Why did I ever get into bed with iBurst?

[Egersdorfer]

About two years ago I fell in love with the idea of having this little black USB device with its flashing green and blue lights that I could stick into the back on my PC and it would give me impressive download speeds without a landline. - Amazing!

Things had been great, I could browse, flirt online, tweet and find old buddies on Facebook with absolute ease. That is up until a few months ago when I started having connection issues. Repeated calls to iBurst's support center all resulted in the same solution: "Switch off the modem for 10min and try again." I could almost predict the conversation while listening to the background music.

So for the past few months I have tolerated the disconnects, but things changed for me this month: I got my Apple Mac computer woohoo. I love it! A proper web development environment!

Only problem is I can't just yank out the cable and shove it back into the computer like I was doing with my PC: Mac freaks out a little, she likes to be treated with a little more respect. I have to close all open documents, shut down the machine and start up again. I tad frustrating when you looking at 5 - 12 disconnects a day.

Then iBurst, without permission or reason, decides to double debit my bank account this month. Ouch! They were quick to realise their mistake (sent out via an sms) and said that monies would be paid back by that Monday. After waiting 2-3 days for the refund I took action and had the double debit reversed by my bank.

So I find myself asking what is going on? A quick search in Google reveals many an unhappy customer. Hellopeter is riddled with complaints, there is a Facebook hate group and twitter's stream is full of negative comments. My search also revealed a nasty court case they have been dealing with and that some high profile people have resigned from iBurst.

CEO Jannie van Zyl an impressive electronics genius resigned in May 2010 and was replaced by Thami Mtshali who was in the Petro Chemical Industry before becoming actively involved in telecommunications. "No, no Sir, broadband does not run on Petrol!" (No offence Mr iBurst, I'm sure you're a genius at what you do or at least we hope so.)

A short call this morning to FNB's Law on call only reveals that the consumer protections act that would have helped iBurst's unhappy subscribers has not come into full swing yet.

Even offering to pay off the modem to get out of contract is futile: "No, no Sir, you must pay for ALL bandwidth that you COULD have used!"

I'll be signing up with another service provider, possibly M-Web, but I'll be doing my homework this time round. I'll avoid debit orders and absolutely no long term contracts!

 

[Valis]

Yep, I went through the same pain you did. I had to close my bank account to stop these scumbags from stealing my money. They still owe me money but I've written it off rather than deal with those incompetents any more.

I'm soooo happy being with WA where I can just do an eft every month

 

[r00igev@@r]

Then iBurst, without permission or reason, decides to double debit my bank account this month. Ouch! They were quick to realise their mistake (sent out via an sms) and said that monies would be paid back by that Monday. After waiting 2-3 days for the refund I took action and had the double debit reversed by my bank.

I apologize for the problem but if there was an instruction to make payment into your account and you have also reversed the transaction then you will end up owing iBurst. Payments take 2 to 3 days to clear.

 

[Cyberbeast]

No offense, but you are going to keep running from one ISP to the next. Each ISP in South Africa lack something... most of them lack service. I'm not sure that going ADSL will solve your problem... then Telkom comes into your life... and boy, they know how to leave an unpleasant taste in your mouth!

 

[Mental-Tree]

I can understand it being a mission to get out of a contract but get this, after a week of unanswered calls to iburst and a thread hear on the forum I still haven't been able to find out anything about the pricing of their business products... Its like they don't want ±R8000? a month. Decided to order my dsl line through mweb today, was quick and easy enough. The only downside is that now I'll be giving money to telkom and of course I'll have to wait who knows how long for the line to be installed Still beats sitting on the phone, on hold, for an hour at a time, for a whole week

 

[MegasXLR]

Why did I ever get into bed with iBurst?

To be screwed or raped?

 

[r00igev@@r]

I can understand it being a mission to get out of a contract but get this, after a week of unanswered calls to iburst and a thread hear on the forum I still haven't been able to find out anything about the pricing of their business products... Its like they don't want ±R8000? a month. Decided to order my dsl line through mweb today, was quick and easy enough. The only downside is that now I'll be giving money to telkom and of course I'll have to wait who knows how long for the line to be installed Still beats sitting on the phone, on hold, for an hour at a time, for a whole week

Apologies for your experience Madhawk, but did no-one answer the phone or no-one followed up? If so can you please PM me the name of the person involved.

 

[J0n0]

Why did I ever get into bed with iBurst?

If it's got aids and you know so, but think it won't happen to you, does not mean it won't.

 

[Madhawk]

Apologies for your experience Mental-Tree, but did no-one answer the phone or no-one followed up?

Fixed...

 

[Egersdorfer]

I apologize for the problem but if there was an instruction to make payment into your account and you have also reversed the transaction then you will end up owing iBurst. Payments take 2 to 3 days to clear.

Ronald!, when I finally got hold of your accounts department they told me they had to go thu each persons account making the payments back day by day in sequence, so not only did your accounts department lie to us about the monies been paid back that Monday in the sms, you are now putting the blame on a clearance problem when there was none. So don't try and sugar coat your departments incompetence!

 

[Egersdorfer]

No offense, but you are going to keep running from one ISP to the next. Each ISP in South Africa lack something... most of them lack service. I'm not sure that going ADSL will solve your problem... then Telkom comes into your life... and boy, they know how to leave an unpleasant taste in your mouth!

So far I'm happy with mWeb and Ive got them dealing with Telkom directly so that I don't have too.

 

[Mars]

About two years ago I fell in love with the idea of having this little black USB device with its flashing green and blue lights that I could stick into the back on my PC and it would give me impressive download speeds without a landline. - Amazing!

Things had been great, I could browse, flirt online, tweet and find old buddies on Facebook with absolute ease. That is up until a few months ago when I started having connection issues. Repeated calls to iBurst's support center all resulted in the same solution: "Switch off the modem for 10min and try again." I could almost predict the conversation while listening to the background music.

So for the past few months I have tolerated the disconnects, but things changed for me this month: I got my Apple Mac computer woohoo. I love it! A proper web development environment!

Only problem is I can't just yank out the cable and shove it back into the computer like I was doing with my PC: Mac freaks out a little, she likes to be treated with a little more respect. I have to close all open documents, shut down the machine and start up again. I tad frustrating when you looking at 5 - 12 disconnects a day.

Then iBurst, without permission or reason, decides to double debit my bank account this month. Ouch! They were quick to realise their mistake (sent out via an sms) and said that monies would be paid back by that Monday. After waiting 2-3 days for the refund I took action and had the double debit reversed by my bank.

So I find myself asking what is going on? A quick search in Google reveals many an unhappy customer. Hellopeter is riddled with complaints, there is a Facebook hate group and twitter's stream is full of negative comments. My search also revealed a nasty court case they have been dealing with and that some high profile people have resigned from iBurst.

CEO Jannie van Zyl an impressive electronics genius resigned in May 2010 and was replaced by Thami Mtshali who was in the Petro Chemical Industry before becoming actively involved in telecommunications. "No, no Sir, broadband does not run on Petrol!" (No offence Mr iBurst, I'm sure you're a genius at what you do or at least we hope so.)

A short call this morning to FNB's Law on call only reveals that the consumer protections act that would have helped iBurst's unhappy subscribers has not come into full swing yet.

Even offering to pay off the modem to get out of contract is futile: "No, no Sir, you must pay for ALL bandwidth that you COULD have used!"

I'll be signing up with another service provider, possibly M-Web, but I'll be doing my homework this time round. I'll avoid debit orders and absolutely no long term contracts!

Moral of the story? Dont buy a mac

 

[Mental-Tree]

Apologies for your experience Mental-Tree*, but did no-one answer the phone or no-one followed up? If so can you please PM me the name of the person involved.

Just no answer as is the usual. Also had a couple of call that dropped while waiting for an answer but that was most likely the fault of my cellular provider.

 

[Wolfy]

Iburst is the cheaper solution NO DOUBT, but would most of us have choose Iburst that time. If ADSL was just as affordable then??? I for one would of chosen TELKOM... now its just to wait till Telkom gets to my exchange to replace a faulty cable.... I HATE PLAYING THE WAITING GAME!