Vodacom versus Gogga

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Vodacom bullying Gogga?

Gogga accuses Vodacom of anti-competitive behavior who cut of their services for ‘performing too well’; Vodacom says Gogga simply did not pay their bills
 
So Gogga did not pay their bills for almost 3 years and now come crying? I don't agree with Vodacom's pricing, but any reasonable company would suspend your account if you fail paying bills within 3-6 months. Or am I missing the big picture. Carteblanche's reporting was really just one-sided (as usual), but I would think that a sensible thing to do was to either bump up their own consumer pricing or sue Vodacom. This should be really black and white - if Gogga has an agreement with Vodacom to honor the pricing, it's just a legal case, but from the sounds of it, Gogga did not have such agreements drafted or those lapsed (reminds me of complaining to the landlord, that the building next door is cheaper and asking for the same rent).
 
This story is disgusting. With all the lawsiuts now dogging Vodacom, I wondered where all the Telkom employess went! I wish GOGGA kicks their sorry ass. This must have started with the low life's Alan Knott Craig...
 
Hmmm... I am getting a bit tired of Vodacom... in my opinion this reflects very badly on them and I cannot help but wonder why they are fighting so vigorously against even a small competitor...? As a subscriber, I just don't like funding these activities anymore, this together with shoddy service, high pricing across the board and pathetic attempts at loyalty programmes and specials that are applicable at who know what hours of the night, I think I might just port my number at the end of the current contract term...
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
So Gogga did not pay their bills for almost 3 years and now come crying? I don't agree with Vodacom's pricing, but any reasonable company would suspend your account if you fail paying bills within 3-6 months. Or am I missing the big picture. Carteblanche's reporting was really just one-sided (as usual), but I would think that a sensible thing to do was to either bump up their own consumer pricing or sue Vodacom. This should be really black and white - if Gogga has an agreement with Vodacom to honor the pricing, it's just a legal case, but from the sounds of it, Gogga did not have such agreements drafted or those lapsed (reminds me of complaining to the landlord, that the building next door is cheaper and asking for the same rent).
Click to expand...

Do you think it is reasonable to supply data to a reseller at R190/gig and then when your reseller has built their business up to 1500 gigs per month, unilaterally bump the price to R1360/gig? In a market where bandwidth costs should be falling, not rising?

Well, I don't think it is reasonable at all. I think it is despicable.
 
They should have known that Vodacom are the BIGGEST THIEVES in the country
 
I don't understand how people can still make use of Vodacom's services? There should be a full boycott on this company.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
So Gogga did not pay their bills for almost 3 years and now come crying? I don't agree with Vodacom's pricing, but any reasonable company would suspend your account if you fail paying bills within 3-6 months. Or am I missing the big picture. Carteblanche's reporting was really just one-sided (as usual), but I would think that a sensible thing to do was to either bump up their own consumer pricing or sue Vodacom. This should be really black and white - if Gogga has an agreement with Vodacom to honor the pricing, it's just a legal case, but from the sounds of it, Gogga did not have such agreements drafted or those lapsed (reminds me of complaining to the landlord, that the building next door is cheaper and asking for the same rent).
Click to expand...

You are obviously misinformed.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
So Gogga did not pay their bills for almost 3 years and now come crying? I don't agree with Vodacom's pricing, but any reasonable company would suspend your account if you fail paying bills within 3-6 months. Or am I missing the big picture. Carteblanche's reporting was really just one-sided (as usual), but I would think that a sensible thing to do was to either bump up their own consumer pricing or sue Vodacom. This should be really black and white - if Gogga has an agreement with Vodacom to honor the pricing, it's just a legal case, but from the sounds of it, Gogga did not have such agreements drafted or those lapsed (reminds me of complaining to the landlord, that the building next door is cheaper and asking for the same rent).
Click to expand...

Ya wait, let me increase your overheads by 1000% and take the same attitude when you cant pay anymore. They should have just lay down and die, isn't that right? :rolleyes:
 
"...off with their heads..." famous quote comes to mind. Really think Cell-C is doing a better job. I'd close all 5 contracts at V and move over to Cell-C... ag sommer net...
 
Only part where I don't support Gogga is the R200million return from Vodacom.

I understand why, but R200mil is too much 100 or 50 would be reasonable + having normal/better pricing than standard
 
Just to be clear - I am not defending Vodacom at all - I believe that their lack of customer-service, poor 3G coverage and price is way out of line (and this is the same for MTN, CellC, Telkom and others) and said this in my OP. All I am saying is that I have not seen any credible proof that Gogga has any sort of agreement with Vodacom in place to fix their pricing-agreements (as one would typically do). If something like this was in place, the obvious thing would be for Gogga to file a breach of contract and drag Vodacom to court. The few articles I did see and what I noticed in Carteblanche yesterday is that there was no mention of any breach on Vodacom's behalf.

Perhaps I am misinformed, and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction. I think some transparency would help from either Gogga or Vodacom - at the moment it looks like, Gogga is a disgruntled customer, having ignored any business practises in forward-securing price-agreements and now causing a lot of headaches for their customers. Who in their right mind accepts such a steep increase for years without doing anything (at least it was not visible) - certainly not business-101.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
Just to be clear - I am not defending Vodacom at all - I believe that their lack of customer-service, poor 3G coverage and price is way out of line (and this is the same for MTN, CellC, Telkom and others) and said this in my OP. All I am saying is that I have not seen any credible proof that Gogga has any sort of agreement with Vodacom in place to fix their pricing-agreements (as one would typically do). If something like this was in place, the obvious thing would be for Gogga to file a breach of contract and drag Vodacom to court. The few articles I did see and what I noticed in Carteblanche yesterday is that there was no mention of any breach on Vodacom's behalf.

Perhaps I am misinformed, and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction. I think some transparency would help from either Gogga or Vodacom - at the moment it looks like, Gogga is a disgruntled customer, having ignored any business practises in forward-securing price-agreements and now causing a lot of headaches for their customers. Who in their right mind accepts such a steep increase for years without doing anything (at least it was not visible) - certainly not business-101.
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The problem here is not "securing pricing structures/agreements". Gogga is suing Vodacom under the Competition Act, which is quite simple. I had an agreement with Vodacom and when they saw I was a threat to their business, they used unethical business practices to force me out of the business environement. They did this in an environment when bandwith prices are on a decline and unjustifiably hiked the price hundreds of percentages not in line with the common market place.

That in essence caused harm in that particular trading environment targeted to Gogga. They tried to eliminate the competition, the exact methods used by Telkom against ISPA members which is now coming to bite their sorry (helkom) arses.

I don't agree that Gogga is a disgruntled customer at all. Vodacom showed intent to purposefully disrupt their business in the most disgusting manner.

This is a replica of the Tiger Brands Saga where the bakery in the Western Cape brought to the attention of the Competition Commission that bread prices and flour prices where being fixed. Tiger Brands increased the price of flour to that particular bakery and when he could not afford to stay in business by paying Tiger Brands they cut off his supply of flour. He eventually won but LOST HIS ENTIRE LIFE AND BUSINESS with the debt.

As for the 200 Million compensation, I think its overboard but would like them to have it for the emotional distress that this cellular giant has imposed upon them. There has to be consequences for their actions. Its just not on.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
Just to be clear - I am not defending Vodacom at all - I believe that their lack of customer-service, poor 3G coverage and price is way out of line (and this is the same for MTN, CellC, Telkom and others) and said this in my OP. All I am saying is that I have not seen any credible proof that Gogga has any sort of agreement with Vodacom in place to fix their pricing-agreements (as one would typically do). If something like this was in place, the obvious thing would be for Gogga to file a breach of contract and drag Vodacom to court. The few articles I did see and what I noticed in Carteblanche yesterday is that there was no mention of any breach on Vodacom's behalf.

Perhaps I am misinformed, and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction. I think some transparency would help from either Gogga or Vodacom - at the moment it looks like, Gogga is a disgruntled customer, having ignored any business practises in forward-securing price-agreements and now causing a lot of headaches for their customers. Who in their right mind accepts such a steep increase for years without doing anything (at least it was not visible) - certainly not business-101.
Click to expand...

So let me get this clear... youre ok with the fact that Vodacom was charging them R1.36 per megabyte while charging everyone else just 19c? How do they justify that? A worse price for bulk?
They where clearly trying to put Gogga out of business.
 
There was an article in Noseweek a few years ago "Vodacom Killed Me".
Can't remember the entire story, but some oke had developed a method for backing up a customers contacts etc to a database.
He spend a few million developing it when VC pulled out of the contract. The heading on his suicide note was "Vodacom Killed Me". Bunch of sharks.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
So Gogga did not pay their bills for almost 3 years and now come crying? I don't agree with Vodacom's pricing, but any reasonable company would suspend your account if you fail paying bills within 3-6 months. Or am I missing the big picture. Carteblanche's reporting was really just one-sided (as usual), but I would think that a sensible thing to do was to either bump up their own consumer pricing or sue Vodacom. This should be really black and white - if Gogga has an agreement with Vodacom to honor the pricing, it's just a legal case, but from the sounds of it, Gogga did not have such agreements drafted or those lapsed (reminds me of complaining to the landlord, that the building next door is cheaper and asking for the same rent).
Click to expand...

I'm guessing you do not own your own company where you deal with clients on a daily basis?
 
DarkStreet said:
I'm guessing you do not own your own company where you deal with clients on a daily basis?
Click to expand...

Not sure what that has got to do anything with my comments - I am just stating my observation and from all the above posts, no-one seems to have stated any facts other than hear-say from Gogga - reading up on ITWeb, I pretty much agree with the following statement:

Vodacom says the matter is not a competition issue, but a simple case of Gogga not paying its accounts and claiming anti-competitive behaviour.

According to the mobile operator's competition submission, Gogga's deal with Vodacom was suspended because the company did not pay the accounts it was supposed to. Vodacom also says Gogga was never prevented from buying wholesale products from other licensed network suppliers such as Telkom, Neotel, Sentech, iBurst, MTN and Cell C.

The mobile operator says despite its investment in Gogga, the small business has been accumulating debt for years. Vodacom says in January last year, it agreed to provide bridging finance to the company, which it squandered through the year, digging a deeper debt hole for itself.
Click to expand...

Any sensible business will suspend accounts if you have non-paying customers. I would think that the Competition Tribunal would have made a decision in favour of Gogga if Gogga indeed had something tangible to show. Lot's of angry people here and no-one has any facts - let's see how the Tribunal continues - doesn't look like a strong case on Gogga's part though...
 
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