Bad Webafrica experience

mystic007

mystic007

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Joined
Dec 1, 2003
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Location
Sandton
I signed my brother up last week Friday for a Webafrica 1 GB prepaid account. The account worked fine until today when my brother got home from work and found that he could not connect with his account. After logging on to dsl.webafrica.co.za from my own dsl connection with his account details I found that his account had been disabled for some reason!

I told my brother to call Webafrica to find out why his account was disabled. On his first attempt he selected the option for the accounts department and got through to somebody who told my brother he is unable to assist him as he is from the web hosting department and then hung up. Unfortunately my brother did not get the name of this person who hung up on him.

On the second attempt my brother selected the option for dsl support. This time the person who answered re-enabled my brother's account, but could not tell my brother why his account was disabled. All he could do was to log a support ticket.

I find it disturbing that the account got disabled for no apparent reason. A later check of my brother's credit card showed that the debit transaction went through successfully when I signed him up. This eliminates billing as the possible cause.

I have been with WebAfrica for almost two years and this is my first really bad experience with Webafrica. The company I work for recently switched over to Webafrica on my recommendation. I hope I don't regret making the recommendation. :(
 
If your brother can remember the specific time the person in hosting hung up the call, then they might be able to take action against him.

Concerning the rest. I haven't phoned WA yet, but the bad issues I had was dealt with after someone higher up intervened. They are not faultless, but they do offer good service generally.

Reminds me to buy some Gigs :p
 
Update
Got some feedback on the support ticket logged:
With regards to your query:

The account was disabled because the guy that does the vetting for the company could not get hold of you after three attempts

Keep well and have a lovely day further :)
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No one contacted my brother. Both his cell number and e-mail address are listed correctly in his account profile and he was not contacted by either means. I also do not understand why he had to be vetted, especially on a prepaid account. :mad:
 
Same here, didn't know about it.

If it's procedure they should let us know, because if everyone needs to be "checked out" before signing up for an account, I sure won't recommend them.

They've got your name, surname and contact number, they don't need anything more IMO.
 
No notification - what if you relied on the service for your business?!

Unfortunately my brother did not get the name of this person who hung up on him.
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That's understandable as I usually only get the person's name when I am about to end communication - I really hope that he gets caught though, as I would have found that very offensive.

As teraside said, record the day and approximate time that it happened. We have quite a few details, such as what department he is from, it's a male, etc.

Sorry to hear about your experience, they have reps here and they should be here soon, though.
 
Hiya mystic007,

mystic007 said:
I told my brother to call Webafrica to find out why his account was disabled. On his first attempt he selected the option for the accounts department and got through to somebody who told my brother he is unable to assist him as he is from the web hosting department and then hung up. Unfortunately my brother did not get the name of this person who hung up on him.
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Could you please provide me with your client code and the number you called in from and I will get this followed up immediately. All calls are recorded, so I am going to initiate and immediate high priority investigation on this one.

mystic007 said:
On the second attempt my brother selected the option for dsl support. This time the person who answered re-enabled my brother's account, but could not tell my brother why his account was disabled. All he could do was to log a support ticket.
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I will see exactly why your account was suspended and follow up as to why no reason was given - that is absolutely shocking on both accounts!

Please accept my most humble apologies for the inconvenience, as soon as you can supply me with your client code I will apply a free GB to your account, as a small token of good-faith.

mystic007 said:
I have been with WebAfrica for almost two years and this is my first really bad experience with Webafrica. The company I work for recently switched over to Webafrica on my recommendation. I hope I don't regret making the recommendation. :(
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Please let me assure you this is not indicative of our usual service and absolutely nothing less than exceptional service will ever be tolerated at Web Africa.
 
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waroop said:
Hiya mystic007,


Could you please provide me with your client code and the number you called in from and I will get this followed up immediately. All calls are recorded, so I am going to initiate and immediate high priority investigation on this one.


I will see exactly why your account was suspended and follow up as to why no reason was given - that is absolutely shocking!

Please accept my most humble apologies for the inconvenience, as soon as you can supply me with your client code I will apply a free GB to your account, as a small token of good-faith.


Please let me assure you this is not indicative of our usual service and absolutely nothing less than exceptional service will ever be tolerated at Web Africa.
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can i have a free gig? im also with webafrica?:)
 
Coincidence?

hi

is it a coincidence that I got disconnected last night as well? Im running an identical account as Mystic007... :confused:

I have logged a ticket with them this morning (as I just could not endure getting onto a support line after a long day @ work) so we will see what they say..

oh and it wasnt my router, or ADSL... I switched over to my other ISP (the one that worked) and it worked 100%

:confused:
 
Could you clarify if WA does vetting on people as the ticket suggested Waroop?

If that's the case, what's the reasons for it? Your NAS port gets logged when you initiate a connection, so even if someone tries to steal bandwidth, you can take steps.
 
update-vetting

Hi

Web Africa does vetting on all new clients as any other company would to reduce the risk of fraud. When an account authenticates your NAS port gets logged, however to trace and track the intruder can become a nightmare.
 
Last edited:
Thank you to waroop and wavern for responding. The issue has been resolved.
 
wavern said:
Hi

Web Africa does vetting on all new clients as any other company would to reduce the risk of fraud. When an account authenticates your NAS port gets logged, however to trace and track the intruder can become a nightmare.
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I'm sorry Wavern. But that sucks a bit in my opinion. Ease of usability and quick sign up is the reason I enjoyed WA prepaid and subsequently suggested it to my friends.

What stops people from using Axxess prepaid vouchers instead? We don't need to be vetted if we purchase a voucher.

I'd rather recommend you make bandwidth active once payment is received on new sign ups and scrap this vetting procedure.
 
update

One of the many features of Web Africa's service is our virtually instant activation process. Were we to rely on initial payments instead of vetting there could be a delay for payments to reflect or before payment confirmation was verified, therefore this could hold up the account from being activated. This is obviously less than ideal.

Vetting is only run on brand-new signups. As for vouchers they are in the pipeline, the difficulty is not so much vouchers themselves, as obtaining sufficient distribution points.
 
That aint so bad,

Ive been with em since almost day one using 1gb accounts , then those 30gb saix for 90 rands or so.

Then the pricing changed and I switched to 30GB IS accounts for R130 ( this was back when it had 2gb international , I even remember a support ticket asking why the international always gets used up first even if its local downloads)...anyhow..

The other day I noticed my 30Gb accounts have all been changed to 30gb local IS accounts without my knowledge ( downloading through news so I didnt even notice the missing 2gb int [1gb saix for int browsing] )not even an email/phonecall/telepathy/divine miracle to inform me of this change.

support ticket later... no response and ticket has been closed according to the ticket section in the web interface.

End of the day I'm now looking around for another provider with a half decent web interface while using their 10gb is accounts for obvious reasons to some people here :)
 
Hi

I apologise for lack of service you received. I have dropped you a PM and will investigate into this matter and supply feedback shortly.
 
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