Goodbye Webafrica

[Generator Man]

After having our 6-year old account suspended today for not paying the princely sum of R59 for 1 Gig of Bandwidth top-up purchased at the beginning of this month, I have, after giving them I don't know how many second chances decided to terminate my account as from ther 01/02/2011.

I've had 5 years of brilliant service from Webafrica, the last year has been downright pathetic and unpleasant.

I run a multi-million rand company that needs IT access 24/7, we have always paid our accounts to date, and we were merely not aware of your draconian measures that all top-up purchases made during the month must be paid up IMMEDIATELY and are no longer added to our monthly account.

After I spoke to a manager at accounts, and was told that "yeah well you only spend R199/month with us" that was about the icing on the cake.

Webafrica has become a pathetic joke, I can't wait to move come month end.

 

[Fader4]

WA are a bunch of clowns with no sense of customer service at all, the sooner it goes belly up the better.

 

[Generator Man]

Day that it goes belly up I'm sending a bottle of bubbly to the MD...watch this space.

 

[diabolus]

Multi-Million rand company needing 24/7 internet access , yet you run all this on prepaid and on 1GB accounts? You'd think a business would use a debit order for these types of things....?

 

[cpu.]

I run a multi-million rand company that needs IT access 24/7...

After I spoke to a manager at accounts, and was told that "yeah well you only spend R199/month with us" that was about the icing on the cake.

Why did you feel the need to mention the multi million rand company, then include the measly amount you pay Webafrica. The R199 comment from Webafrica was probably in response to you using the "multi million rand company" line on them.
If you want to brag at least make it unshaped 100GB at like 10k.

 

[Generator Man]

To answer the snide remarks, no we dont operate off a 1GB account, we operate off a 4GB account which was exhausted and topped up with a further 1GB.
Last organization that I would allow a debit order to my company account is Web Africa, we've always topped up the account during the month and simply paid it at month end.

I don't need a 100GB account for e-mails, I don't run an IT company. But yes, internet access is vital. Thanks to them we've lost half a day of e-mail access, for R59.

If you add up how much we've spent with Webafrica over the past 6 years, i would guess that it's a lot more than R59. They've never ever been paid late when it comes to month end payments.
I don't think that cutting our account, without any warning for the sum of R59 is good business practise at all, nor is the attitude of the manager I spoke to condusive to keeping clients happy.

At the end of the day, we're clients, and should be treated with a smudge of decency. If the account was indeed in arrears, you call the company and raise the matter. you don't just cut off the accvount and send me an sms advising me of such, while I'm travelling on business.

The 24/7 access is needed to monitor our units that have remote access facilities and fault reporting.

**** them and their policies, sorry but thats the way I feel.

 

[Rocket-Boy]

If you have such a mission critical infrastructure on IT and its worth that much then you wouldnt be fiddling around with measly adsl accounts. Get a diginet line with an SLA on it, its going to be expensive but then that isnt a problem to a multi-million rand company now is it?

 

[Cadavre777]

Wow, some really baseless and unnecessary remarks being made here. Just because a company has a high turnover does not mean it requires an internet connection suited to businesses, if such connections are available in that area. Regardless of how much much is spent on the account, how WebAfrica processed the account is disturbing. What if a payment had been made and did not reflect on the account or was overlooked?

 

[tom110584]

time to buy a 60gb prepaid data sim and 21.6mbps speedstick combo from cell c - it will cost you R2 999 and last you 13 months. excellent speeds and an always-on connection.

 

[cpu.]

Wow, some really baseless and unnecessary remarks being made here. Just because a company has a high turnover does not mean it requires an internet connection suited to businesses, if such connections are available in that area. Regardless of how much much is spent on the account, how WebAfrica processed the account is disturbing. What if a payment had been made and did not reflect on the account or was overlooked?

The turnover have nothing to do with the complaint, yet it was mentioned (and addressed by the "some" of us).
Why on earth would WA say something like that, unless a certain something was said to warrant it.
And how can you expect a service to stay on if you don't pay? edit: or missed a payment./edit Or am I missing something or misreading the OP?
As WA said - it's only R199. If you swim with the small fish (us), you get the same treatment.

 

[Shayd]

Honestly just get MWEB R219 384k uncapped and never have these hassles again.

 

[who.is.michael]

time to buy a 60gb prepaid data sim and 21.6mbps speedstick combo from cell c - it will cost you R2 999 and last you 13 months. excellent speeds and an always-on connection.

Now that is good advice, have only had raving reports from all clients that switched from ADSL to CellC.

 

[snobee]

The turnover have nothing to do with the complaint, yet it was mentioned (and addressed by the "some" of us).
Why on earth would WA say something like that, unless a certain something was said to warrant it.
And how can you expect a service to stay on if you don't pay? edit: or missed a payment./edit Or am I missing something or misreading the OP?
As WA said - it's only R199. If you swim with the small fish (us), you get the same treatment.

I think how Generator Man would respond to you on this is that all customers should be treated with equal respect and given the chance to respond to a warning at least, and not just be cut off.
I would agree with him on that point, but I do know it is difficult to phone every single person once they are falling behind in payments. After all, the ISP business among the smaller companies is cutting it quite thin when it comes to how much money they can spend on support and customer service. I assume they may have sent an email... and I expect they should have as a reminder. I get one a number of days before payment is due (and I use a debit order with WA). So, I am unsure about them just cutting the service out of the blue... it seems alien to the WA that I know.
Anyway, my critical services go through another ISP, and I have an account manager that will deal with payment issues AND will contact me if something is wrong, long before cut off. So that is all I can suggest, you pay for what you get!

 

[NomNom]

Honestly just get MWEB R219 384k uncapped and never have these hassles again.

You're joking right?

 

[Generator Man]

I'm still trying to get around the uncalled for acid responses which somehow tend to defend Webafrica's pathetic service.
Once again, let me try to make the situation clear here as it seems people are selectively reading what they please.

We have Telkom ADSL, which has been very reliable in the past 6 years.
We don't need huge bandwidth packages as we simply don't use it.
Cell C coverage is non existant in this specific place, I have complained to Vodacom and Cell C about it in the past, even have a reference number but they seem to be having issues with their network in this area.

Cutting off our account for R59 was uncalled for, it's not like we loaded R1000 worth of bandwidth and then ignored all sollicitations. We were not made aware that if you top up during the month, you have to pay up immediately. In the past I've topped up during the month, and it wasn't billed until our month end account.

The way in which Webafrica handled this was both unpleasant and possibly caused us losses, while I understand that according to them "the account was in arrears" I question the method in which they go about doing it.

Our last bill was paid 10 days before due date (20/12/2010), our monthly account is never in arrears.
Although of late, their billing seems to be such a mess that they even send e-mails of sollicitation for days after an account is paid up and proof of payment e-mailed to them.
Webafrica seems to have become obsessed with persecuting clients for payments, being rude about their business and generally their service sucks. The latest issue was in December, where they kept on sending threatening e-mails for an amount of R177 that had already been paid several days beforehand, eventually i got fed-up and sent them an e-mail to which an apology was received from their side.

I've already signed up with Afrihost, which are even cheaper than WA.
Excuse me if I got upset over it, we are currently busy with several projects one of which will be commissioned by last quarter 2011 and is worth over R48m.
This is basically what i pointed out to the "lady" at WA whom was arrogant and unpleasant and kept on hammering home that "the outstanding amount is R59 which is a quarter of your monthly payments".

If they have cash-flow problems, I don't see how this needs to be arrogantly passed onto the clients. My past running ins with WA (only over the past year) are well documented, and I've had enough. If you're spending your money, you have control over whom you spend it with. It's not a matter of how much we spend with them or what not, it's simple a matter of decency in the manner they conduct their client relations.

 

[WAJeff]

After having our 6-year old account suspended today for not paying the princely sum of R59 for 1 Gig of Bandwidth top-up purchased at the beginning of this month, I have, after giving them I don't know how many second chances decided to terminate my account as from ther 01/02/2011.

I've had 5 years of brilliant service from Webafrica, the last year has been downright pathetic and unpleasant.

I run a multi-million rand company that needs IT access 24/7, we have always paid our accounts to date, and we were merely not aware of your draconian measures that all top-up purchases made during the month must be paid up IMMEDIATELY and are no longer added to our monthly account.

After I spoke to a manager at accounts, and was told that "yeah well you only spend R199/month with us" that was about the icing on the cake.

Webafrica has become a pathetic joke, I can't wait to move come month end.

Hi Generator Man,

I'm sorry to see you go due to the service received as of late. I can tell you that massive improvements are being made almost daily to accommodate all of our customers.

I'd like to have this looked into from our side to see where we need to make improvements and have a look into your query from start to finish.
Please drop me a PM with your client code so I can try and iron things out

 

[Generator Man]

Hi Jeff, thank you for your reply. I must be honest with you that no matter what happens, I have decided to take my business elsewhere. I've had issues after issues with Webafrica of late, and quite frankly I've had enough. The decision has been made and thats that.

If you want to look into the matter for your own internal purposes, my client code is CAM02.

 

[WAJeff]

Hi Jeff, thank you for your reply. I must be honest with you that no matter what happens, I have decided to take my business elsewhere. I've had issues after issues with Webafrica of late, and quite frankly I've had enough. The decision has been made and thats that.

If you want to look into the matter for your own internal purposes, my client code is CAM02.

Not a problem
I can fully understand that a decision has already been made, regardless I'd still like to follow up and investigate were we dropped the ball and note any improvements that can be made from here going forward.

Thanks for your client code, will definitely be looking into this today.

 

[Odin Outline]

There's always an easy way.

Generator Man - If you ever run into that problem again, quickest solution is

1) Open an account with any ISP instantly preferably on the same backbone (no doubt you will have someone changing all the smtp settings now?)

2) Change the details in your router/s & you're set...

 

[Rocket-Boy]

I'm still trying to get around the uncalled for acid responses which somehow tend to defend Webafrica's pathetic service.
Once again, let me try to make the situation clear here as it seems people are selectively reading what they please.

We have Telkom ADSL, which has been very reliable in the past 6 years.
We don't need huge bandwidth packages as we simply don't use it.
Cell C coverage is non existant in this specific place, I have complained to Vodacom and Cell C about it in the past, even have a reference number but they seem to be having issues with their network in this area.

Cutting off our account for R59 was uncalled for, it's not like we loaded R1000 worth of bandwidth and then ignored all sollicitations. We were not made aware that if you top up during the month, you have to pay up immediately. In the past I've topped up during the month, and it wasn't billed until our month end account.

The way in which Webafrica handled this was both unpleasant and possibly caused us losses, while I understand that according to them "the account was in arrears" I question the method in which they go about doing it.

Our last bill was paid 10 days before due date (20/12/2010), our monthly account is never in arrears.
Although of late, their billing seems to be such a mess that they even send e-mails of sollicitation for days after an account is paid up and proof of payment e-mailed to them.
Webafrica seems to have become obsessed with persecuting clients for payments, being rude about their business and generally their service sucks. The latest issue was in December, where they kept on sending threatening e-mails for an amount of R177 that had already been paid several days beforehand, eventually i got fed-up and sent them an e-mail to which an apology was received from their side.

I've already signed up with Afrihost, which are even cheaper than WA.
Excuse me if I got upset over it, we are currently busy with several projects one of which will be commissioned by last quarter 2011 and is worth over R48m.
This is basically what i pointed out to the "lady" at WA whom was arrogant and unpleasant and kept on hammering home that "the outstanding amount is R59 which is a quarter of your monthly payments".

If they have cash-flow problems, I don't see how this needs to be arrogantly passed onto the clients. My past running ins with WA (only over the past year) are well documented, and I've had enough. If you're spending your money, you have control over whom you spend it with. It's not a matter of how much we spend with them or what not, it's simple a matter of decency in the manner they conduct their client relations.

With regards to the "acid responses" you mention, this is due to your "multi-million rand" business relying on its IT infrastructure as *YOU* mentioned.
Like I said, there are numerous means of making sure these mission critical comms are sorted out if it is so imperative that you have them.
An ADSL account with a slightly larger cap than you need, a router with 3G failover, a line service with an SLA on it etc etc etc.
You were the one crying about how this messed your business around so we pointed out that you are the one failing to make sure that you are adequately covered.
It is not Web Africa's responsibility to make sure you have decent comms, it is your own.

Having said all of that I do think it is very poor service on WA's side to suspend the account without having given you prior notice.

My recommendation is going to be that you get yourself a 1GB prepaid account to keep as an backup for situations like that that could arise in future. They are mostly valid for up to 12 months and would be a perfect way to keep your comms going while an issue like this was resolved.
I would stay away from uncapped solutions though, they normally have terrible latency and other issues which can be a serious pain.
If you are worried in any way about making sure that you dont lose any of your trade then there are some very low cost solutions that can be recommended to you.