Does Afrihost support no longer function?

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jmacc

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We have been trying to get an account issue resolved for the past three months. Despite cancelling certain services on the Afrihost Client Zone and receiving confirmation of cancellation, Afrihost still submits debit orders to our bank account. (Ticket: WCD-222-16485)
We followed up on this request on 5 Oct 2017 and again on 9 Oct 2017. Afrihost did receive all the correspondence as it is loaded on the ClientZone (under My Support).
By yesterday 14 Oct 2017 we still have received no response. A final decision was made to completely cut ties with Afrihost. We initiated the process to move the two remaining domains to another service provider. The one domain transfer succeeded. The other one failed because Afrihost registered this domain with an email address which was last used in 2012. I.e. we could not approve the ZA Registry transfer request. Our account is up to date. In fact, Afrihost owes us money.
At this point the real spectacle started.
I logged another request via the Client Zone to get the domain transfer issue resolved - SQY-812-74851. Although we received an email with the ref number, nothing is registered under My Support in the ClientZone.
I made several attempts to use the Live Chat feature yesterday during normal business hours. All the departments show an offline status.
I tried the Call me back feature during the hours listed. It also came back with a message stating that “Call me back is currently unavailable.”
I then tried the dreaded 011 612 7200 support number. After the call connected I got a – “You are number 14 in the queue. It will take 9 minutes to connect you to an agent.” Every 30 sec you get another status update with varying durations being quoted. I ended up holding for more than 30 min before the call was connected to an agent. This individual had no clue where to start resolving the problem. I was placed on hold three times. He then gave me some strange instruction to execute in the Client Zone. As I was providing him feedback, he cut me off. The total call duration was approx. an hour. I had to pay for this call.
Can someone from Afrihost please assist in resolving the domain transfer issue and correct our account with the necessary credits.
 
RedViking said:
Why do you say Afrihost registered the domain with an outdated email? Did you not provide them with the outdated email?
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No we did not provide them with an outdated email. In fact I double checked the information associated with this domain in the Client Zone and they have the correct email address.
 
jmacc said:
No we did not provide them with an outdated email. In fact I double checked the information associated with this domain in the Client Zone and they have the correct email address.
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Well they got your updated email from somewhere. Did you use that email address when you registered the domain? The way I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, if you change your details, you have to specifically ask to change your email address for the website. This is a special request Afrihost has to submit on behalf of yourself. They don't have the authority to change your email address as it is the only legal link between the owner and the website.
This is how it works with my SP anyways.
 
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RedViking said:
Well they got your updated email from somewhere. Did you use that email address when you registered the domain? The way I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, if you change your details, you have to specifically ask to change your email address for the website. This is a special request Afrihost has to submit on behalf of yourself. They don't have the authority to change your email address as it is the only legal link between the owner and the website.
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The email address used was an email address which has not been in use since 2012. Sending to that address would return an NDR. We've signed up with Afrihost almost right in the beginning when the company started. Many years ago. Obviously that address was valid at the time. Then came 2012 and we updated our email details. This specific domain is relatively new. I think it was registered in 2014 along with some other domains. The other domain registrations associated email details were correct. There is no way the old email address would have or could have been supplied by us during this domain's registration process. I can only speculate as to what transpired here. There must've been a problem where the old email address was supplied by the Afrihost system during the automated registration process.
 
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jmacc said:
The email address used was an email address which has not been in use since 2012. Sending to that address would return an NDR. We've signed up with Afrihost almost right in the beginning when the company started. Many years ago. Obviously that address was valid at the time. Then came 2012 and we updated our email details. This specific domain is relatively new. I think it was registered in 2014 along with some other domains. The other domain registrations associated email details were correct. There is no way the old email address would have or could have been supplied by us during this domain's registration process. I can only speculate as to what transpired here. There must've been a problem where the old email address was supplied.
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I see. Someone got something mixed up. See if sending an email to [email protected] works. Will probably only get a response in the week. But I guess you already have done this.
 
RedViking said:
https://www.afrihost.com/site/faq/domain

It seems like it should be easy to solve though:
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Yep, common sense dictates that this is basic stuff. Unfortunately our current experience with Afrihost is that they do not respond to support requests via email. We've tried almost all email addresses. I have no idea what is happening with their Support but it is wasting my time and money.
 
jmacc said:
Yep, common sense dictates that this is basic stuff. Unfortunately our current experience with Afrihost is that they do not respond to support requests via email. We've tried almost all email addresses. I have no idea what is happening with their Support but it is wasting my time and money.
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Yeah, lately they struggle to keep up. I also think there is a bug in their system with the email/ClientZone connection. But they said they will be adding 30+ support staff by the end of the month. Hope for them it makes a difference.
 
RedViking said:
I see. Someone got something mixed up. See if sending an email to [email protected] works. Will probably only get a response in the week. But I guess you already have done this.
Click to expand...

I can wait the weekend. I just want some action on this so that I can finally be done with Afrihost. We have moved most of our business elsewhere over the past couple of months. It is basically just this one domain issue that remains and they need to credit our account.
 
RedViking said:
Yeah, lately they struggle to keep up. I also think there is a bug in their system with the email/ClientZone connection. But they said they will be adding 30+ support staff by the end of the month. Hope for them it makes a difference.
Click to expand...

I think there are bigger problems than that. I have really tried to stick with them. Their service prior to the MTN merger was good. I was hoping that they would get back to the old Afrihost way of doing things. When they started many years ago they were the best ISP.
 
jmacc said:
I think there are bigger problems than that. I have really tried to stick with them. Their service prior to the MTN merger was good. I was hoping that they would get back to the old Afrihost way of doing things. When they started many years ago they were the best ISP.
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They were probably also much smaller. But yes, if your business grows this big you really need to up your game.
 
jmacc said:
I think there are bigger problems than that. I have really tried to stick with them. Their service prior to the MTN merger was good. I was hoping that they would get back to the old Afrihost way of doing things. When they started many years ago they were the best ISP.
Click to expand...

Yep I agree. They were awesome pre MTN and awful post. It's been a shocker off late. My support requests last week were not responded to. Was impacted by their CPT IP issue. No feedback from official channels.
 
Go to the bank and tell them that you want to place a 'stop payment' on your debit order. It may cost you 1 or 2 hundred, but if you are in the right you have full right to prevent Afrihost from fraudulently taking money from your account.
 
jmacc said:
We have been trying to get an account issue resolved for the past three months. Despite cancelling certain services on the Afrihost Client Zone and receiving confirmation of cancellation, Afrihost still submits debit orders to our bank account. (Ticket: WCD-222-16485)
We followed up on this request on 5 Oct 2017 and again on 9 Oct 2017. Afrihost did receive all the correspondence as it is loaded on the ClientZone (under My Support).
By yesterday 14 Oct 2017 we still have received no response. A final decision was made to completely cut ties with Afrihost. We initiated the process to move the two remaining domains to another service provider. The one domain transfer succeeded. The other one failed because Afrihost registered this domain with an email address which was last used in 2012. I.e. we could not approve the ZA Registry transfer request. Our account is up to date. In fact, Afrihost owes us money.
At this point the real spectacle started.
I logged another request via the Client Zone to get the domain transfer issue resolved - SQY-812-74851. Although we received an email with the ref number, nothing is registered under My Support in the ClientZone.
I made several attempts to use the Live Chat feature yesterday during normal business hours. All the departments show an offline status.
I tried the Call me back feature during the hours listed. It also came back with a message stating that “Call me back is currently unavailable.”
I then tried the dreaded 011 612 7200 support number. After the call connected I got a – “You are number 14 in the queue. It will take 9 minutes to connect you to an agent.” Every 30 sec you get another status update with varying durations being quoted. I ended up holding for more than 30 min before the call was connected to an agent. This individual had no clue where to start resolving the problem. I was placed on hold three times. He then gave me some strange instruction to execute in the Client Zone. As I was providing him feedback, he cut me off. The total call duration was approx. an hour. I had to pay for this call.
Can someone from Afrihost please assist in resolving the domain transfer issue and correct our account with the necessary credits.
Click to expand...

I've checked on that account, and the only charges that we have submitted is for the renewal of domains that we are currently parking on that profile.

Our Accounts Team is in the process of crediting the account for that domains that you want transferred to the new provider.
 
AfriGenie said:
I've checked on that account, and the only charges that we have submitted is for the renewal of domains that we are currently parking on that profile.

Our Accounts Team is in the process of crediting the account for that domains that you want transferred to the new provider.
Click to expand...

This is incorrect. You charged us for a domain that was transferred to someone else, despite the fact that you have the new owner's banking details. You also charged us for a domain which we cancelled.

Regarding the domains we transferred, one succeeded and one is in a state of limbo because we could not approve the transfer. As mentioned Afrihost registered this domain with the wrong email address.

All I need is this:
Please refund the credits to the relevant bank account and ensure that no further debit orders are submitted.
Please submit a request to the ZA Central Registry so that the correct registrant email gets linked to the remaining domain.
Please do not bill us for the renewal of the remaining domain we will transfer. We will renew with the new Service Provider.
Please ask support to not ignore our requests for extended periods.

The sooner we get this done the sooner we can be done with each other.
 
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RedViking said:
Well they got your updated email from somewhere. Did you use that email address when you registered the domain? The way I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, if you change your details, you have to specifically ask to change your email address for the website. This is a special request Afrihost has to submit on behalf of yourself. They don't have the authority to change your email address as it is the only legal link between the owner and the website.
This is how it works with my SP anyways.
Click to expand...
They are a reseller of OpenSRS

Contact them, that's how I got my domain back.
 
Thor said:
They are a reseller of OpenSRS

Contact them, that's how I got my domain back.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the info. I will give this a go if I am not successful. [email protected] also asked us to revert back to them if we do not get an appropriate response. I just want to try and follow the correct process by giving Afrihost a chance to correct this on their side.
 
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