Mweb and Game stores are and have been running a "promotion" for some months: "BUY ANY LAPTOP & GET 1 YEAR FREE INTERNET".
The small print also reads: *1 Year FREE Internet access on an MWEB ADSL connection capped at 3 Gigs per month. Subject to signing 12 month subscription. Excludes line rental.
Capped
Fine. Buy a laptop, RXthousands, Mweb includes 3 Gigs of data a month. "FREE". And "capped". Reel in the buyers - score Game.
Month1: Use the data with fancy new laptop, all good, reach data cap, and splash screen msg appears "contact Mweb, connectivity cannot be established".
In other words, now buy more data. Again, fine.
However, now you have a FALSE sense of security. Expecting a LIMIT on your data usage / internet access, right? Wrong! Thereafter Mweb can and WILL switch you over to p/megabyte billing, and at R200 a Gig!!!!! Ten times their normal data billing! And their T&Cs (all 11 973 words of it) state in sub clause 8.5.1:
From time to time, in any given month, we may allow you, at our
discretion, to exceed your Base Cap without stopping your access to the
ADSL Service. ....... at our discretion!
It also says in the T&Cs "we don't have to give you notice" and "we have the right to recover costs from you" when you go over your capped data that you don't know about. And the best part.. wait for it.. at R200 per Gig !
Why does the Game stores / Mweb promotion falsely advertise the offer as FREE?
Why does Mweb blatantly and falsely advertise the promotion as CAPPED?
Why are the T&C's longer than my house mortgage???
How dare Mweb rope customers in by 1. instilling a false sense of security with a data cap and access suspension
then 2. remove it, placing these customers on UNLIMITED data access
AND 3. charge them at ten times the regular billing rate, all conveniently directly debited from their bank accounts ?????
Mweb salespersons on record stated that customers of these subscriptions have the OPTION of a) being CAPPED and LIMITED at the specificed data or b) by default going on to per meg billing after reaching cap. Fine. The customer relations manager Ms _ has on record stated, and I quote: "The sales agent, via our call center or in store at purchase, will then capture your request of cap based product on the system, the product will be capped, and the customer has the option to purchase further booster data if he/she so chooses". I would like to know, if Game themselves also state on record they have no such system or means of capturing any request of billing type/cap based product, how this so called PROTOCOL can be followed?! Where did my request NOT to be on per meg billing at R200 p/Gig go???
The onus is on the user, Mweb says, to monitor the data usage alerts sent to their new Mweb email accounts. 1. The Mweb email account sign in fails repeatedly, 2. Mweb assigns their own random password and NOT the one users select and write ON the contract at the time of signing. How then, does one "monitor" usage to be notified that oops! we're charging you Rthousands here and yooooou should know it?
SCAM!
Blatant, fraudulent, SCAM.
The lay person is NOT well versed in IT technology, and is unsuspecting and unscrutinizing. Look, simply put, the average person doesn't get what "capped, but our discretion will unlimit access, recover funds, bla bla bla bla bla" means when the promotion is sold to them with buzz words like it's FREE, it's capped don't worry there's a limit and you have to buy more. There is no system of capturing customer's requests of product type with the billing at Game stores, and Mweb are liars for saying so.
The truth is Mweb has set up a brilliant SCAM to debit hundreds of thousands from new unsuspecting user's bank accounts, I have friends at Mweb, and it's happening to LOTS of people, and there's not a dammd thing they can do about it. Hours on the phone get you nowhere. "Escalating" faults and "looking in to it" goes nowhere.
Shame on Mweb for false and deceitful advertising. Yes shame on the customers for not scrutinizing absolutely carefully the 11 973 words contained within the contract. Where a promotion should be aimed at PROMOTING the value of the product, it in fact confuses, scams, and defrauds. Shame on you Mweb. I welcome any similar new user to whom this has happened to print this page, and hand it out outside any Game or Mweb store. Shame on you Mweb!
Mweb's Response:
1. Arrogant to decide yourself on closure
2. None of the concerns raised were dealt with, other than this strong arming and pseudo-diplomacy
3. In public is exactly where they should be raised so that it may become known when a so-called large reputable company makes mistakes though enforces the consequence on their customers
And may I remind you that is your customer, sir, without whom you would be nowhere.
The small print also reads: *1 Year FREE Internet access on an MWEB ADSL connection capped at 3 Gigs per month. Subject to signing 12 month subscription. Excludes line rental.
Capped
Fine. Buy a laptop, RXthousands, Mweb includes 3 Gigs of data a month. "FREE". And "capped". Reel in the buyers - score Game.
Month1: Use the data with fancy new laptop, all good, reach data cap, and splash screen msg appears "contact Mweb, connectivity cannot be established".
In other words, now buy more data. Again, fine.
However, now you have a FALSE sense of security. Expecting a LIMIT on your data usage / internet access, right? Wrong! Thereafter Mweb can and WILL switch you over to p/megabyte billing, and at R200 a Gig!!!!! Ten times their normal data billing! And their T&Cs (all 11 973 words of it) state in sub clause 8.5.1:
From time to time, in any given month, we may allow you, at our
discretion, to exceed your Base Cap without stopping your access to the
ADSL Service. ....... at our discretion!
It also says in the T&Cs "we don't have to give you notice" and "we have the right to recover costs from you" when you go over your capped data that you don't know about. And the best part.. wait for it.. at R200 per Gig !
Why does the Game stores / Mweb promotion falsely advertise the offer as FREE?
Why does Mweb blatantly and falsely advertise the promotion as CAPPED?
Why are the T&C's longer than my house mortgage???
How dare Mweb rope customers in by 1. instilling a false sense of security with a data cap and access suspension
then 2. remove it, placing these customers on UNLIMITED data access
AND 3. charge them at ten times the regular billing rate, all conveniently directly debited from their bank accounts ?????
Mweb salespersons on record stated that customers of these subscriptions have the OPTION of a) being CAPPED and LIMITED at the specificed data or b) by default going on to per meg billing after reaching cap. Fine. The customer relations manager Ms _ has on record stated, and I quote: "The sales agent, via our call center or in store at purchase, will then capture your request of cap based product on the system, the product will be capped, and the customer has the option to purchase further booster data if he/she so chooses". I would like to know, if Game themselves also state on record they have no such system or means of capturing any request of billing type/cap based product, how this so called PROTOCOL can be followed?! Where did my request NOT to be on per meg billing at R200 p/Gig go???
The onus is on the user, Mweb says, to monitor the data usage alerts sent to their new Mweb email accounts. 1. The Mweb email account sign in fails repeatedly, 2. Mweb assigns their own random password and NOT the one users select and write ON the contract at the time of signing. How then, does one "monitor" usage to be notified that oops! we're charging you Rthousands here and yooooou should know it?
SCAM!
Blatant, fraudulent, SCAM.
The lay person is NOT well versed in IT technology, and is unsuspecting and unscrutinizing. Look, simply put, the average person doesn't get what "capped, but our discretion will unlimit access, recover funds, bla bla bla bla bla" means when the promotion is sold to them with buzz words like it's FREE, it's capped don't worry there's a limit and you have to buy more. There is no system of capturing customer's requests of product type with the billing at Game stores, and Mweb are liars for saying so.
The truth is Mweb has set up a brilliant SCAM to debit hundreds of thousands from new unsuspecting user's bank accounts, I have friends at Mweb, and it's happening to LOTS of people, and there's not a dammd thing they can do about it. Hours on the phone get you nowhere. "Escalating" faults and "looking in to it" goes nowhere.
Shame on Mweb for false and deceitful advertising. Yes shame on the customers for not scrutinizing absolutely carefully the 11 973 words contained within the contract. Where a promotion should be aimed at PROMOTING the value of the product, it in fact confuses, scams, and defrauds. Shame on you Mweb. I welcome any similar new user to whom this has happened to print this page, and hand it out outside any Game or Mweb store. Shame on you Mweb!
Mweb's Response:
1. Arrogant to decide yourself on closure
2. None of the concerns raised were dealt with, other than this strong arming and pseudo-diplomacy
3. In public is exactly where they should be raised so that it may become known when a so-called large reputable company makes mistakes though enforces the consequence on their customers
And may I remind you that is your customer, sir, without whom you would be nowhere.
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