to a 2Mbps line between 20:00 and 00:00

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

I have been quite overwhelmed with the amount of emails I got from people after the ruling went public. The one thing which completely puzzles me is that many of you have been complaining for more than half a year about the same type of issues, but have decided that it is enough to just post a traceroute/complaint on this forum.

Can someone please explain why you are still with them? I can find absolutely no reason why one should:
- it's a clear breach of contract, so there is no legal reason
- it is not a cost issue, as other providers cost about the same (some are more expensive, but then you get really decent service)

So I conclude that people who have not taken action are just plain complacent and hope that one day things go back to normal. Perhaps this will now happen with this new, insane network. Some people said, that I should not be petty and let it go, but to be honest, if you do not care about the little things what makes you care about the more important things then.

I will obviously contest Afrihost's appeal and so far I have received a number of really good, factual messages from people on this forum which I will use with their permission to support an appeal against the Afrihost appeal. If you feel that you have been wronged, do one of the following:
- Submit your own ISPA complaint (it is easy, and you should really protect your rights and show some consumeractivism)
- Provide me with good factual information which supports the COC complaint issues I raised (this obviously means you need to read the full ISPA ruling and then send me info pertaining to the COC violations)

BTW: Just because Afrihost might introduce now a functioning network, does not remedy the fact that their service was unacceptable for the last 12 months and there still needs to be accountability for it. The company has with purpose avoided to inform customers about issues and only under pressure from the media started to act. This is visible via the way the support team acts, how refund/cancellation requests are handled and it is a direct violation of not just ISPA COC but also the CPA.

 

[whatwhat]

So I conclude that people who have not taken action are just plain complacent and hope that one day things go back to normal.

It's a South African attribute. We complain a lot, especially on the internet or around the braai, but no one wants to do anything.

 

[km2]

I think complaining to the ISPA is a higher level of effort than just leaving. People probably cope with bad ISPs in the order of:

1) Suffer quietly
2) Log a support ticket
3) Move ISPs

Going to the ISPA is going to take way longer than any of those other options, and at the end you still need to move ISP, so why bother? Yeah, maybe seeing AH get a small fine would make me feel better but it wouldn't directly help me.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

I think complaining to the ISPA is a higher level of effort than just leaving. People probably cope with bad ISPs in the order of:

1) Suffer quietly
2) Log a support ticket
3) Move ISPs

Going to the ISPA is going to take way longer than any of those other options, and at the end you still need to move ISP, so why bother? Yeah, maybe seeing AH get a small fine would make me feel better but it wouldn't directly help me.

But people are not leaving. I have been watching the AH feedback threads and it is the same people complaining about the same problems for months. So are those guys just SOOOO lazy that they could not even be bothered to switch ISPs (but still have enough energy to complain and send traceroutes)? That is the part I don't get.

 

[Ho3n3r]

But people are not leaving. I have been watching the AH feedback threads and it is the same people complaining about the same problems for months. So are those guys just SOOOO lazy that they could not even be bothered to switch ISPs (but still have enough energy to complain and send traceroutes)? That is the part I don't get.

I struggled from December to end of March - nothing was ever done or resolved, but I tended to give them the benefit of the doubt, until I just couldn't take it any more.

The best thing they did in my year and a bit with them, was giving me an early cancellation after the cut-off date.

 

[brendonwp]

@MagicDude - Strength to your arm! I've been with Afrihost for years now, but will be looking to move on in the next few months. I've had few problems overall, but they are no longer on top of their game and the recent outages are too much for me.

 

[AntiGanda]

But people are not leaving. I have been watching the AH feedback threads and it is the same people complaining about the same problems for months. So are those guys just SOOOO lazy that they could not even be bothered to switch ISPs (but still have enough energy to complain and send traceroutes)? That is the part I don't get.

If an ISP performed well once then they assume it may return to that state.

Jumping ISP can be risky if you don't know what they are like. I mean look at VOX with people jumping to it and suddenly things take a turn.

 

[MickeyD]

BTW Gian acknowledged their service problems at the MyBB conference, so you have further evidence if required. It was recorded and you have a few hundred witnesses.

I was also admitted by AH reps on this forum. I remember asking them if, by admitting breach of contract, they were going to refund their customers!

 

[AntiGanda]

BTW Gian acknowledged their service problems at the MyBB conference, so you have further evidence if required. It was recorded and you have a few hundred witnesses.

I was also admitted by AH reps on this forum. I remember asking them if, by admitting breach of contract, they were going to refund their customers!

In another thread some guys were saying they got credit .... wait for it ... to use on Afrihost, which wasn't ideal.

 

[LaraC]

/snip
BTW: Just because Afrihost might introduce now a functioning network, does not remedy the fact that their service was unacceptable for the last 12 months and there still needs to be accountability for it. The company has with purpose avoided to inform customers about issues and only under pressure from the media started to act. This is visible via the way the support team acts, how refund/cancellation requests are handled and it is a direct violation of not just ISPA COC but also the CPA.

Isn’t it normal legal practice not to do anything until all your options are exhausted?
On a more positive note I think it is admirable that Afrihost subscribes to the ISPA code of conduct.
Afrihost’s’ compliance to the ruling show that they are committed to professional conduct.

 

[Ho3n3r]

Isn’t it normal legal practice not to do anything until all your options are exhausted?
On a more positive note I think it is admirable that Afrihost subscribes to the ISPA code of conduct.
Afrihost’s’ compliance to the ruling show that they are committed to professional conduct.

But they're not complying, were found guilty of not complying, admitted that they aren't complying - yet are about to appeal the ruling. How are they suddenly the good guys in this story?

 

[LaraC]

But they're not complying, were found guilty of not complying, admitted that they aren't complying - yet are about to appeal the ruling. How are they suddenly the good guys in this story?

To appeal a ruling is everyone’s right. Isn’t that the way our justice system work?
I didn’t say that Afrihost is the good guys but I did point out that they are willing to submit to oversight.

 

[Grep]

Can someone please explain why you are still with them? I can find absolutely no reason why one should:

Sure I can. My company has LOADS of accounts with them setup over the years for our clients. The clients are located all over the country and almost none of them are tech savvy enough to change a simple user/pass on the router and then run around to all the workstations to change incoming and outgoing mail server. Now I already suspect some idiot is going to come on here and say that isn't it worse for the client to receive intermittent internet that do this job?

The answer is no. Our job as tech's is meant to be on the road all day fixing problems totally unrelated to the internet, we also don't have the manpower to drive all over the country to cut client's over and lastly, who is going to pay for all the fuel costs? So yes, that is why we are still with them.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Isn’t it normal legal practice not to do anything until all your options are exhausted?
On a more positive note I think it is admirable that Afrihost subscribes to the ISPA code of conduct.
Afrihost’s’ compliance to the ruling show that they are committed to professional conduct.

No it is not. Afrihost has been aware of their own issues since August when the IPC issues started. A couple of points where the company failed to comply to COC and being an ethical company:
- Afrihost initially "threatened" that they will take legal action against me - I laughed it off and told them, they should rather respond to the ISPA complaint
- IPC issues were only admitted in November 2014, despite the issue being raised from August 2014. Even then it was a white-wash
- The company did IMO on purpose string customers along for unreasonable long periods of time and used unnecessary support processes to eventually make troubled customers give up (there are just so many traceroutes and port-resets one can make)
- I personally have never received a sound technical explanation. One example is that my Fortigate IP-to-IP VPN connection broke for days. I was asked to change DNS to Google (which is unnecessary as those are IP-to-IP connections without any use of DNS). 3 days later everything worked again, when asked what it was, I was told it was a Google DNS routing issue.
- I was offered "Afrihost credits" as a refund (initially only if I withdrew my ISPA complaint). Once I threatened with legal action, my credit card was credited

Another aspect is that most people will not log a actual ticket with AH as it is quicker to get feedback on MyBB. I finish my mail off with a sample of issues reported just in the last 12 months (this excludes any "informal" support interaction via Twitter, Forum, phone)

HNR-926-89870, 07/07/2015: Complaint to AH Quality Control Manager about Afrihost support staff misconduct
PTK-562-44862, 04/07/2015: Cancelled service for July. Disputed July & June charge for ADSL business
CUJ-293-60480, 04/07/2015: Frequent disconnects. Abuse from Afrihost support staff.
IPW-284-70142, 31/05/2015: High latency / frequent disconnects - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_TgzaZnnvo
BSY-862-28919, 15/05/2015: Frequent disconnects / VPN connections dropping - apparently "DNS issues". Was merged with ticket IPW-284-70142 on 31/05/2015
XIF-569-52312, 22/05/2015: Latency. Unable to stream. Works fine on Telkom & Webafrica
KIF-359-64573, 03/04/2015: High latency, 5.67Mb/s on 10Mb/s line - http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4261984971
NHE-686-42215, 31/03/2015: Slow speed. Does not happen on Webafrica & Telkom.
LLK-663-48235, 30/10/2014: Poor internet speed - 0.40Mb/s on 10Mb line - http://www.speedtest.net/result/3871444744.png
AZI-688-27237, 10/10/2014: Frequent PS4 disconnects. See: http://sagamer.co.za/forum/showthread.php?143203-Destiny-Afrihost-Connectivity-issues/page4
CAH-504-82615, 11/03/2014: Complete outage. Port recreated.
VCN-265-23947, 07/02/2014: Unable to authenticate ADSL session

Afrihost has not complied to the ruling. Now there seems to be a major rush to move complaining customers to the new network and respond to the ISPA ruling with the statement that they always had a "Network Status Page" - which is not up-to-date and does not align with the ISPA ruling. What ISPA ruled is that any customer signing up should be aware that the company is (and has) experienced severe issues for an extended period of time.

Lastly, it is no surprise that a POC network was created - it is a prototype-/test-networking and as with anything in a "test-state", a customer must expect issues and should not have any recourse as he opted into being on a unstable/frequently tweaked test-network. AH made their POC out to be something disruptive/innovative by throwing in a few Sandvine boxes (which are used by many other ISPs) and changing carriers - it is nothing spectacular and other ISPs have done this without problems for years.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Sure I can. My company has LOADS of accounts with them setup over the years for our clients. The clients are located all over the country and almost none of them are tech savvy enough to change a simple user/pass on the router and then run around to all the workstations to change incoming and outgoing mail server. Now I already suspect some idiot is going to come on here and say that isn't it worse for the client to receive intermittent internet that do this job?

The answer is no. Our job as tech's is meant to be on the road all day fixing problems totally unrelated to the internet, we also don't have the manpower to drive all over the country to cut client's over and lastly, who is going to pay for all the fuel costs? So yes, that is why we are still with them.

But surely your not tech-savvy clients will phone you with their connectivity issues and you will then have to deal with those. How do you then support your clients if they have Afrihost issues (i.e. running those trace routes, restarting the router, changing DNS on the router etc) - I would have thought that you would then at least have a VPN connection to manage your clients network - or? I think if more than 30% of my customers are affected with issues over a period of a month, I would cut over to another ISP as otherwise you will eventually lose your clients.

 

[Newbie23]

@Magic
How long does this whole they-appeal/you-appeal take.
What happens in the meantime?

 

[LaraC]

/Snip

You, and it appears that many other customers, have had an unsatisfactory relationship with Afrihost.
I on the other hand have had a very good experience with Afrihost but it would appear as if that is seen as shilling and cheerleading.

 

[Newbie23]

You, and it appears that many other customers, have had an unsatisfactory relationship with Afrihost.
I on the other hand have had a very good experience with Afrihost but it would appear as if that is seen as shilling and cheerleading.

Everyone has the right to their own opinions and views etc....
It's seen as shilling and cheerleading because that's what it is.
Looking at the facts presented here, it's clear that they're in violation but yet you still defend them.......I don't get it.