Openweb - false advertising?

Wow :eek:

If this had been any other ISP, everyone would be hanging them by the balls. Nobody is complaining about the special - people are complaining about the rules not being clear. No amount of buddy-buddy backslapping is going to change the very obvious bad publicity.

Also is there really a need for personal attacks?
 
sand_man said:
Is it not possible for you to make your point without being abusive??
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People are bitching because Openweb made a single mistake, when in fact Openweb is probably the best ISP to hit this country and the CEO does everything in his power to give people ADSL at the lowest prices, while also standing up to Telkom on numerous occasions for being the heart of the problem with ADSL in SA.

I think the abusiveness in the post is warranted.
 
sand_man said:
Why? You just made your point without being...
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Because it angers me when people try to use the consumer laws and protection acts as weapons, when it should be used as a shield. What did the OP lose by missing the special? He lost a few seconds of his time writing an email. He didn't lose any money from it. He didn't lose a significant amount of his time. This wasn't even an issue of false advertising, it was a mistake on Openweb's part.

What has happened to our society that we cannot even forgive a company a honest mistake and try to twist it to our advantage every chance we get?
 
I think it's OK to feel a bit letdown but i am not sure how ok it is to take this far.
 
Graal said:
Because it angers me when people try to use the consumer laws and protection acts as weapons, when it should be used as a shield. What did the OP lose by missing the special? He lost a few seconds of his time writing an email. He didn't lose any money from it. He didn't lose a significant amount of his time. This wasn't even an issue of false advertising, it was a mistake on Openweb's part.

What has happened to our society that we cannot even forgive a company a honest mistake and try to twist it to our advantage every chance we get?
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we can only twist for companies we dont like... telkom and landmark pc's for example ;)

:D :D :D
 
There is great 'patheticness' on display from both sides here. Put your emotions aside and you'll see that Keoma screwed up twice; firstly by going against legislation which requires limited offers to be specified as such, and secondly with his downright sarcastic and rude responses in the other thread. The second compounded the first; an apology (a sincere one) would've gone a long way...

Given what Openweb has done in the DSL marketplace over the years I certainly wouldn't want to see the issue reach the ASA and/or NCC, but objectively the grounds are most certainly there...
 
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HapticSimian said:
There is great 'patheticness' on display from both sides here. Put your emotions aside and you'll see that Keoma screwed up twice; firstly by going against legislation which requires limited offers to be specified as such, and secondly with his downright sarcastic and rude responses in the other thread. The second compounded the first; an apology (a sincere one) would've gone a long way...

Given what Openweb has done in the DSL marketplace over the years I certainly wouldn't want to see the issue reach the ASA and/or NCC, but objectively the grounds are most certainly there...
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you joking right? are you mad?

its a give and take. are you going to take telkom to the ASA, most probably... because they screw up at every turn and have a rep for screwing over people.

then on the other side you got companies like openweb, doing a brilliant job in supplying and reselling decent products. See previous comment on their unofficial "free the web" campaign, and you wanna bitch when they dont include that its a limited offer :rolleyes:

Yes I know your arguing on principle, but you need to take what you get in this very screwed up telecoms space

the industry is very challenging and competitive, and advertising they limited the special to 100 (or whatever) might close doors to new business in an already very competitive environment.

but please, continue to nit pick and leave the specials to the people that deserve them :p
 
techead said:
you joking right? are you mad?
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I'm not trying to amuse you. Neither am I angry or of unsound mind.

techead said:
its a give and take. are you going to take telkom to the ASA, most probably... because they screw up at every turn and have a rep for screwing over people.

then on the other side you got companies like openweb, doing a brilliant job in supplying and reselling decent products. See previous comment on their unofficial "free the web" campaign, and you wanna bitch when they dont include that its a limited offer :rolleyes:
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It's a simple equation - Keoma's mail lacked information it should've contained both out of decency and because South African legislation compels it. When it was pointed out to him he reacted with condescending sarcasm.

techead said:
Yes I know your arguing on principle, but you need to take what you get in this very screwed up telecoms space
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So, the point of your reply to me is...? I'm not arguing anything by the way, just stating how I observed the episode as a neutral bystander.

techead said:
the industry is very challenging and competitive, and limiting the special to 100 (or whatever) might open doors to new business in an already very competitive environment.
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Sure. Just indicate that it's limited. Or apologise when you dun' goofed.

techead said:
but please, continue to nit pick and leave the specials to the people that deserve them :p
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It's not a matter of entitlement.
 
R100 for Openweb(IS) 1mbps uncapped?? Ripoff.... :-P
I still can't get over how **** my IS uncapped experience was, the throttling made me slit my wrists, dunno how I'm still alive!
 
The point is still that nobody lost anything of worth due to the special missing that information. Why get riled up about something if you didn't lose anything from it?
 
Graal said:
The point is still that nobody lost anything of worth due to the special missing that information. Why get riled up about something if you didn't lose anything from it?
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Well, you might want to consider that there are now 200 very happy people with cheap new accounts, and a couple of thousand people pissed off because they wasted their time applying for a special that didn't have its limitations clearly stated.

Whether people are, in your eyes, justified in getting 'riled up' is rather beside the point. People will get riled up at the drop of a hat, and Keoma's graveyard shift communication has led to more riled up than happy people.

I'm still neither happy nor riled up, before you decide to direct your excitement at me. :p
 
techead said:
you joking right? are you mad?

its a give and take. are you going to take telkom to the ASA, most probably... because they screw up at every turn and have a rep for screwing over people.

then on the other side you got companies like openweb, doing a brilliant job in supplying and reselling decent products. See previous comment on their unofficial "free the web" campaign, and you wanna bitch when they dont include that its a limited offer :rolleyes:

Yes I know your arguing on principle, but you need to take what you get in this very screwed up telecoms space

the industry is very challenging and competitive, and advertising they limited the special to 100 (or whatever) might close doors to new business in an already very competitive environment.

but please, continue to nit pick and leave the specials to the people that deserve them :p
Click to expand...

Just for your information, Telkom has been taken to the ASA several times and in many cases they have lost and have been ordered to withdraw the particular advertisement as it misrepresents the product/service on promotion and was found to be misleading. For a company such as Openweb, which I assume has a professional marketing department that is not run from a garage in the back of somebody's house, to make such a blunder is unforgivable. Your comment, "the industry is very challenging and competitive, and advertising they limited the special to 100 (or whatever) might close doors to new business in an already very competitive environment" serves to prove my point. So, what you are saying is that it was there intention to mislead the public, who would then make contact only to be told the promotion is "sold out" (as is what happened with me), so that I then make inquiries about other "products" of theirs? So what you are saying is that it is alright to mislead he public because the market is very competitive? I think not!
 
Slash69 said:
Just for your information, Telkom has been taken to the ASA several times and in many cases they have lost and have been ordered to withdraw the particular advertisement as it misrepresents the product/service on promotion and was found to be misleading.
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Im quite aware of that. Im quite involved with Telkom and meet with various exec levels on a weekly basis to work on the congestion issues a lot of users experience. I wasnt born under a rock, I know what has/is/will go on within telkom. to a point of course.

Slash69 said:
For a company such as Openweb, which I assume has a professional marketing department that is not run from a garage in the back of somebody's house, to make such a blunder is unforgivable.
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I dont know, so I cant really comment on that. What I do know, is that regardless of any mistakes made, the intention was noble and good. So when the other thread turned into a company bashing exercise he quite rightly withdrew from the discussion. Its odd... Someone tries to make life better for people, and makes a small mistake in the process of doing that and everyone goes off their freakin rocker. How do we know he wont just be like, ok well FU you all Im not gonna even bother next time... ? <- this is IMHO

Slash69 said:
Your comment, "the industry is very challenging and competitive, and advertising they limited the special to 100 (or whatever) might close doors to new business in an already very competitive environment" serves to prove my point. So, what you are saying is that it was there intention to mislead the public, who would then make contact only to be told the promotion is "sold out" (as is what happened with me), so that I then make inquiries about other "products" of theirs? So what you are saying is that it is alright to mislead he public because the market is very competitive? I think not!
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Whether it was a marketing ploy, or simply a mistake... well I dont know. I dont intend on asking him. Misleading clients INTENTIONALLY is definitely wrong, but I doubt this is the case. Openweb have done so much good in the past, and now one small mistake and people who didnt get the special (people like you) and getting all worked up about it :p
 
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techead said:
Im quite aware of that. Im quite involved with Telkom and meet with various exec levels on a weekly basis to work on the congestion issues a lot of users experience. I wasnt born under a rock, I know what has/is/will go on within telkom. to a point of course.

I dont know, so I cant really comment on that. What I do know, is that regardless of any mistakes made, the intention was noble and good. So when the other thread turned into a company bashing exercise he quite rightly withdrew from the discussion. Its odd... Someone tries to make life better for people, and makes a small mistake in the process of doing that and everyone goes off their freakin rocker. How do we know he wont just be like, ok well FU you all Im not gonna even bother next time... ? <- this is IMHO



Whether it was a marketing ploy, or simply a mistake... well I dont know. I dont intend on asking him. Misleading clients INTENTIONALLY is definitely wrong, but I doubt this is the case. Openweb have done so much good in the past, and now one small mistake and people who didnt get the special (people like you) and getting all worked up about it :p
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By the way - I don't even care about their special. I was not inquiring for me. I have 4MB Uncapped with Mweb and I am quite happy with that. I was trying to find out for my parents who live in a different city to me. They tried to make contact, as did I, to get more information (and possibly sign up). You keep referring to them (Openweb) having made a mistake. Well, this has not been proved or even mentioned (by them). The possibility still exists that it was intentional misleading advertising. Look what it's done (if nothing else) - it has everybody talking about Openweb. As the saying goes - "Even bad publicity is still publicity".
 
techead said:
you joking right? are you mad?

its a give and take. are you going to take telkom to the ASA, most probably... because they screw up at every turn and have a rep for screwing over people.

then on the other side you got companies like openweb, doing a brilliant job in supplying and reselling decent products. See previous comment on their unofficial "free the web" campaign, and you wanna bitch when they dont include that its a limited offer :rolleyes:

Yes I know your arguing on principle, but you need to take what you get in this very screwed up telecoms space

the industry is very challenging and competitive, and advertising they limited the special to 100 (or whatever) might close doors to new business in an already very competitive environment.

but please, continue to nit pick and leave the specials to the people that deserve them :p
Click to expand...

So what you are saying is, is that it's okay to break the rules (intentionally or unintentionally) if you are perceived to be on the side of "Good"?

So who draws the line between the good companies, and the bad companies? You?
Is there a point where you believe everyone should be treated equally, or should everyone be treated differently according to perceived good/bad actions?
 
HapticSimian said:
There is great 'patheticness' on display from both sides here. Put your emotions aside and you'll see that Keoma screwed up twice; firstly by going against legislation which requires limited offers to be specified as such, and secondly with his downright sarcastic and rude responses in the other thread. The second compounded the first; an apology (a sincere one) would've gone a long way...

Given what Openweb has done in the DSL marketplace over the years I certainly wouldn't want to see the issue reach the ASA and/or NCC, but objectively the grounds are most certainly there...
Click to expand...

QFT.

A sincere apology for their error would have went a long way...
 
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