News Tip-Offs and Investigations

Game posted online yesterday that later that day on their social channels they will post a code that will discount a PS5 to R6499, so if you are fast enough and that if you purchase a new PS5 online at 12:00 on Friday 24 November only 10 people will get a special discount price.
An so later that day a post was seen on facebook with the special code to be used at 12:00 on 24 November 2023. If you tried to use the code before, the site would reply invalid coupon.
So promptly at 12:00 on November 23 12:00, I entered the code and it worked, not giving me the PS5 for R6499 but providing me with another R6499 discount on the already discounted price R1900. Which made the PS5 R5300 which was absolutely incredible.
I immediately clicked on checkout, at this stage this is where the trouble started.
The site kept on saying "Something went wrong please try again".
After 4 min I was able to confirm my delivery adress, and clicked "View Summary" to proceed to the payment, where the site again displayed "Something went wrong please try again".
This persisted for about half an hour, at every 8 or 9th clicked of "Try Again" I was presented with a page to confirm my delivery information.
If I processed to click "View Summry" to process to the payment page the site displayed "Something went wrong, try again".
At about 12:30 my cart was cleared automatically and displayed that there was a shortage of stock, and right after that the site crashed, or if as they displayed in "Maintenance Mode".
After about 10 min the site returned but now the PS5 that was on special was Out of Stock.
I was never given the opportunity to complete my purchase. This is false advertising, I believe from facebook posts nobody could copleted their purchase, is game going to make good on the special discount that I fairly won at 24 November 2023 at exactly 12:00
Screeenshots attached
 

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Game posted online yesterday that later that day on their social channels they will post a code that will discount a PS5 to R6499, so if you are fast enough and that if you purchase a new PS5 online at 12:00 on Friday 24 November only 10 people will get a special discount price.
An so later that day a post was seen on facebook with the special code to be used at 12:00 on 24 November 2023. If you tried to use the code before, the site would reply invalid coupon.
So promptly at 12:00 on November 23 12:00, I entered the code and it worked, not giving me the PS5 for R6499 but providing me with another R6499 discount on the already discounted price R1900. Which made the PS5 R5300 which was absolutely incredible.
I immediately clicked on checkout, at this stage this is where the trouble started.
The site kept on saying "Something went wrong please try again".
After 4 min I was able to confirm my delivery adress, and clicked "View Summary" to proceed to the payment, where the site again displayed "Something went wrong please try again".
This persisted for about half an hour, at every 8 or 9th clicked of "Try Again" I was presented with a page to confirm my delivery information.
If I processed to click "View Summry" to process to the payment page the site displayed "Something went wrong, try again".
At about 12:30 my cart was cleared automatically and displayed that there was a shortage of stock, and right after that the site crashed, or if as they displayed in "Maintenance Mode".
After about 10 min the site returned but now the PS5 that was on special was Out of Stock.
I was never given the opportunity to complete my purchase. This is false advertising, I believe from facebook posts nobody could copleted their purchase, is game going to make good on the special discount that I fairly won at 24 November 2023 at exactly 12:00
Screeenshots attached
The deal was oversubscribed, thousands of people were trying to checkout on the same item and the website crashed, happened to other retailers, not much you can do.
 
Gigabit Mesh Network Mzanzi Comnet, in the Harry Gwala District

this is publicly funded, would be nice to know what services at what prices are available etc, service provider website is unhelpful

Cabinet statement 29 November 2023:

1.4.1.Cabinet welcomed the launch of The Gigabit Mesh Network in Ward 1 of the Greater Kokstad Local Municipality in the Harry Gwala District of KwaZulu-Natal that is connecting 1 600 households and enabling at least 6 000 community members to access broadband services.
1.4.2. The first Gigabit Mesh Network Mzanzi Comnet, in the Harry Gwala District, is part of the government’s SA Connect programme that aims to achieve universal access to the internet funded through the Broadband Access Fund. This network renders Ward 1 of the Greater Kokstad Local Municipality to become the first wall-to-wall connected site in KwaZulu-Natal.
1.4.3. The Broadband Access Fund has empowered small, medium and micro enterprises (SMME) internet service providers across the country to support the creation of direct and indirect job opportunities for designated groups such as youth, women and persons with disabilities.
1.4.4. In the Harry Gwala District Municipality more specifically, the Broadband Access Fund has been able to empower 12 SMMEs (sub-contracted) while creating 79 job opportunities for youth, women, men and persons with disabilities.
 
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Can someone from Broad Media officially comment on the legitimacy of Pineapple Insurance's claim (pun intended)?

It strikes me as an odd claim to make, considering that MyBroadband is primarily concerned with assessing the services of companies that operate in the broadband realm (as opposed to car insurance).

Maybe this answers some of my questions:

 
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Can someone from Broad Media officially comment on the legitimacy of Pineapple Insurance's claim (pun intended)?

It strikes me as an odd claim to make, considering that MyBroadband is primarily concerned with assessing the services of companies that operate in the broadband realm (as opposed to car insurance).
MyBB has moved on from just being tech related a long time ago.

As for the claim, votes were cast, votes were counted, brown envelopes were exchanged, expensive holidays were planned, @Jan got a new haircut and life carried on as usual.
 
Credit check

I was asked for an ITC Clearance by a Letting Agent. Either I could obtain my own or they would do so for around R250. I looked around. Could not find a single ITC Clearance but in fact separate bureaus - not sure why - who have logged your credit status. Each can offer a report (at least one per year) which is free but the report is merely a summary. This is not good enough. Then there are those who appear to curate from the various bureaus and offer a single report. This again is just a summary and you have to pay for a full report. In the end I found Kudough who also resell but also have an arrangement with Checkers whereby for R100 you can just walk in with your ID have a full printout (but could not be emailed alas). This can then be viewed on the Kudough website but I noticed the website had slightly more detail.

An article on the ins and outs of Credit Checks would be useful.
 
So, Takealot are having a lot of trouble with fake goods. They rejected my review of this product:
This is not a 120W Charger. I put it on a USB tester. It can do QC3.0 up to 12V, but is limited to 22W max (dips to 11V at 2A).

I still have it along with all the tools to demonstrate it is fake.
 
So, Takealot are having a lot of trouble with fake goods. They rejected my review of this product:
This is not a 120W Charger. I put it on a USB tester. It can do QC3.0 up to 12V, but is limited to 22W max (dips to 11V at 2A).

I still have it along with all the tools to demonstrate it is fake.
Had issues as well with some chargers on TaL.

Purchased this on BF for R650 the 120w version. Fantastic charger.

 
Had issues as well with some chargers on TaL.

Purchased this on BF for R650 the 120w version. Fantastic charger.

Yeah, I have a 65W Mcdodo that tests just fine.

What is annoying about this whole thing is there's plenty of evidence the Xiaomi is fake - it doesn't even have the right logo on the box, yet Takealot won't take action.
 
People in Zimbabwe are re-configuring star-links into solar panels and street lights to evade detection by the government since they are banned. I'm surprised they are working but some ingenuity there. The revamped starlink will also use a normal router.
 
People in Zimbabwe are re-configuring star-links into solar panels and street lights to evade detection by the government since they are banned. I'm surprised they are working but some ingenuity there. The revamped starlink will also use a normal router.

 
Such a pleasure to read an article that features correct grammar, spelling, punctuation and simply makes sense. But I digress.
Regulators in other countries in Africa have issued similar warnings. Ghana’s National Communications Authority in December released a statement demanding that anyone involved in selling or operating Starlink services in the country “cease and desist immediately.”
Yeah. A Strongly Worded Letter. That'll show 'em
 
7 months ago:


Today:

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Handicaps Network Africa has been down since Saturday. Yesterday, they said the mobile app is back up and running, but everyone should reset their passwords as a safety measure. It has the signs of a security breach they haven't told users about.

Update: to add fuel to the fire... I just tried to do a reset password on the app and the email linked to the account is not mine. This means that the reset link to my account was sent to a random Gmail account.
 
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Pawned email addresses at govt departments and abused for tender scams are getting rather old. Now it's email addresses at @dpw.gov.za sending out fake RFQs . DCS is a regular source, we even saw a SAPS one.
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In general, while there's a lot of lip service to warn about them, not much is being done to mitigate them and we see also massive DNS abuse. Godaddy's Office offering is massively abused to spam scams out via Outlook.

 
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