Arrogance Personified

[converge-it]

Howz this for a beaut!!! Our company (SMME) needs a 1 Gig PMCIA HDPSA 2 year contract from Vodacom. Great. You would think that as a company with reponsibilities to shareholders and all that jazz that they would jump at the chance to help you. YOU THOUGHT WRONG. We do the apps, comp doc's, surety doc's ect, ect ect!!!! (We not looking to finance Queen Elizabeth's new Royal Liner) Anyway to make a long story a bit longer, they come back to us and tell us they cannot do the contract. Reason either our company or one of the members of the company or one of the children of one of the members of the company is sitting on ICT. Not unusual aspect in SA as any TOM, **** or HARRY can put you on ICT for a 2c debt with a fair surety that there is no liabilty for them. Well, we thought this is great, no problem we'll sort it out, we THOUGHT WRONG. In order to sort it out we need to know what the problem is, nobody at Vodacom will tell us (Fairly understandable) I would rather not that they give out that detail of me. They said we need to contact ICT. No problem, we'll do that. However the dreaded South African disease has hit the ICT, apparantly there server was stolen or crashed (On the R21) or on strike> Who the H#LL knows, who the H#LL cares. They can only help us in 3 days. Well what to do now, we need connection pretty promptly. We tried Vodacom again, still refused to gives us details. Eventually decided to try the Makulu Bosses at Vodacom Head Offices. After being basket balled through 8 different people, we eventually got somebody of some substance or so we thought. Said to Him/Her what our problem was. The same answers came back. THE REST IS A BEAUT. WE OFFERED TO PAY A 2 YEAR CONTRACT UPFRONT (NO RISK, PRETTY SURE YOU CAN'T LOSE YOUR JOB OVER THAT) Can you believe that they are not interested. Unfortunately we only have Vodacom 3G in our area, we are not spoilt for choice, but if this is there attitude towards business I can only hope that Richard Branson realises that South Africa is a country ready for the reaping of profits. The model is easy in SA to make money, you can charge what you want, the only competitive edge you need is to give some sorta service!!!!

 

[Sony_3G]

Fully agreed. Service will give you proffit

 

[atomcrusher]

@ converge-it

Welcome to the real South Africa. Unfortunately typical of business here.

 

[ic]

Temporary solution

@converge-it, if you have the patience, give the big kahunas you mentioned, another call, and ask them to oblige with the "Data Ambassador" programme.

 

[CORY]

>>>>they cannot do the contract. Reason either our company or one of the members of the company or one of the children of one of the members of the company is sitting on ICT. >>>>>>
If you do not know which of your associates is blacklisted, i would suggest your company should not be given the opportunity to jointly or severally run up more debt

 

[WildPikachu]

converge-it, pm me your email addy please.

 

[Omac]

>>>>they cannot do the contract. Reason either our company or one of the members of the company or one of the children of one of the members of the company is sitting on ICT. >>>>>>
If you do not know which of your associates is blacklisted, i would suggest your company should not be given the opportunity to jointly or severally run up more debt

And who are you in the grand scheme of things?

I think this is outrageous service, especially in light of the fact that the offer to pay upfront has been made.

 

[Edinetz]

I think this is outrageous service, especially in light of the fact that the offer to pay upfront has been made.

They are still exposed to out out of bundle usage - you would need to offer them in addition a deposit in combination with a call limit but I am sure they won't go for that either.

 

[Sony_3G]

Well true, but voda can easily block the contract. BUT NOOOO

 

[Getafix]

Bad debt

Howz this for a beaut!!! Our company (SMME) needs a 1 Gig PMCIA HDPSA 2 year contract from Vodacom. Great. You would think that as a company with reponsibilities to shareholders and all that jazz that they would jump at the chance to help you. YOU THOUGHT WRONG. We do the apps, comp doc's, surety doc's ect, ect ect!!!! (We not looking to finance Queen Elizabeth's new Royal Liner) Anyway to make a long story a bit longer, they come back to us and tell us they cannot do the contract. Reason either our company or one of the members of the company or one of the children of one of the members of the company is sitting on ICT. Not unusual aspect in SA as any TOM, **** or HARRY can put you on ICT for a 2c debt with a fair surety that there is no liabilty for them. Well, we thought this is great, no problem we'll sort it out, we THOUGHT WRONG. In order to sort it out we need to know what the problem is, nobody at Vodacom will tell us (Fairly understandable) I would rather not that they give out that detail of me. They said we need to contact ICT. No problem, we'll do that. However the dreaded South African disease has hit the ICT, apparantly there server was stolen or crashed (On the R21) or on strike> Who the H#LL knows, who the H#LL cares. They can only help us in 3 days. Well what to do now, we need connection pretty promptly. We tried Vodacom again, still refused to gives us details. Eventually decided to try the Makulu Bosses at Vodacom Head Offices. After being basket balled through 8 different people, we eventually got somebody of some substance or so we thought. Said to Him/Her what our problem was. The same answers came back. THE REST IS A BEAUT. WE OFFERED TO PAY A 2 YEAR CONTRACT UPFRONT (NO RISK, PRETTY SURE YOU CAN'T LOSE YOUR JOB OVER THAT) Can you believe that they are not interested. Unfortunately we only have Vodacom 3G in our area, we are not spoilt for choice, but if this is there attitude towards business I can only hope that Richard Branson realises that South Africa is a country ready for the reaping of profits. The model is easy in SA to make money, you can charge what you want, the only competitive edge you need is to give some sorta service!!!!

You don't get on the list for R00.02. Whether you want to sponsor the queen herself or not.

Check all the the members (cc) who are blacklisted.

If any of them is on the list there is no chance you will get any credit with nobody nowhere. Branson included.

Clear all your names. Then you should not have any hassles.

 

[Statistix]

>>>>they cannot do the contract. Reason either our company or one of the members of the company or one of the children of one of the members of the company is sitting on ICT. >>>>>>
If you do not know which of your associates is blacklisted, i would suggest your company should not be given the opportunity to jointly or severally run up more debt

Welcome to the real South Africa. E-mail me your ID and I have you blacklisted on the ITC in 10 minutes without you knowing it or actually legal owing someone money. In this instance the director (me) was wrongly blacklisted by a major bank. I was also never informed by the said bank that they intend to blacklist me. The bank have send a letter of apologies at 17:00 this afternoon and admitted it was their mistake. The reality is that a major company like Transunion ITC, who has the future of thousands of individuals in their hand can tell you that ALL their computers have been stolen, and that it will take two to three days to get it working again. A consultant informed me that in the whole building not ONE computer was available. And this from a company receiving 100 000 credit calls a month!. The reality is that the same company's switchboard refuse to put us through to a manager to complain. We were eventually forced to request the information from another credit agency through our attorney.

The real issue remains that we have spend hours on the phone with Vodacom head office being transferred from one official to the other (5 times). The attititude was a very simple one of "company rules are like the bible and no one is allowed to change it 2mm, even if one offers to pay any amount in cash upfront. The explanation that it can still take days for their credit agency to come back online received zero emphaty. The fact that our directors have at least 5 Vodacom contracts in our personal names, running since the inception of Vodacom, without defaulting once, is conveniently ignored. At no stage was any attemp made to resolve the situation, or even to offer an alternative. Spending hours on the phone between two major companies (where one is not at fault) is a major frustrating experience.

A big lesson from this is that one should spend the money and register on the credit agency to be informed of any listings. (how ever we loathe such agency). It will saves one valuable time when the least expected.

 

[ic]

Having read both your posts, and realising that you needed HSDPA immediately, I will pass you a drag of empathy.

Yes, perhaps the credit approval people and later management, that decided [based on ITC listing] not to approve the HSDPA contract until the ITC listing issue had been cleared, could have looked into those 5 Vodacom contracts and perhaps decided that your company's business, might be worth the risk.

Having said that, whatever was listed on ITC, must have been sufficiently serious [even by whichever bank's {dyslexic?} mistake], to cause Vodacom etc to not look any further than ITC, or perhaps they did and still had their doubts...

My point is that had you not been in such an extreme rush to get HSDPA immediately, you might have been prepared to get the ITC issue sorted out first and then get Vodacom to re-evaluate after ITC de-listing.

As for the stolen ITC server(s)|PC(s), well there is something fishy there, and might make a nice news story for an investigative journo...

2 Options: Rent an HSDPA data card until the ITC issue has been resolved; OR try what I posted earlier in this thread.

Howz this for a beaut!!! Our company (SMME) needs a 1 Gig PMCIA HDPSA 2 year contract from Vodacom. Great. You would think that as a company with reponsibilities to shareholders and all that jazz that they would jump at the chance to help you. YOU THOUGHT WRONG. We do the apps, comp doc's, surety doc's ect, ect ect!!!! (We not looking to finance Queen Elizabeth's new Royal Liner) Anyway to make a long story a bit longer, they come back to us and tell us they cannot do the contract. Reason either our company or one of the members of the company or one of the children of one of the members of the company is sitting on ICT. Not unusual aspect in SA as any TOM, **** or HARRY can put you on ICT for a 2c debt with a fair surety that there is no liabilty for them. Well, we thought this is great, no problem we'll sort it out, we THOUGHT WRONG. In order to sort it out we need to know what the problem is, nobody at Vodacom will tell us (Fairly understandable) I would rather not that they give out that detail of me. They said we need to contact ICT. No problem, we'll do that. However the dreaded South African disease has hit the ICT, apparantly there server was stolen or crashed (On the R21) or on strike> Who the H#LL knows, who the H#LL cares. They can only help us in 3 days. Well what to do now, we need connection pretty promptly. We tried Vodacom again, still refused to gives us details. Eventually decided to try the Makulu Bosses at Vodacom Head Offices. After being basket balled through 8 different people, we eventually got somebody of some substance or so we thought. Said to Him/Her what our problem was. The same answers came back. THE REST IS A BEAUT. WE OFFERED TO PAY A 2 YEAR CONTRACT UPFRONT (NO RISK, PRETTY SURE YOU CAN'T LOSE YOUR JOB OVER THAT) Can you believe that they are not interested. Unfortunately we only have Vodacom 3G in our area, we are not spoilt for choice, but if this is there attitude towards business I can only hope that Richard Branson realises that South Africa is a country ready for the reaping of profits. The model is easy in SA to make money, you can charge what you want, the only competitive edge you need is to give some sorta service!!!!

Welcome to the real South Africa. E-mail me your ID and I have you blacklisted on the ITC in 10 minutes without you knowing it or actually legal owing someone money. In this instance the director (me) was wrongly blacklisted by a major bank. I was also never informed by the said bank that they intend to blacklist me. The bank have send a letter of apologies at 17:00 this afternoon and admitted it was their mistake. The reality is that a major company like Transunion ITC, who has the future of thousands of individuals in their hand can tell you that ALL their computers have been stolen, and that it will take two to three days to get it working again. A consultant informed me that in the whole building not ONE computer was available. And this from a company receiving 100 000 credit calls a month!. The reality is that the same company's switchboard refuse to put us through to a manager to complain. We were eventually forced to request the information from another credit agency through our attorney.

The real issue remains that we have spend hours on the phone with Vodacom head office being transferred from one official to the other (5 times). The attititude was a very simple one of "company rules are like the bible and no one is allowed to change it 2mm, even if one offers to pay any amount in cash upfront. The explanation that it can still take days for their credit agency to come back online received zero emphaty. The fact that our directors have at least 5 Vodacom contracts in our personal names, running since the inception of Vodacom, without defaulting once, is conveniently ignored. At no stage was any attemp made to resolve the situation, or even to offer an alternative. Spending hours on the phone between two major companies (where one is not at fault) is a major frustrating experience.

A big lesson from this is that one should spend the money and register on the credit agency to be informed of any listings. (how ever we loathe such agency). It will saves one valuable time when the least expected.

 

[ambo]

I really think that Vodacom needs to look at their credit vetting policies in general and consider some extra options for people:

I have a contract with VC that is now in its second term - I have been paying for the contract out of my own bank account for since it was first signed and also for the 2 years before that when the number was still pre-paid...

However - due to the fact that my 'financial profile' does not make me elidgable for a contract so all the paperwork is signed in my dad's name. But thats just a little bit of a hassle since I don't actually even live with him.

I've tried to transfer the contract into my name - had some help from v3g - was even on the phone with the office of the VC MD.... and none of them could help a dedicated customer get the contract that he pays for in his name...

 

[converge-it]

Yes, perhaps the credit approval people and later management, that decided [based on ITC listing] not to approve the HSDPA contract until the ITC listing issue had been cleared, could have looked into those 5 Vodacom contracts and perhaps decided that your company's business, might be worth the risk.

Having said that, whatever was listed on ITC, must have been sufficiently serious [even by whichever bank's {dyslexic?} mistake], to cause Vodacom etc to not look any further than ITC, or perhaps they did and still had their doubts...

My point is that had you not been in such an extreme rush to get HSDPA immediately, you might have been prepared to get the ITC issue sorted out first and then get Vodacom to re-evaluate after ITC de-listing.

As for the stolen ITC server(s)|PC(s), well there is something fishy there, and might make a nice news story for an investigative journo...

You don't get on the list for R00.02. Whether you want to sponsor the queen herself or not.

Check all the the members (cc) who are blacklisted.

If any of them is on the list there is no chance you will get any credit with nobody nowhere. Branson included.

Clear all your names. Then you should not have any hassles.

To give you a bit of feedback, Vodacom has approved the contract and promptly at that, which is to their credit. However, this was only after the ICT submission was sorted out(Blue Bean - mistaken submission - different issue) for an amount that was negligble, considering that 80% of the members of the company have existing Vodacom Contracts.

We would like to thank Vodacom for prompt service once the ICT had benn sorted and in all honesty have to say that our collective experience with Vodacom over the years has benn very good.

The problem that we experienced initially I think is a problem across a lot of big corperates and service providers. One understands that they have to have policies and procedures on credit vetting. What gets to me is that there is always situations and scenarios where the rules on policies would be a little bit blurred. Surely there must be somebody on the corperate ladder who has the final say when one is faced with a situation that is unusual. In my opinion if a manager in the company does not have a say and all his decisions are prescribed by a set of rules and policies then one can get the cleaner or gardener in to do the job. The other negative is that if this is the modus operandi of the company, then it's clients are just a bunch of numbers which is not healthy situation to them or there clients.

Parting shot Getafix

You don't get on the list for R00.02. Whether you want to sponsor the queen herself or not.

If you truly believe this, we'll try a little experiment together, send me your ID number and give me 10 minutes