MWEB - breach of contract and how to get your account cancelled without notice period

[MagicDude4Eva]

I have received many PM's over the last few days regarding my Mweb experience and other users are in a similar position where Mweb in essence is in breach of contract and terms of service, but yet tries to bully their customers to honour 30 days notice-period, irrespective of them changing TOS on the 8th of August.

Although MWeb has released my line back to Telkom (after several escalations via customer care and social) and confirmed that my account is cancelled with 31st August, I do think that I still might need to pursue the legal route if MWeb decides to debit my account in August for September. As a pro-active measure I have placed a stop-order on the debit and should a debit go through, I will instruct my bank to reverse it (anyone can do this).

I have attached my email to them for anyone else to use - but bottom line is:
- Mweb has changed terms of service of their Premium Uncapped ADSL product - when I signed up it was marketed as unmetered/unthrottled (I also have screenshots of advertising)
- Mweb informed users on the 8th August that due to their "abuse" service will be dramatically reduced and a rolling window will be instituted. AFAIK, for a 4mb service the speed will be reduced to 512kbps which translates to roughly 30-40KB/sec.
- Mweb then insisted that irrespective of their late notice, customers are still required to cancel under notice period and since it is 1 calendar month, cancellations will only occur by 30th September
- Any legal person would look at this as a change of terms and a breach of contract, as Mweb wants to change your usage behavior from an Uncapped product to a Capped product (otherwise the amount of downloads would be irrelevant)

My original cancellation email is below (I did include pictures of the advertising promoting Uncapped as uncapped/unmetered) - feel free to use/modify. I would not give in and allow Mweb to bully you into having to pay for a degraded service in September.

To: abuse@mweb.com, technic@mweb.com, sales@mweb.com, billing@mweb.com, cancellations@mweb.com, moving@mweb.com
Subject: Request to downgrade Premium Uncapped and transfer ADSL line back to Telkom


Dear Mweb,

please find attached request for immediate cancellation of my Premium ADSL Uncapped account and immediate migration of my ADSL line (### ### ####) back to Telkom.

Based on your email received on 8th August 2013 and various correspondence via your Mweb representatives (Allison - customer care and Mweb guy - MyBroadband) I was informed that you are changing the terms of agreement on my Premium Uncapped ADSL account based on my usage behaviour. My cancellation is based on your feedback that your terms of service will change due to my usage behaviour reaching an unacceptable threshold. Since I signed up for an uncapped account which you advertise as uncapped, unshaped and unthrottled (see copies of FB advertisement as well as various online advertisements), I can unfortunately not accept that you impose capped and throttled restrictions on my Premium Uncapped account from 1st September 2013.

I consider this change in terms of service a breach of contract and will not accept (as suggested by Allison from Mweb customer care) that I can only move my account after 30th September 2013 as I missed my cancellation period for August. I do believe that Mweb purposefully submitted the email notice "We may have to slow down your Internet speeds" on 8th August (before a public holiday and long weekend and in the middle of a month to avoid an excessive amount of cancellations during the month of August.

Either way - please action the following with immediate effect (all to be done by no later than 31st August 2013)
(1) Confirm receipt of email and cancellation form attached
(2) Initiate migration of my ADSL line ### ### #### to Telkom
(3) Cancel my Mweb Premium Uncapped ADSL account

I have instructed my bank not to process any debit orders from Mweb going forward and I will only be prepared to settle the outstanding amount of R899 for August which was already debited from my account in July (and no other amounts due).

It is unfortunate that after nearly 2 years I had to cancel my service with Mweb, but I do think your executive team should have properly evaluated and communicated your change of service and conditions associated with it.

Based on your correspondence and the feedback provided by your Mweb representatives on various support channels, it has become evident that your Premium ADSL Uncapped product is indeed metered and capped although your marketing material indicates otherwise. I will additionally forward complaints to the various industry bodies (ASA, ISPA, CPA, ICASA) as it is my opinion that your current advertising of a Premium Uncapped product is misleading to customers as the product is indeed not uncapped.

Kind regards,

XXX

Please don't use this thread for ADSL/throughput issues - let's assist people having issues cancelling. In my opinion, everyone should be entitled to cancel without notice period and without having to serve notice period during September.

 

[StevenC]

Let us know how it works out. Even though MWEB has moved the goalposts, I believe that they will just simply blacklist you for non payment. If you have a copy of the original contract, I would strongly suggest looking for the clause (if it is there) which states 30 day cancellation (of which you have signed). That is still legally binding. If they also have in the contract that they reserve the right to change conditions without prior notice, then I would not even bother trying to fight it.

I would also have loved to stick it to the man, but my downgrade/cancellation is already in effect and I could not be bothered to be blacklisted for R29.

 

[nihilist]

- Mweb informed users on the 8th August that due to their "abuse" service will be dramatically reduced and a rolling window will be instituted. AFAIK, for a 4mb service the speed will be reduced to 512kbps which translates to roughly 30-40KB/sec.

When? MWEB has informed me of nothing, I've received no notifications of changes to their AUP/T&Cs - unless you're referring to the MyBB article / forum posts but they haven't informed me, as a customer in a professional or official manner.

 

[Leatherman]

Thank you very much for this.

 

[Paul Hjul]

One of the tricky things I am looking at in the formal complaints lining up is the issue of their contract terms being shifted and the fact that customers who wish to opt-out of the new goalposts are wasting money. ISPA actually has a provision to order a refund in their complaints procedure and what would be ideal would be for MWEB to be directed to put in place a refund program for all customers who are departing after the notice fiasco but it is a hell of a long shot.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Let us know how it works out. Even though MWEB has moved the goalposts, I believe that they will just simply blacklist you for non payment. If you have a copy of the original contract, I would strongly suggest looking for the clause (if it is there) which states 30 day cancellation (of which you have signed). That is still legally binding. If they also have in the contract that they reserve the right to change conditions without prior notice, then I would not even bother trying to fight it.

I would also have loved to stick it to the man, but my downgrade/cancellation is already in effect and I could not be bothered to be blacklisted for R29.

It's worth to blow some money on probing this legally. This would then finally settle the whole argument about capped vs uncapped.

 

[Necuno]

- Mweb informed users on the 8th August that due to their "abuse" service will be dramatically reduced and a rolling window will be instituted. AFAIK, for a 4mb service the speed will be reduced to 512kbps which translates to roughly 30-40KB/sec.

When? MWEB has informed me of nothing, I've received no notifications of changes to their AUP/T&Cs - unless you're referring to the MyBB article / forum posts but they haven't informed me, as a customer in a professional or official manner.

You were informed if you were an "abuser", remember.

 

[diabolus]

Well MWEB have things like these in their AUP, how do you legally get past this if you accepted it?

http://www.mweb.co.za/legalpolicies/GeneralPage/AcceptableUsePolicy.aspx

MWEB reserves the right to establish policies, rules and limitations, from time to time, concerning the use of the IP Service. You must comply with any bandwidth, data storage and other limitations we may impose, in our reasonable discretion. Failure to comply with these rules will result in your service being restricted, suspended or terminated, in our reasonable discretion.

• We reserve the right to establish policies, rules and limitations, from time to time, concerning the use of any service. You must comply with any bandwidth, data storage and other limitations we may impose, in our reasonable discretion. Failure to comply with these rules will result in your service being restricted, suspended or terminated, in our reasonable discretion.

..

If the IP Services are used in a way that we, in our reasonable discretion, believe violates this Acceptable Use Policy or any of our rules or limitations, we may take any responsive actions we deem appropriate. Such actions may include without limitation, temporary or permanent removal of content, cancellation of newsgroup posts, filtering of Internet transmissions, and/or the immediate limitation, restriction, suspension or termination of all or any portion of the services or your account.

The parts in bold are appearing numerous times in that document. So technically MWEB can do whatever they want to your uncapped service.

So you have to keep in mind, this whole move from Mweb is all about "acceptable use" . They are not changing your product, just how and when acceptable use is applied. Clearly they covered themselves to allow for changes to their AUP exactly like this....

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Well MWEB have things like these in their AUP, how do you legally get past this if you accepted it?

http://www.mweb.co.za/legalpolicies/GeneralPage/AcceptableUsePolicy.aspx


The parts in bold are appearing numerous times in that document. So technically MWEB can do whatever they want to your uncapped service.

So you have to keep in mind, this whole move from Mweb is all about "acceptable use" . They are not changing your product, just how and when acceptable use is applied. Clearly they covered themselves to allow for changes to their AUP exactly like this....

I would challenge them on the term reasonably. I would also challenge them on violating ISPA code of conduct (point 7). Then I would challenge them with ASA and CPA (misleading customers - see Facebook below).



Mweb will of course maintain a tough stance and will not accommodate customers - as you will have noticed, there has been no formal (appropriate) correspondence from Mweb after the 8th August (I disregard the CEO statements as it just re-iterated the obvious) and still has not shed any clarity on the actual violation, it's parameters and how policies will actually change.

The right thing to do is to allow people to cancel due to the change of service terms without bullying consumers into riding out notice periods and then demanding premium payments for substandard services (i.e. paying R899 in August for a 40KB/sec 4MB Premium Uncapped account). The other right thing to do is to be transparent and open to customers.

 

[medicnick83]

Just punish MWEB, tackle them on every single SOCIAL MEDIA site you can, users will soon see how they work and leave them! That's the only way to stick it to MWEB!

You can't come, change the internet and think you're a hero and then start screwing customers again later... People need to see them for who they are!

Twitter! (they can't really ban you, so whenever you @mention them, everyone who follows MWEB, sees!)
Facebook! (yes, they can delete comments and ban, but not before many see what you've said!)
MyBroadband! (any IT minded person is on MyBB!)

 

[GazWrack]

I’m finding that 1-month’s notice a bit contradictory; if a contract contradicts itself, doesn’t benefit go to the party who stands to lose the most? i.e. the customer.
Also, if they are able to bill a new customer pro-rata, why can’t cancellations be billed pro-rata also?

 

[Rickster]

(2) Initiate migration of my ADSL line ### ### #### to Telkom

Does this mean the ADSL will be canceled because I dont want to cancel it I just want to move ISP's

 

[Bull1012]

The right thing to do is to allow people to cancel due to the change of service terms without bullying consumers into riding out notice periods and then demanding premium payments for substandard services (i.e. paying R899 in August for a 40KB/sec 4MB Premium Uncapped account). The other right thing to do is to be transparent and open to customers.

Thanks MagicDude4Eva, I used your email and it worked like a charm. They previously refused to cancel the account and migrate my adsl line on the 31st August. Now I am free to choose a new ISP

 

[Bull1012]

Does this mean the ADSL will be canceled because I dont want to cancel it I just want to move ISP's

Mweb has to migrate the line back to Telkom before you can move the line to another ISP or keep it at Telkom if not a bundled package.

 

[kripstoe]

I do not have an MWEB account, so I cannot really comment on any of their services - our company has/had (not sure) an account with them and from what I understand the support is/was dismal.

As an outsider, reading all the threads popping up on MyBB, I would be very wary of signing up with them.

 

[siddyboy101]

Hallo magicdude
just wanna ask what happened here i am in the process but unlike you they didnt notify me of the throttling.
i requested cancellation and now my speed has gone down to 10kbps and i think its cause i have requested this action
but like usual call inquire and all you get is you line is fine so this is actually the big thing the lack of experties i find there
i have a 4meg line by the way.
where have you migrated to and what is your experiance with them?

regards

sid

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Hi there,

it really depends on what type of communication your received from MWeb. For example if you received the "abuse" email in August and then didn't do anything about it (i.e. didn't change your usage behaviour and still remained "abusive") then I think you would be out of luck and will have to sweat out the notice period. Since I cancelled and terminated my MWeb account within 2 weeks after getting the August mail, I am not sure if there was subsequent communication from Mweb.

The throttling was widely discussed on MyBB, and I would think MWeb would have needed to notify you (either with the mail in August or a subsequent one), that they will apply throttling. Although MWeb is allowed to change their T&C's at any time, I still argue, that the original purchased product is not fit for purpose when throttling is applied. Unless you are a real pain-in-the-a### with MWeb, they apply all sorts of "tricks" to delay cancellation (such as moving your line back to Telkom, delaying the cancellation and threats of blacklisting etc).

In short, I refused to honour their cancellation period and terminated my account within days of receiving the August "abuse" email. Due to MWeb being spiteful, it took 10 days to move my line back to Telkom and to clean up the mess afterwards. I moved to Afrihost Business Uncapped (4MB) and service is awesome (there had been an issue with online gaming for 2 weeks with horrible lag, but eventually MTN seem to have sorted out the routing). Once you apply for the Telkom ADSL 25% discount, you are actually cheaper off than MWeb.

Daily usage on Afrihost varies between 4GB-20GB and for this month I have done 230GB without any issues.

 

[TEXTILE GUY]

Well, here's my take on this issue.

Firstly, I for one don't accept the abuse label thrown about by MWEB. Reasonably, I had an uncapped service limited in terms of speed, but not data. The service and rules remained unchanged for years. I should reasonably expect the relationship to continue as such. The fact that MWEB unilaterally decided to limit data and call users abusers is silly and insulting to say the least.

Secondly, they are punting their AUP as the justification. May I remind MWEB OF Section 49(1) to (5). In short, the fine print needs to be in plain language, the consumers attention drawn to it and the consumer must UNDERSTAND and BE AWARE OF THE CONSEQUENCES of such provision. This was never done, save for the fact that on signing up with MWEB, I wa made aware that there was an AUP that I HAD to sign. No discuss on or explanation was EVER entered into, until it benefited the service provider.

Thirdly, section 29(a) and 41(1) speaks directly to MWEBs advertising .... In no case was throttled mentioned. I was under the expectation that I would get an uncapped ie data indefinite service at a speed rate ...subject to Telkoms condition of "best effort".

Lastly, MWEB do a thing called advanced billing. They use this as an excuse to bill you first, then you need to ask for a credit. My advice, cancel, put a stop on the account, take out the R29 package for your notice month, and do an EFT.

And most importantly, please tell your friends, word of mouth is very powerful in such instances.

 

[nerf]

I do not have an MWEB account, so I cannot really comment on any of their services - our company has/had (not sure) an account with them and from what I understand the support is/was dismal.

As an outsider, reading all the threads popping up on MyBB, I would be very wary of signing up with them.

Yip be careful of MWEB

 

[SHVAK]

OP orginal letter, any feedback?