Afrihost pure internet joy? More like pure billing hell.

[Sodan]

10 April 2015

Dear Valued Customer,

This is an important message from Afrihost.

Please read through the following email concerning your services with us - If you have any questions regarding this please drop us an email or give us a call and we'd be happy to help.

Your account (XXXX) with Afrihost is currently in arrears. The total amount payable on this account is R 553.23. Please make sure that you settle your account as soon as possible to avoid possible disruption of the services that you have with us.

Please sign in to your Client Zone and pay the outstanding balance by Credit Card within 5 working days to avoid disruption to your active services.


If you have already paid your account or if the "Payable On" date on your invoice is after today, kindly ignore this message.


Kind Regards,
Accounts Administrator - Wendy Noble
[email protected] (alternatively [email protected])

10 April 2015

Hi

I have downloaded my account history for the last few months, and it looks extremely confusing. Multiple 20GB and 250MB packages added to my account at the start of the month, followed by a bunch of credit notes? Please can you explain to me what is going on?

My number is XXXX.

Also note that since you Afrihost has my banking details, and a debit order, and Afrihost takes money from my bank account as soon as upgrade my internet account, the only way I can be in "arrears" is if Afrihost failed to process a transaction against my bank account. No action is ever required from me to make a payment. So if I am truly in "arrears", it's simply because Afrihost didn't do its job properly.

However, let's first sort out what's going on with my account history, and then I'm perfectly happy for Afrihost to take whatever amount is due.

Kind regards,
XXXX

11 April 2015

Good day XXXX

I trust that you are well

Thank you for sending this valued email. On the 2015-01-28 at 16h07 you upgraded your package from a 250MB package to a 10GB package then you moved it back to the 250MB package so a credit note was passed for that. Then on the 2015-01-29 at 08h23 you upgraded the existing 250MB to a 7GB package and you changed it back again so a credit note was passed. Later on, on the very same day you did a package change again in the client zone and you upgraded your package to 20GB package and you downgraded again at 11h11am. You repeated the same thing again at 14h15 so a credit note had to be passed again. This was repeated more than 3 times so our system had to keep on passing credit notes.

All these changes were done in the client zone and it was not done by an Afrihost consultant. I have inquired with the manager regarding balance on the account because it is also an amount for a package upgrade. In future if you would like to make any changes on the account please inform us so we can do it for you. We will get back to you regarding the outstanding balance.

If there is anything else that you are unsure of , please do not hesitate to contact us if we may be of further assistance.

Thanks

Have a great day and please let me know if I can help with anything else!

Warm regards

Angel
Afrihost.com
Pure Internet Joy!

Why have a client zone that allows you to make package changes if you don't want clients to make package changes? Anyway, moving on.

11 April 2015

Hi Angel

Thank you for the explanation, it makes perfect sense now. As mentioned before, I am happy for Afrihost to debit my account for the full amount owed. As my budget for this month is already set, I trust it will be acceptable if this additional debit is done at month end (end of April) ?

In future can Afrihost please ensure that they debit my account for the full outstanding amount. There really should be no way my account ends up in "arrears".

Kind regards,
XXXX

13 April 2015

Good Day XXXX
I trust you are well

Thank you for your email.

We are able to add the debit order to the end of April as the payment is needed in 2days, unfortunately we will not be able to stop the suspension on your account,

The balance will need to be settled via the client zone as you will need to log in from there.

Do not hesitate to contact us further.



Have a great day and please let me know if I can help with anything else!

Warm regards

Kelebogile
Afrihost.com
Pure Internet Joy!

13 April 2015

Good day, Kelebogile

Thank you for your e-mail.
Let me see if I understand this correctly. After Afrihost has stuffed up the debiting of my account, I am left with 2 choices:

1. Fix Afrihost's stuff in 2 days, or
2. Have my account suspended.

Is that correct?

Kind regards,
XXXX

13 April 2015

Edit to previous e-mail:
Option 1 should read:

1. Fix Afrihost's stuff up within 2 days, or

Kind regards,
XXXX

14 April 2015

Good Morning XXXX
I trust you are well

Thank you for your email once again.

We work on an automated billing system and therefore the changes were made in that time,

Therefore this is the reason credits were passed on your account by the system automatically, and yes the account will need to be settled accordingly,

This is not a stuff up, as you made and requested these changes, in future to avoid such billing and confusion changes are to be made before the 25th of the month;

*** Downgrade take effect in the following month,

*** Upgrades take effect immediately and an invoice is raised and you are billed within 24 hrs to 48 hrs if the invoice being sent.

Do not hesitate to contact us for further assistance.


Have a great day and please let me know if I can help with anything else!

Warm regards

Kelebogile
Afrihost.com
Pure Internet Joy!

14 April 2015

Good morning Kelebogile

"*** Upgrades take effect immediately and an invoice is raised and you are billed within 24 hrs to 48 hrs if the invoice being sent."

Please do explain to me how my account can possibly be in arrears since I am billed within 24 to 48 hours of an invoice being sent for account upgrades. Are you seriously not able to see that it is literally impossible for my account to be in arrears, unless Afrihost didn't bill me correctly?

I'm sorry, but if you cannot see that, then we are wasting each other's time. Could you please hand this ticket over to someone with a bit more experience with, or, at the least, understanding of, your billing procedures? I am not implying that you have no experience or understanding of your billing procedures, however, it is clear that we are not able to come to a common understanding between the two of us.

Warm regards,
XXXX

continued...

 

[Sodan]

...continued

15 April 2015

Hi XXXX

Hope you are well

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately you are not managing your account the way it should be managed. If you require more cheap data please activate Afrihost* which for an additional R99 doubles your monthly data plus an additional 500mg. If you top up your top ups will be doubled. Your multiple package changes during the billing run have caused payment issues. Please could you settle the outstanding balance of R553.23 by cheque/credit card in the clientzone. Please ensure you do not process multiple package changes after the 25th of the month again to ensure the billing on your account goes smoothly.

If you reply to this email you will re-open this ticket. Should you be pleased with a resolution there is no need to respond. You may receive an SMS survey to rate my service. I would appreciate your feedback. Have a great day.

Have a great day and please let me know if I can help with anything else!

Warm regards

Candice.R
Afrihost.com
Pure Internet Joy!

Good morning, Candice

Thank you, finally someone who is able to state plainly what the root of the problem is:
"Please ensure you do not process multiple package changes after the 25th of the month again to ensure the billing on your account goes smoothly."

If your billing system is not able to handle multiple package changes after the 25th of the month, then it is a serious design flaw to enable a client to make multiple package changes after the 25th of the month (via the client zone). Neither is the client given any warning when making a second or subsequent package change in the client zone (after the 25th of the month) that this will break your billing system.
And this is the Afrihost stuff up I referred to in a previous e-mail . Afrihost's flawed software, Afrihost's problem.

Now, again, I reiterate that I am happy to pay what is due by the end of this month. However, if Afrihost suspends my account because of their stuff up, I will be less than happy.

Warm regards,
XXXX

Dear Valued Customer,

This is an important message from Afrihost.

Please read through the following email concerning your services with us - If you have any questions regarding this please drop us an email or give us a call and we'd be happy to help.

Your account (XXXX) with Afrihost is currently in arrears and payment has not been made within the 5 days given to you in order to avoid the suspension of the services you have with us. The total amount payable on this account is R 553.23. As a result all active services have been suspended.
Please sign in to your Client Zone and pay via your Credit Card for the outstanding balance of R 553.23 on your account on order to re-activate the suspended services. Re-activating of some services may take up to 24 hours to take affect.



Please make this payment as soon as possible.


Kind Regards,
Accounts Administrator - Wendy Noble
[email protected] (alternatively [email protected])

There you have it. They stuff up your billing, then require near immediate settlement or they will suspend your account. Well done Afrihost, you know how to drive customers away.

 

[cyberbob1979]

tl;dr - sounds to me like you couldn't make your mind up and suffered the consequences... no pity

 

[Sodan]

tl;dr - sounds to me like you couldn't make your mind up and suffered the consequences... no pity

Kelebogile, is that you?

 

[cyberbob1979]

Kelebogile, is that you?

No, I am just me... read the first email and their response and the last one ad stopped reading

 

[dsimonse]

Did one read the text wall? Someone please summarize it.

 

[mister]

Did one read the text wall? Someone please summarize it.

Afrihost's system bills you incorrectly if you upgrade and downgrade a few times after the 25th. They then make it your responsibility to pay the account via other means, despite having a debit order, and threaten to suspend your account if you don't. Quite frankly I don't like their attitude either, it's their mess, and the OP should not have to jump hoops because of it.

 

[AfriGenie]

Hi Sodan,

I do feel like I should perhaps provide an explanation with regards to what I think happened - I will need you to please PM me your Ticket Reference or ClientZone Username before I can confirm - and this is something that does happen on occasion.

When you upgrade or downgrade your package, we will invoice you for the pro-rata'd price difference between the two packages. If however, you change your package again at any point before the start of the new month, our system will treat the package change as if you were upgrading to a new package from that old package, including assigning any pro-rata'd charged to your account.

Once you have sent me a PM with the details I'll sort this out for you.

 

[Sodan]

Hi Sodan,

I do feel like I should perhaps provide an explanation with regards to what I think happened - I will need you to please PM me your Ticket Reference or ClientZone Username before I can confirm - and this is something that does happen on occasion.

When you upgrade or downgrade your package, we will invoice you for the pro-rata'd price difference between the two packages. If however, you change your package again at any point before the start of the new month, our system will treat the package change as if you were upgrading to a new package from that old package, including assigning any pro-rata'd charged to your account.

Once you have sent me a PM with the details I'll sort this out for you.

If this is not how it is intended to work, then it appears you have a flaw in your system, for which you have now suspended my account.
Furthermore, the amount to be charged is shown in the client zone when up- or down-grading an account. If that amount is incorrect, then that's Afrihost's problem, and I do not expected to be billed for Afrihost's incorrect calculations when I made a purchase based on the amount shown to me at the time of purchase.

pm with ticket number has been sent. As I mentioned to Candice, if my account is still suspended in 24 hours, then I will be cancelling my account.

ps: by "you" I mean Afrihost, not you personally.

 

[AfriGenie]

If this is not how it is intended to work, then it appears you have a flaw in your system, for which you have now suspended my account.
Furthermore, the amount to be charged is shown in the client zone when up- or down-grading an account. If that amount is incorrect, then that's Afrihost's problem, and I do not expected to be billed for Afrihost's incorrect calculations when I made a purchase based on the amount shown to me at the time of purchase.

pm with ticket number has been sent. As I mentioned to Candice, if my account is still suspended in 24 hours, then I will be cancelling my account.

ps: by "you" I mean Afrihost, not you personally.

It does work as intended, from our side, we didn't expect multiple package changes in a single billing period, but it is easy enough to correct from my side.

 

[Sodan]

It does work as intended, from our side, we didn't expect multiple package changes in a single billing period,

These two statements are mutually exclusive, unless
1) you intended to not bill correctly or
2) you have billed correctly and are mistakenly claiming I am in arrears.

So you're not fooling anyone.

but it is easy enough to correct from my side.

If that's genuinely true, then the less I say about your colleagues in accounts, the better.

Thank you for addressing this issue. Please do let me know when my account has been reactivated.

 

[AfriGenie]

These two statements are mutually exclusive, unless
1) you intended to not bill correctly or
2) you have billed correctly and are mistakenly claiming I am in arrears.

So you're not fooling anyone.



If that's genuinely true, then the less I say about your colleagues in accounts, the better.

Thank you for addressing this issue. Please do let me know when my account has been reactivated.

And your Account is Active Good Sir.

I'm still investigating this with Accounts, but we'll get to the bottom of this.

 

[Brenden_E]

The support at Afrihost is often cerebrally challenged. Pretty obvious the debit for the amount should come off at the next run. Why not just disable the suspension and all's good? See first sentence, that's why.

 

[Sodan]

And your Account is Active Good Sir.

I'm still investigating this with Accounts, but we'll get to the bottom of this.

Thank you. I can confirm that I have service again.

 

[ghostR]

Did one read the text wall? Someone please summarize it.

 

[Foxhound5366]

Similar thing happened to me just this month with WebAfrica ... I was invoiced for an amount on the day of my monthly debit order, so that wasn't included in the debit order. Instead of threatening to suspend me, however, WebAfrica just said they'd add it to my next debit order. *shrugs* I expect that as a customer - I don't have an impeccable credit record for nothing, so they're welcome to their money whenever they get around to deciding they want to take it from me. I agree it shouldn't be up to the customer to run around and make extra payments to satisfy a company when their own billing systems can't handle it.

 

[Sodan]

So I got an e-mail from Afrihost confirming that they have come to their senses: I will be debited for the outstanding amount at the end of this month/start of next month, and the suspension on my account has been lifted (yesterday).

Could have saved me a lot of stress had they just used some common sense a few days ago, but I trust this experience will help them improve their customer service in future. And that's a good thing.

 

[mister]

Could have saved me a lot of stress had they just used some common sense a few days ago, but I trust this experience will help them improve their customer service in future. And that's a good thing.

I wonder...