Afrihost ISPA ruling upheld

[whatwhat]

And that must be why 99.99% of subscribers has NOT received any refunds yes, not a single cent... -sigh-

SO happy about the outcome, but really not happy about the suspended fine... It's about time that the ISPA pulls finger and actually DO something.

AH gave me a refund, but they gave it as credit. I wasn't allowed to cash it out and have to spend it on AH products.
So their refunds are bull****.

 

[KillerBOB]

AH gave me a refund, but they gave it as credit. I wasn't allowed to cash it out and have to spend it on AH products.
So their refunds are bull****.

I got the same this month. What a joke.

 

[eye_suc]

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/wp-content/uploads/thumbnail/people/gian-visser.jpg

 

[gconey]

The cartel fines the hand that feeds it, one can only smile at the irony.

 

[Fulcrum29]

This...

The complaint argued that Afrihost cannot provide the “Unshaped, Unmetered, Prioritised” Business ADSL services it advertises on its website, as it could not provide a consistent connection.

...

“This would support Afrihost’s position that service was provided within the provisions of the advertised service levels, which take into account factors which are outside of Afrihost’s control as a best-effort service.”

Quote (2015-10-15):

http://www.afrihost.com/site/page/terms_and_conditions/dsl_data

4. "Best Effort" Service

4.1
Afrihost will provide DSL Broadband services to the Client based on the following conditions:

4.2
DSL speeds will be provided on a best-effort basis, subject to Telkom line constraints and demand on the Afrihost network at any given point.

4.3
DSL service is not provided on a 1:1 ratio, but is essentially provided on a “shared resource” basis. No guarantees or warranties whatsoever are provided on throughput or any other aspect of the service, including but not limited to warranties in respect of merchantability, non-infringement of third party rights, freeness from errors or interruptions or availability, other than set out in these terms and conditions.

4.4
DSL is an access medium to the Internet and accordingly remains subject to any bandwidth related constraints which may apply to or be experienced in the use of the World Wide Web (WWW).

I would like to see the terms & conditions they had published on 2014-08-26,

http://web.archive.org/web/20140826014919/http://www.afrihost.com/site/page/terms_and_conditions

- DSL Data
- General Provisions

Seeing the Business package (2014-08-13),

http://web.archive.org/web/20140813...om/site/product/business_adsl?src=website_nav

Perfect for the office, or for the power internet user! No shaping (guaranteed) and prioritised for the best performance with unique features to protect your business!

To compare a no shaping 'guaranteed' advertisement to their DSL Service cluase 4.3 is indeed questionable, this is removed in the current advertising, but will apply to their terms & conditions when MagicDude4Eva subscribed to the service.

This post is relevant to,

I left AH prior to their Afri{insert_color_here} network changes and my ISPA complaint was based on the services provided in the last 12 months (Aug 2014 - Jul 2015). Thankfully I had the option to move to another ISP, but if for whatever reason I did not have the option to move (maybe contract with Afrihost) and was stuck paying for a POC-/test-network without the option to cancel I would have challenged Clause 6 (ISP infringed AUP - as not even basic service could be delivered), Clause 7 (ISP acted fairly, if there was no option to cancel due to breach of contract) and Clause 9 (complaint to ASA).

Who knows, maybe someone curtails this ruling and goes with an ASA complaint seeing that ISPA supported my Clause8 complaint.

 

[Clayman]

I would like to have a "best effort" payment system. Full price is asked to use their services...they should then make SURE that the users get max service...or at least close to. So many times users show stats where their line is performing at less than 50%...and then the ISP start the blame game...

+1 to this

Why pay for 100% for a service that only works as intended 30-40% of the time?

 

[arr0w]

Yay x infinity.

I am so glad this guy stood up to these clowns.

 

[Ho3n3r]

Well deserved by Afrihost. This was also the reason I left - promises all over the place, not to mention the numerous tests to which we got no responses to and were requested by Afrihost to do AGAIN when asked about a response regarding the previous test(s), and no permanent resolution in almost 4 months. I found it easier to just move, but good on you for doing the dirty work that many of us wanted to do.

 

[KinsZA]

I do think the whole "Did not display performance issues on website" is unfair as they did display it, what were they supposed to do change their header ? I don't have pity regarding the extended poor performance though.

 

[arr0w]

Is it possible for more people to come forward and lay complaints against them?

 

[Ho3n3r]

I do think the whole "Did not display performance issues on website" is unfair as they did display it, what were they supposed to do change their header ? I don't have pity regarding the extended poor performance though.

There was a whole spat on one of their previous locked feedback threads on here about how their Network Status page didn't reflect performance issues a lot of the time - ones that they acknowledged are present at the time.

 

[SlowHands]

I do think the whole "Did not display performance issues on website" is unfair as they did display it, what were they supposed to do change their header ? I don't have pity regarding the extended poor performance though.

in all honesty...if you go far enough back in the threads...you'll find plenty of posts where we were complaining about the status not being updated...which they only did after weeks of complaints...and denying everything in the meantime...

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

I just read that AH is going to appeal. It will be quite interesting how they will respond to the number of service tickets I logged and provided as reference to ISPA. If an appeal comes through, I will probably lodge a counter appeal against all the other CoC violations as well (I let them slide, but do believe that each of the CoC complaints has merit).

This infuriates me:

“We are obviously very sorry that we let this client down. This the first step in the process and as such we will be appealing the ruling,” said Afrihost CEO Gian Visser.

He said if an ISP truly was in breach of Clause 8, it would render them unable to provide that service under the ISPA Code of Conduct.

No Gian - the first step should have been 4 months ago that someone actually properly apologised and that your support staff had stopped patronising me as part of the support interaction (I have this in writing BTW and was told that the support engineer will face disciplinary action).

AH has not been able to render an appropriate service from at least March 2015. From a ticket response dated 7th July:

We are aware that our network has problems at the moment and our network engineers have been working tirelessly to try and resolve them. We also have future plans to use a different network
altogether which we expect to offer much better performance.

In the light of that the service has not worked for me for 12 months and the ticket history I have till July, I doubt that this specific appeal will go through. Furthermore, in the light of that even the new network is experiencing issues it becomes now not just an ISPA question but also a National Consumer Council question as AH knowingly is taking on new clients and asking existing clients to stay with their network until problems are resolved.

My initial request in July for a full refund of a conservative two months of service was initially declined but was then paid. While I appreciate that businesses can face difficult operational challenges, I did not appreciate that I was lied to on a number of occasions as well as the ethics deployed by the business (one AH senior manager: "I could expedite your refund if you could then withdraw the ISPA complaint").

I hope that more consumers take action against service providers - after all it should be a mutual business relationship where both parties benefit. In my case I spent in excess of 1.5K per month on business broadband service and did not receive what was advertised. The bigger issue is that it is not about the 1.5k per month - it is about time and productivity lost (i.e. having to drive to the office in the middle of the night, as Afrihost was done again / spending hours with support and resetting ports or running meaningless traceroutes).

Just for the record @Gian / @Afrihost: Since I switched to Vox at the end of June I had ZERO issues. No outages and no trace-routes, no blaming Telkom for port issues and no resetting of ADSL modems. Their support staff treated me respectfully and as a valued client - a customer experience I truly treasure. Your company and staff made me feel like I am a burden and you are doing me a favour - this is not how you should run a business and perhaps it is better that you close doors then.

 

[reactor_sa]

If this was America, all the local ISP would have been class action lawsuited to death, and we would all be rich!

 

[Ho3n3r]

I just read that AH is going to appeal. It will be quite interesting how they will respond to the number of service tickets I logged and provided as reference to ISPA. If an appeal comes through, I will probably lodge a counter appeal against all the other CoC violations as well (I let them slide, but do believe that each of the CoC complaints has merit).

This infuriates me:



No Gian - the first step should have been 4 months ago that someone actually properly apologised and that your support staff had stopped patronising me as part of the support interaction (I have this in writing BTW and was told that the support engineer will face disciplinary action).

AH has not been able to render an appropriate service from at least March 2015. From a ticket response dated 7th July:


In the light of that the service has not worked for me for 12 months and the ticket history I have till July, I doubt that this specific appeal will go through. Furthermore, in the light of that even the new network is experiencing issues it becomes now not just an ISPA question but also a National Consumer Council question as AH knowingly is taking on new clients and asking existing clients to stay with their network until problems are resolved.

My initial request in July for a full refund of a conservative two months of service was initially declined but was then paid. While I appreciate that businesses can face difficult operational challenges, I did not appreciate that I was lied to on a number of occasions as well as the ethics deployed by the business (one AH senior manager: "I could expedite your refund if you could then withdraw the ISPA complaint").

I hope that more consumers take action against service providers - after all it should be a mutual business relationship where both parties benefit. In my case I spent in excess of 1.5K per month on business broadband service and did not receive what was advertised. The bigger issue is that it is not about the 1.5k per month - it is about time and productivity lost (i.e. having to drive to the office in the middle of the night, as Afrihost was done again / spending hours with support and resetting ports or running meaningless traceroutes).

Just for the record @Gian / @Afrihost: Since I switched to Vox at the end of June I had ZERO issues. No outages and no trace-routes, no blaming Telkom for port issues and no resetting of ADSL modems. Their support staff treated me respectfully and as a valued client - a customer experience I truly treasure. Your company and staff made me feel like I am a burden and you are doing me a favour - this is not how you should run a business and perhaps it is better that you close doors then.

Geez Gian. I find it almost unethical that he even has the audacity to appeal this. On what grounds does he feel the ruling is incorrect? First he says sorry that he has let you - as well as many others - down, and then the next sentence says this is why they are appealing the ruling.

Showing their true colors here...

 

[Rickster]

No one complained to the ISPA about openweb?


Interesting.

 

[savage]

AH is -clearly- not understanding and realizing just how serious the problem is, and just how furious, annoyed, and gatv.. their customers actually are.

IMHO there's an complete disconnect between the customer and AH. For various reasons. I too, have now moved on, after years and years of giving them the benefit of the doubt and what not. Enough is now enough.

 

[i.got~issues]

No one complained to the ISPA about openweb?


Interesting.

OpenWeb not an ISPA member... heck, they're not even an ISP.

 

[whatwhat]

Gotta love Gian's outlook.

Sorry we gave you bad customer service, but lets appeal the ruling first.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

I received quite a few messages from people about the process for an ISPA complaint - I have updated to original post with more info and timelines.