My Experience with Crystal Web (BAD)

[Mr Scratch]

LOL at the VDSL parts... @OP I would ask Crystal Web for the call logs and listen to them again. If what you said is true, post the log here, remembering to redact anything personal to you AND the agent.

//grabs popcorn

 

[Geoff.D]

Whatever the case may be, he got full speed when he switched to the axxess account, which means that he probably set the router up correctly.

As for the reps not knowing what VDSL is, why would he (Daniel) lie about this?
Jeez, you guys need to take off your CW-glasses for a second.
It's entirely possible that CW support can fck up, y'know.

Yes that is what he says happened. so without info we cannot possibly know what caused the problem. It just sounds strange and wrong ------

 

[Adenoid Hynkel]

Jeez, you guys need to take off your CW-glasses for a second.
It's entirely possible that CW support can fck up, y'know.

Exactly. Each time my line is slow and I hop onto live chat I get told that my 2-5ms wifi latency could cause a slow connection. Right.

 

[danielss1]

Interesting....telkom had to convert me from adsl2+ to vdsl. All i had to do with cw was have them move me from a 4mb account to 20mb account.

And being an IT engineer, surprised you needed help setting up a vdsl router. I just plugged and play. Router auto connected at vdsl.

There's more to this story.

I setup routers maybe 7 years ago man, I work on VMware and Microsoft OS's now.. anyway all the guides I read online said I needed to use PTM and enable a vlan of 835, so yeah its not the same as DSL, HOWEVER that being said the actual setup that worked ended up being the was the same as dsl, so thats where the confusion was, for me at least.

Not sure why everyone is saying there is more to the story, the story I have told you here, is exactly happened.

It would be great if Crystal Web would upload the Recordings, you would hear the following:

1. First guy was rude/not interested and had never heard of vdsl/thought it was a Fibre link
2. Second guy was friendly and helpful but also did know what vdsl was and took my details and router model number so that he could give it to the guy that knows about vdsl, so he can phone me back. This is perfectly fine for me as he is probably a first line support guy, but I never received that phone call from the higher up technician.

 

[Thor]

I hope for Crystal Web's sake that they have recordings of the phone calls. Sounds a bit unrealistic that two support staff at an ISP don't know what VDSL is...

^^^This.

 

[Thor]

Interesting....telkom had to convert me from adsl2+ to vdsl. All i had to do with cw was have them move me from a 4mb account to 20mb account.

And being an IT engineer, surprised you needed help setting up a vdsl router. I just plugged and play. Router auto connected at vdsl.

There's more to this story.

This.

It makes no difference what line you have adsl vdsl fiber doesn't matter. It's irrelevant.

I have a web Africa and afrihost capped account which I use concurrently on a fiber connection, adsl connection and a vdsl connection at home.

So that's that.

What I want to know is the rep not knowing what VDSL is. That's the biggest shock to me here.

 

[kohlhtor]

Dates for all of this?

"Note that as per Crystal Web's terms of use, a cancellation may not be processed if an outstanding balance remains on your account due to Crystal Web for any services from any date. Same-month cancellations must be submitted before the 19th of each month. "
http://support.crystalweb.co.za/hc/en-us/articles/203383272-How-do-I-cancel-my-account-

VDSL and ADSL have the same set-up, the only difference for VDSL is that your router must be VDSL capable.
I don't believe you when you say support had no clue what VDSL was, I think there is something missing there.
As above Orihalcon's comment, but what package did you sign up for?

Would love to listen to those call logs/have the Crystal Web rep comment, I'm sure there is more to this.

EDIT:


The only difference is the username/password combination as provided in your welcome mail, the same as all other ISP do it.

This not thru you have to change the vlan
You vlan I'd have to be 835
I find this when I moved to Vdsl

Use VLAN for Internet access
VLAN-ID

Afrihost was not able to help I have to find this via google

 

[Johnatan56]

This not thru you have to change the vlan
You vlan I'd have to be 835
I find this when I moved to Vdsl

Use VLAN for Internet access
VLAN-ID

Afrihost was not able to help I have to find this via google

Same for ADSL2+.

You could have asked here, but usually it's the router default.

 

[Mr Scratch]

No comment from Crystal Web? They comment on some BGB hijack article but not when someone publicly shames their support staff.

 

[danielss1]

No comment from Crystal Web? They comment on some BGB hijack article but not when someone publicly shames their support staff.

It really seems like they don't care. Especially when a customer is upset and they refer the customer to legal, instead of trying to make amends and retain the customer.

I work in the service industry and I know that threatening a customer with legal action is the absolute last resort, we will do everything we can to make the client happy again and continue the business relationship.

They should have actually told me not to worry about the current months bill as an apology for their bad service, not tell me I will need to pay for June as well!

 

[Dan C]

It really seems like they don't care. Especially when a customer is upset and they refer the customer to legal, instead of trying to make amends and retain the customer.

I work in the service industry and I know that threatening a customer with legal action is the absolute last resort, we will do everything we can to make the client happy again and continue the business relationship.

They should have actually told me not to worry about the current months bill as an apology for their bad service, not tell me I will need to pay for June as well!

Yeah, charging you for bad service for an extra month is really not on. I sadly had to cancel my Afrihost account and it's instant if you cancel before the 25th I think.... and guess what, I get to use my roll-over data from this month which I can still use in June at no charge at all !! So basically a free month of lots of data.

 

[Diesal]

I myself haven't received the best of service from CystalWeb, so much so that I opted to cancel my account after 2 months.

Don't know how they managed the win that "top rated" award

Edit: Support usually doesn't tick me off but CW seems to have found that frontier.

 

[jdido87]

Also cancelled with CW after 2 months. Pathetic is an understatement.

 

[quovadis]

Sheesh VPI/VCI have stuff all to do with Vlans - sheesh and this is a tech forum?

 

[ajan]

Sheesh VPI/VCI have stuff all to do with Vlans - sheesh and this is a tech forum?

This is definitely not a tech forum. It's a media outlet.

 

[ezron]

Also cancelled CW after two months. Customer support not great at all

 

[Geoff.D]

This is definitely not a tech forum. It's a media outlet.

and vice versa! OP never bothered to talk about VLANs in his initial post. This small pearl of wisdom only surfaced later ....

 

[rh1]

I upgraded from 10 mb adsl to 20 vdsl. I had no issues with CW to date. They were very helpful. Unfortunately Telkom guys were the problem. Telkom Table view did not know what vdsl was and after weeks of trying to explain the difference between adsl 20mb and vdsl 20mb I just upgraded to 40mb vdsl. I phoned crystal Web who help me set up the router. Netflix in HD on three different devices. Uncapped between 00h00 and 18h00. 150gb between 18h00 and 24h00.

Its all relative, I had a very bad experience with Axxes and a so so experience with Afrihost.

 

[Geoff.D]

I upgraded from 10 mb adsl to 20 vdsl. I had no issues with CW to date. They were very helpful. Unfortunately Telkom guys were the problem. Telkom Table view did not know what vdsl was and after weeks of trying to explain the difference between adsl 20mb and vdsl 20mb I just upgraded to 40mb vdsl. I phoned crystal Web who help me set up the router. Netflix in HD on three different devices. Uncapped between 00h00 and 18h00. 150gb between 18h00 and 24h00.

Its all relative, I had a very bad experience with Axxes and a so so experience with Afrihost.

Once again, it is a technical issue related to WHICH modem is used ,that is all. If you don't get to talk to a technical person in any ISP or network provider, the correct steps will not be completed and you will end up staying on an ADSL setup when upgrading to 20 Mb/s.

Moving to 40 Mb/s forces the issue.

It is pathetic but these days the customer facing personnel are just not trained properly

 

[Johnatan56]

I upgraded from 10 mb adsl to 20 vdsl. I had no issues with CW to date. They were very helpful. Unfortunately Telkom guys were the problem. Telkom Table view did not know what vdsl was and after weeks of trying to explain the difference between adsl 20mb and vdsl 20mb I just upgraded to 40mb vdsl. I phoned crystal Web who help me set up the router. Netflix in HD on three different devices. Uncapped between 00h00 and 18h00. 150gb between 18h00 and 24h00.

Its all relative, I had a very bad experience with Axxes and a so so experience with Afrihost.

Well, your location is correct as I reside within TV. It really depends on the luck of the draw whether you get a tech that knows what VDSL is, which is sad. I think the biggest problem is that the call center doesn't understand and therefore the techie doesn't know that that is what you want and just closes the fault as he can't detect any issues.