TAKING ACTION AGAINST NEOTEL

Hey Leonie, on behalf of all myBB forumites, I would like to say thank you for making the effort! Good luck! Make us proud!
 
Well done Leonie, I hope this study works in favor of our fellow Neotel consumers with endless problems. I will be happy to share my story as well, had a bunch of issues starting off with Neotel, I had to get Aerials and and to get to the point where the internet speeds are fair. The latest problem we are experiencing is throttling for the lack of a better word.... :D
 
Yuna Monos said:
Regarding approaching Carte Blanche, this is exactly what I am doing this research for.

This is wonderful news.
Please don't let the NeoRep brainwash you and see this thing through.
They have this nasty habit of trying to give the impression that they are willing to help you and then blaming their lack of competence on network congestion.
I'm living for the day when I see Neotel on Carte Blanche.

Their service is shocking.
They cannot keep promises.
And in general don't have any idea what the hell they are doing.
There seems to be no communication between the call centre, accounts department and technical department.
Service and customer satisfaction is non-existent with them.
There is only reluctant acceptance to be found.

We want:
Our data monitor
Network speeds promised
Proper support service

Goodluck and many thanks for your effort.
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Just a quick update. I had to mention this because it is a shining example of what OR0 is talking about. Neotel's CS Manager Hugo Troskie personally visited the premises where I have my connection on Thursday evening.

I was promised a congestion report by Friday. It never came. I did however receive a phonecall from the call center on Friday saying the technical department wanted to send a tech to my place to check the connection. I told the caller the CS manager had already been around and that they should contact him.

The call center or technician (I don't know which it was) then asked me if I have a number for Hugo.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was busy filing a story on my 3G connection, because I couldn't file from my office where I have a 10G Dataflex Neotel service (although one can't really call it that). I nearly fell off my chair.

The Neotel tech asking me for the Neotel Customer manager's number. And he also had no clue that Hugo had followed the matter up already.

I am under no illusion that the connection problems on the Neotel network will be solved soon. Judging from what I have seen thus far the ineptitude at Neotel is legion.

I do however still encourage as many as possible dissastisfied Neotel clients to contact me via PM so that I have enough ammunition to take the matter up with ICASA as well as the press.
 
I wanted to connect to Neotel on Monday (18th January), but Neotel was not connecting. Hour upon hour I tried to connect but to no avail.
I went for an operation on Tuesday (Neotel was still down then) and only returned today, just to find that I STILL have to connect with my 3G in order to get online. I phoned Neotel tech support about 15 times (R3x15 = R45 wasted), and only got through once, just to speak to a guy who tells me that the battery must be taken out to reset the settings.
I told him that I am also an (actually the only one between me and him) IT person so he should'nt talk bs to me. A battery shouldn't "save" settings in order to connect ... it's a matter of authentication not getting through to the tower, or the tower is too useless to respond!

I only started my Neotel service in December and on the second day I already had connection issues

My bill of last month was also a suprise ... I phoned a Neotel tech guy to find out where my cap is standing currently seeing that even TELKOM have a bandwidth monitor but not Neotel, he replied that I am still well within my 5gb bundle
The bill came, and I was 6gb OVER my bundle. That's not on

PM me if you want details
 
Neotel said:
They have started to take serious note and focus on the service delivery of the organization, and yes, rather late than never.
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This was said in October/November when I decided to terminate my contract! - Infact, as I recall, It was a discussion between you and Gdiza, and as at the time, Gdiza didn't want to say too much, but said almost exactly what you said!... but more about that Management has noticed the amount of cancellations...

Anyway, Still awaiting a call from Neotel to come collect the device as they said they would!

I sincerely hope Neotel does not debit my account come month end! Fur will fly!

Yuna, not that I have much to add to the drama, you're welcome to PM me for the little info I may provide...
 
Maybe its not an excuse especially if your at the other end of bad service but maybe they still have growing pains
 
Yuna Monos said:
Hello All,
For the sake of fairness if you are completely happy with your Neotel service mention that as well. The ratio of compliments to complaints should be telling in itself.
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Well, then, for the sake of fairness let me add that I had a Neotel connection for 10 months last year and was quite happy with it. It was certainly far slower than our 4mbps ADSL at work, but it was far stabler too. The only reason I no longer have it is because I moved to an area without coverage. My ADSL at home drops frequently, almost to the point where (at least for the last week or so) I have to switch off my modem and switch it back on every time I start my computer. I can probably count on one hand the number of connection disruptions I had with Neotel over ten months. My only complaints were speed and their choice of courier service.
 
tolk said:
Maybe its not an excuse especially if your at the other end of bad service but maybe they still have growing pains
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yea, they've admitted to this, but common... if your network is not capable of handling the load of subscriptions, stop signing up until you make room for the next batch of customers!

As it stands, they bragged about superior voice quality - which is non-existent. Its so bad that a badly calibrated and un-tuned CB Radio has far superior voice quality to theirs!
Cheapest Internet - which has been overshot by DSL by speed, cap and price!
customer service - which is about as intermittent as their internet speeds
Account problems - which I have not experienced but praying I don't inherit since I've cancelled early
Broken promises - to call me, make arrangements to fetch the device so that i don't have to pay for the remainder of the contract as they could not deliver a reliable service (of which they have admitted!)
Down time - which happens about 4 times a month
Dropped connections - which you can't possibly count on all your toes, fingers and penis!.

So... I hardly think its growing pains!

(If I've missed anything, others are welcome to add to that list!.)
 
expect to see this on cart blanche consumer then ?

it's about time somethings being done about all the companies in SA ripping us off with high fees and NO service !
 
Rodent-Boy said:
Well, then, for the sake of fairness let me add that I had a Neotel connection for 10 months last year and was quite happy with it. It was certainly far slower than our 4mbps ADSL at work, but it was far stabler too. The only reason I no longer have it is because I moved to an area without coverage. My ADSL at home drops frequently, almost to the point where (at least for the last week or so) I have to switch off my modem and switch it back on every time I start my computer. I can probably count on one hand the number of connection disruptions I had with Neotel over ten months. My only complaints were speed and their choice of courier service.
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Ironically I was happy with my Neoflex Data service until November 2009 as well. Since then (and it seems like a universal problem), something has changed dramatically and everyone is complaining about chronic disconnects and extremely slow up and download speeds.
 
ryu said:
expect to see this on cart blanche consumer then ?

it's about time somethings being done about all the companies in SA ripping us off with high fees and NO service !
Click to expand...

The idea is to pitch it to Carte Blanche yes, but I don't think that is enough. I would like to pitch it to any publication and news site that would care to print it.
 
I have logged a call with them in November last year and as of writing, my issue still has not been resolved.

Each and every time I mail them for a progress update ( ....and no I will NOT call the call centre again after the first time I called them, where 16 times in a row, the phone gets put down in my ear after being on hold for nearly forever. I literally mean someone picks up on their end coz I can hear voices in the background, and puts it down in my ear.......16 times in a row ) , I get sent a message that my call is logged and they supply me with a new ticket number.

My connection is so horrible, I had to write a batchfile which runs every 10 minutes to automatically connect me should it fail ( and the option of automatic redial is also on as a plan B )

Download and Upload speeds are horrible and I also do after hour support, meaning the frequent disconnects is affecting my job.

Feel free to PM me so I can cry on your shoulder....
 
I have logged a number of complaints with Neotel. The first being about a month after signing up with them. I had line speeds between 400-700 kbps but a very bad and inconstant ping from about 90ms - 4000ms to a local server. Neotel recommended an external areal, and that brought down my ping to a constant 150ms (acceptable) Over the next few months a noticed a steady drop in line speed and I am now running on an average of 60kbps download and over 400kbps upload. All I use my line for now is to download e-mail and my statement e-mail said I've used close to 2gig of my cap, this is not possible. I run part of my business from home so I have to have an Internet connection, vodacom's signal is not constant and telkom says that I am on a 2 year waiting list so neotel is my only option.

I also have a complaint logged against the account department. When I first signed up I was issued with two accounts, Neotel said that there was a problem with the on-line sign up and they will rectify the problem. I was billed for two months for the incorrect account, when it was finally canceled they did not credit me for the incorrect debited amount, this to date has still not been rectified.

I have tried twice for neotel's customer service to unlock my ports on the account so I can use port forwarding and host a voice chat server, this has also not been done, not that it matters because I cant play online games with a 60kbps line speed.

Latest speedtest result
 
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So how is this going?

I'm pretty much going to toss a contact who writes for those 'IT web sites" and get her to do a story on my / our problems... Neotel irratating me again.
 
Not sure if anyone is having the same problem as me, I have gone from using approx 8.5GB per month to now using 36GB per month!!!!!
When I was with Telkom, I never went over 8GB per month!
 
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