ARB rules against Supersonic in installation fee clawback complaint

[Jan]

MTN's Supersonic nailed over installation fee clawback on month-to-month deals

The Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) has ruled against Supersonic regarding a complaint over its month-to-month Home Fibre products, with the regulator telling the service provider to withdraw all advertisements claiming that installation is included without any qualification.

The complaint was brought before the ARB by Shawaal Davids, who found their "installation included" claim for month-to-month contracts to be misleading.

 

[lkpat]

Brilliant! What does "installation included" mean but installation included? Yet they want to claim it's not included and has to be clawed back?

 

[geezer]

Seems that MTN loves to push through with deceitful advertisements to see how many people they can catch out, and then afterwards first rely on the small print, and possibly an "Ooops, sorry. Won't do that again (untill I'm caught out again)".

 

[TPM]

WHY NOT FINE CSPs HEAVILY FOR MISLEADING CUSTOMERS, even in ads.... like they did in Nigeria ?
Isn't this (borderline) fraud ?

 

[lkpat]

Can we assume that MTN has had to drop the clawback for existing month to month clients? @Jan

 

[Apogee]

They have been pulling the same stunt in Midstream Estates for years.

On top of that it takes 2-3 weeks for them to activate a pre-existing installation for new clients that usually require it on short notice.

Openserve does the same thing in 3 work days, which includes the line drop and installation of the ONT.

 

[HartsockZA]

They have been pulling ther same stunt in Midstream Estates for years.

On top of that it takes 2-3 weeks for them to activate a pre-existing installation for new clients that usually requires it on short notice.

Openserve does the same thing in 3 work days, which includes the line drop and installation of the ONT.

I love running Openserve installation for my customers.

 

[grant_cpt]

I know that Vox pulls this stunt as well. And when I signed up with Cool Ideas, the clawback amount was pro-rata based on when you cancelled within a year

 

[Pitbull]

This makes 100% sense though.

Even when I signed up for Vodacom, I insisted on a Month to Month contract. That made me liable to pay for the installation and the router(which I did).
Ever since they have replaced the router at their own cost twice. Even though I technically "own" the router now and no extra expense.

 

[JustAsk]

Brilliant! What does "installation included" mean but installation included? Yet they want to claim it's not included and has to be clawed back?

Brilliant what? There's no consequences. ARB is just a pr stunt to idiot consumers.