Beware Webafrica capped plans ripoff

Hi Webafrica,

Thank you I have been told that there is a credit coming.

I still however feel that the signup page is very misleading, while it may tell you what you pay today it does not say that this is to buy data with will expire in 3 days time (or in the event of the last night of the month a few hours time). Hiding something like this in the T&C legal splurge is also just a low blow.

It is a pity because WebAfrica provide a good service and a good price yet something a simple as this leaves a bad taste in a new customers mouth.
 
Kayoss said:
:eek:

Point 54!?!?

I can't believe everyone is jumping to support WebAfrica here. If that's the case, why is everybody jumping down Mweb's throat for having their capped data set by default to be uncapped. It says so in their terms and conditions!

To argue that people can burn through 120GB in a matter of hours, or that it's your own fault for not confirming beforehand, or that it teaches you a lesson, etc, does not make it OK for them to charge for an entire month, when there's only 3 days left. If this thread were about Mweb or Openweb doing the same, people would be foaming at the mouth!

Look, here's my take on it. Other ISP's charge you pro-rata when doing the same, and unless WA make it VERY clear before signing up that they do things differently, it really is bad practice. Illegal? No. Unethical? Eh, perhaps not. But when people are looking to sign up to your ISP, and your first action is to bill them hard, and then claim T'&C's, you're not making a very good first impression.

It's a really poor decision by WA management to run things that way as it discourages potential clients from signing up during the month. But that's all it really is... a poor business decision. Nothing more.
Click to expand...

Let's talk with pictures.

wa_prorata.jpg


Here we see a data amount and the option to start this or next month. nothing about prorata, or diminished cap this month.

You know what they say when you ASSUME.
 
atunguyd said:
Hi Webafrica,

Thank you I have been told that there is a credit coming.

I still however feel that the signup page is very misleading, while it may tell you what you pay today it does not say that this is to buy data with will expire in 3 days time (or in the event of the last night of the month a few hours time). Hiding something like this in the T&C legal splurge is also just a low blow.

It is a pity because WebAfrica provide a good service and a good price yet something a simple as this leaves a bad taste in a new customers mouth.
Click to expand...

I just posted a screenshot of the sign up page. You see data allocation and start date. You ASSUMED like an idiot.

One does not need to read the ts and cs. just some common sense.
 
Monthly and calender month are two very different things.
 
having it down at point 54 is not exactly consumer friendly
 
Chevron said:
Let's talk with pictures.

View attachment 164489


Here we see a data amount and the option to start this or next month. nothing about prorata, or diminished cap this month.

You know what they say when you ASSUME.
Click to expand...

I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking at? That asks you when you would like the service to start... Why should someone ASSUME that starting immediately means that they will be re-billed on the first of the next month, and not after one month. At least that's how my Vodacom contract works.. I get billed on the 27th of every month, as per my request. You can't go around telling people they're thinking like an "idiot" because they didn't read point 54 of the terms and conditions. I know that I don't read the terms and conditions before agreeing to most contracts. Fun fact: Researchers found that it would take 76 work days to read all the terms and conditions that you agree to in a year (http://techland.time.com/2012/03/06...-to-read-all-your-privacy-policies-each-year/).

I understand that you'll go to the ends of the earth to defend WA, no matter what they do, but they're not perfect. I'll agree that their network is the best in SA atm (barring CW who are yet to offer capped accounts), and I'm probably going to be moving to WA next month as well. I just think that it's an all-round bad business decision not to offer pro rata billing. I'm sure lots of consumers get fed up with their ISP, at some point in the month, and end up having to wait until the next month to sign up with WA because of this. By that point, perhaps they're no longer frustrated enough to leave their current ISP. Yes, you could just get a smaller cap and then upgrade the following month, but now you're creating hassles for your new client. You shouldn't have a system whereby a customer of 4 days is complaining, and you're pointing to the terms and conditions. That is not good business.
 
Chevron said:
I just posted a screenshot of the sign up page. You see data allocation and start date. You ASSUMED like an idiot.

One does not need to read the ts and cs. just some common sense.
Click to expand...

Assume or not, it's not customer friendly. This has happened to me in the past with WA as well. And I bet there are loads of other 'Idiots' around here that has done the same. Not everyone is blessed with your superior intellect I guess...
 
Kayoss said:
I can't believe everyone is jumping to support WebAfrica here. If that's the case, why is everybody jumping down Mweb's throat for having their capped data set by default to be uncapped. It says so in their terms and conditions!
Click to expand...

Good point, but in MWEB's case it's going to happen every month and appears to be an absurdly aggressive money maker. With WebAfrica it's only once when you sign up, they do at least give you something for it (even if you can't actually use it in time) and the financial loss is orders of magnitude smaller than what that data would have cost you on MWEB OOB rates.

I have also wanted pro-rata from them in the past, but it was easy enough to sign up for the smallest package and keep increasing it until the end of the month. If I could vote for one thing that they should change, it would instead be to shorten the cancellation notice period. Even that isn't too bad once I remembered that I can at least downgrade to the cheapest package at the end of the month and then cancel later.

People don't defend something they find merely acceptable.
 
WebAfrica Helper said:
Hi atunguyd,

Really sorry to hear that you are this unhappy with us and it is definitely not a good start with us. We do not charge pro-rata for capped services as the full allocation of the data is provided to the customer. Another point to mention is that during the checkout process we clearly indicate what you are going to be billed today/immediately and if you've chosen to only activate next month it will show you that there is nothing owed today. See screenshots below:

View attachment 164475

View attachment 164477

So all the information was made available to you prior to you confirming the order. I have spoken to the agent who was handling your issue and I believe they have resolved the matter. Please let us know if you have received the feedback.
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No, sorry. If that is supposed to make it clear, it does not. It is as clear as mud. When you are going to pay is not the issue. The issue is how long will your data last. And nowhere do you state that.
 
Gatecrasher said:
No, sorry. If that is supposed to make it clear, it does not. It is as clear as mud. When you are going to pay is not the issue. The issue is how long will your data last. And nowhere do you state that.
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They say it lasts for a month, what is so difficult to comprehend? Nowhere do they state it lasts for 30 days.
 
bokka1 said:
They say it lasts for a month, what is so difficult to comprehend? Nowhere do they state it lasts for 30 days.
Click to expand...

A month is generally accepted as a time period, not a deadline.... That would be "end of the month"

When a builder tells you it will take a month to fix your house you generally regards that as 30 days, not however long till the end of the month. If you can't figure that out you will battle in the big world
 
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No, I read stuff, you are having the problems in the big world. First you said it is not in their terms and conditions, I showed you it is.
You brought this whole situation on yourself and now feel that starting a thread blaming them for your inability to comprehend basic terms are justifiable. They did not **** up here, you did.
 
To be honest I just switched from afrihost to WebAfrica and trying to order an account on WebAfrica reminded me why I was happy to leave them all those years ago... Much much easier to get a new account at afrihost. Too bad their speeds suck, especially for dota and YouTube.
 
rorz0r said:
To be honest I just switched from afrihost to WebAfrica and trying to order an account on WebAfrica reminded me why I was happy to leave them all those years ago... Much much easier to get a new account at afrihost. Too bad their speeds suck, especially for dota and YouTube.
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Curious as to why you say it's hard to sign up to WA?

I signed up at like 1 in the morning and got my details in minutes.
 
Apparently I failed their fraud checks. Support wasn't exactly immediate.
 
bokka1 said:
They say it lasts for a month, what is so difficult to comprehend? Nowhere do they state it lasts for 30 days.
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A month could be 30 days. It is certainly not 3 days. Even stipulating a "calender month" when so close to the end of a month could imply it to be 3 days + the following calender month.

So it is very far from clear. They should make it clear.

But I guess there is a cost to making it clear, and it is much more profitable to keep it fuzzy.
 
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