Ooooh... Burn
Let me rephrase so to highlight the unanswered question:
Any news on that one?
-
Join the MyBroadband community
South Africa’s biggest forum. Discuss, discover, and connect with thousands of members.
-
Question of the Day: What is your primary source of drinking water?
Afrihost service - hosting complaint
- Thread starter Hogrod
- Start date
Ooooh... Burn
Let me rephrase so to highlight the unanswered question:
Any news on that one?
No and we never will. Due to the autocratic attitude from the general support manager Warren (who won't even answer our questions on the phone), we will have to take our own steps to claim compensation.
I personally think AH are hurting at the moment, explains the attitude and why I've not even received the 60 day money back guarantee on the uncapped after 3 weeks.
Murmaider
Expert Member
xD
I never said you did... But I cannot with absolute certainty say 10/10... What if Dave decided to open a Salon and his new passion was hair and nails
And yes... that is how I keep an eye on support... no matter where they are... no matter what they do...:wtf:
Last edited:
Due to receiving no satisfactory response I'm posting the following as an open complaint during my experience as a customer of Afrihost for 3 years, with ADSL uncapped and hosting products.
The following description is based on my best attempt to recall a series of events that resulted in discriminatory and unjustified action against me. We've already given Afrihost 2 days to respond and no official explanation has been received.
Due to the poor performance of my uncapped in Cape Town due to IPC issues over the past two months, a fact admitted to on here by AH forum reps and users, I decided to claim on the 60 money back guarantee 3 weeks ago. As yet I've not received that refund.
However, in the last week I opened a new hosting account with Afrihost for a customer of mine. After 3 days my new account was suspended for an unknown reason without notification or opportunity to hear what the problem was. This brought my customers on-line business website down for 26 hours, preventing access to email and data the business owns. After 24 hours and several phone calls and emails I eventually discovered the reason why it was suspended.
The website and hosting was suspended because I have, in my personal capacity, claimed the 60 day money back guarantee on the uncapped account, as explained by a call centre support staff.
The T&C http://www.afrihost.com/site/page/60...tion_guarantee of the money back guarantee allow me to claim on a product I deem to be unsatisfactory, there is no condition there that says you will be prevented from purchasing other products or blacklisted if you claim on any new product. So why have I been barred?
According to the feedback from the support call centre, the General Support Manager, Warren N (whose profile is visible on AH site) deemed it fit to completely blacklist me from all Afrihost products simply because I made a claim on the guarantee for the uncapped product. Allegedly, a note was even made under my account that call centre support are not to speak to me.
Afterwards I realised I would not be able to get the account reinstated and restored the website at a different host.
Unfortunately, I have incurred costs, damages and anger from MY clients due to a business website being down for 26 hours, simply because Warren N (according to the support staff I spoke to) felt he didn't need to speak to me, but instead and in my opinion and without proper reason, discriminated against a customer without due process for making a legitimate and honest money back claim on an uncapped product.
If Afrihost had issue why was I not prevented from creating a new product on signup? No one seems to be able to answer my questions.
Subsequently, I have received sympathy from Afrihost reps and advised to post my complaint on Facebook, this forum, twitter and Hellopeter as Afrihost have an external department that monitors customer complaints and customer interaction on social websites.
You can see the post regarding my hosting complaint here when it all began: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthre...ting-complaint
In my opinion Afrihost has to investigate this complaint as I believe no company can simply treat customers in this manner without proper reasoning or explanation. We have emailed gian@afrihost, the normal support email, and abuse department. 48 hours later, we still await a satisfactory response.
The following description is based on my best attempt to recall a series of events that resulted in discriminatory and unjustified action against me. We've already given Afrihost 2 days to respond and no official explanation has been received.
Due to the poor performance of my uncapped in Cape Town due to IPC issues over the past two months, a fact admitted to on here by AH forum reps and users, I decided to claim on the 60 money back guarantee 3 weeks ago. As yet I've not received that refund.
However, in the last week I opened a new hosting account with Afrihost for a customer of mine. After 3 days my new account was suspended for an unknown reason without notification or opportunity to hear what the problem was. This brought my customers on-line business website down for 26 hours, preventing access to email and data the business owns. After 24 hours and several phone calls and emails I eventually discovered the reason why it was suspended.
The website and hosting was suspended because I have, in my personal capacity, claimed the 60 day money back guarantee on the uncapped account, as explained by a call centre support staff.
The T&C http://www.afrihost.com/site/page/60...tion_guarantee of the money back guarantee allow me to claim on a product I deem to be unsatisfactory, there is no condition there that says you will be prevented from purchasing other products or blacklisted if you claim on any new product. So why have I been barred?
According to the feedback from the support call centre, the General Support Manager, Warren N (whose profile is visible on AH site) deemed it fit to completely blacklist me from all Afrihost products simply because I made a claim on the guarantee for the uncapped product. Allegedly, a note was even made under my account that call centre support are not to speak to me.
Afterwards I realised I would not be able to get the account reinstated and restored the website at a different host.
Unfortunately, I have incurred costs, damages and anger from MY clients due to a business website being down for 26 hours, simply because Warren N (according to the support staff I spoke to) felt he didn't need to speak to me, but instead and in my opinion and without proper reason, discriminated against a customer without due process for making a legitimate and honest money back claim on an uncapped product.
If Afrihost had issue why was I not prevented from creating a new product on signup? No one seems to be able to answer my questions.
Subsequently, I have received sympathy from Afrihost reps and advised to post my complaint on Facebook, this forum, twitter and Hellopeter as Afrihost have an external department that monitors customer complaints and customer interaction on social websites.
You can see the post regarding my hosting complaint here when it all began: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthre...ting-complaint
In my opinion Afrihost has to investigate this complaint as I believe no company can simply treat customers in this manner without proper reasoning or explanation. We have emailed gian@afrihost, the normal support email, and abuse department. 48 hours later, we still await a satisfactory response.
Solitude
Executive Member
Afrihost's support has gone down the drain. The only help is through the reps here on the forums.
Our problem isn't nearly as bad as yours. We have 3 cloud servers with Afrihost. Now we all know how often they go down but that's not what I'll be writing about today. We asked Afrihost to back up the virtual servers regularly and we pay for that. However one of the servers gets an error every time and then we get an email about the error.
So for the last couple of weeks we have been trying to inform Afrihost about this backup error. The backups that they set up and manage mind you. They said there weren't enough space on the backup drive or something like that. A drive that we don't have access to. So they said they will increase the space and we got an email to say it was increased. Next day, same error. Email them. They reply back that it will be escalated. Get email again that it's increased now. Same error next day. Email them. Get some email back about MySQL and whatnot that has nothing to do with our query.
Shocking!
It's been weeks now.
To me it looks like every support person who follows up on the latest email in the ticket does not have access to the previous emails.
Also that there seems to be a separation between the support person and the technical person. I swear one technical person replied to us as if we were the ones who set up the backup and manage it. It was as if he replied to us as if we were from Afrihost. I'm thinking he works for MTN and somehow thought he was dealing with Afrihost people?
I don't know. I do know that something is not right with Afrihost at the moment. I would recommend everyone to stay far away.
I still make use of their mobile data but their hosting is scary bad. Their support even worse.
It's very disappointing to see such a good company go down the drain like this.
Our problem isn't nearly as bad as yours. We have 3 cloud servers with Afrihost. Now we all know how often they go down but that's not what I'll be writing about today. We asked Afrihost to back up the virtual servers regularly and we pay for that. However one of the servers gets an error every time and then we get an email about the error.
So for the last couple of weeks we have been trying to inform Afrihost about this backup error. The backups that they set up and manage mind you. They said there weren't enough space on the backup drive or something like that. A drive that we don't have access to. So they said they will increase the space and we got an email to say it was increased. Next day, same error. Email them. They reply back that it will be escalated. Get email again that it's increased now. Same error next day. Email them. Get some email back about MySQL and whatnot that has nothing to do with our query.
Shocking!
It's been weeks now.
To me it looks like every support person who follows up on the latest email in the ticket does not have access to the previous emails.
Also that there seems to be a separation between the support person and the technical person. I swear one technical person replied to us as if we were the ones who set up the backup and manage it. It was as if he replied to us as if we were from Afrihost. I'm thinking he works for MTN and somehow thought he was dealing with Afrihost people?
I don't know. I do know that something is not right with Afrihost at the moment. I would recommend everyone to stay far away.
I still make use of their mobile data but their hosting is scary bad. Their support even worse.
It's very disappointing to see such a good company go down the drain like this.
. It's not right.
Grant
Honorary Master
@Hogrod
have you managed to get any communication from gian at afrihost ?
i too have a little matter, that requires being brought to conclusion, but i have found when sending him email i get an automated "out of office" response.
seems the only way to communicate with afrihost is via 3rd party websites / forums, emails directly to afrihost seem to vanish into never never land.
right now & unbeknown to them, they are at the very precipice of losing one of their biggest clients
all rather tragic
have you managed to get any communication from gian at afrihost ?
i too have a little matter, that requires being brought to conclusion, but i have found when sending him email i get an automated "out of office" response.
seems the only way to communicate with afrihost is via 3rd party websites / forums, emails directly to afrihost seem to vanish into never never land.
right now & unbeknown to them, they are at the very precipice of losing one of their biggest clients
all rather tragic
No communication yet. I'd not bother with the Gian email address, it's probably just an unmonitored address for marketing. You're right though, only 3rd party sites will get a response. Good luck.
Allegedly, a note was even made under my account that call centre support are not to speak to me. #unethical
Yes, be aware that AH support does "review" customers, but there is no safeguard to check what they write is correct.
You can contact ISPA with a complaint and they will take about 6 months to look into it (waste of time).
Alternatively contact their head of support Suvesh @suvesharumugam
thanks.
I got this response, which does not reflect any terms and conditions for the guarantee. They've basically just made it up suddenly. Amazing isn't it, totally ignored all my complaints.
"Morning Andrew. We apologise for any inconvenience or frustration caused. We understand what you were saying, unfortunately claiming a 60 days money back guarantee, symbolises your loss of faith and confidence in us, it wouldn't be fair if you continued with our services if you were very unhappy with us. We will be refining the policy to make it more clear on this. -M"
and yet the terms and conditions don't reflect this at all:
I had a problem with ONE product, suddenly it means I've said I don't want any of their products,
WTF?
Last edited:
There's also the http://www.asasa.org.za/Default.aspx?mnu_id=81
IMHO the AH terms explicitly say "the product concerned" and not "all products".
I've been speaking to some AH people and got some insight into how they operate ...
Clients must also be aware that AH have been known to indentify clients who are likely to leave and then ignore them or "wind them up" a bit until they get angry, and then THEY do the termination so they don't have to pay the promised refund. It's a cost savings.
Also they have been know to purposefully refund partial amounts or delay it until they get a rise out of their former client as a way of getting them back.
They also leave nasty notes on the system under clients' names, frequently untrue as well.
It's a leadership issue. Gian takes a hands off approach and his subordinates have a field-day.
Well I don't know how I've been categorised considering I'm a long term client. Time will tell though. Thanks for the useful feedback, I over heard them talking about my account when I was not on hold, the word 'dodgy' came up while reading the notes.
Nice hey.
Murmaider
Expert Member
This issue has come up on another thread, but let me just say that I am truly sorry for things to have gone this way, and I do believe we could have handled this issue better.
I think we haven't been clear and direct about what is happening and how the client here should proceed when the abuse process failed.
With regard to the comments about notes being made in a derogatory sense about the client - I have checked his account and don't see that any were made. I do believe however that the notes around loss of confidence may have been delivered in a less than professional manner - I think that is already a difficult conversation to have, so if it's done without the right tact and experience, it can have poor results.
I'm chatting with Hogrod about what has happened and how we can resolve this and I do believe that we can find some solutions here.
I think we haven't been clear and direct about what is happening and how the client here should proceed when the abuse process failed.
With regard to the comments about notes being made in a derogatory sense about the client - I have checked his account and don't see that any were made. I do believe however that the notes around loss of confidence may have been delivered in a less than professional manner - I think that is already a difficult conversation to have, so if it's done without the right tact and experience, it can have poor results.
I'm chatting with Hogrod about what has happened and how we can resolve this and I do believe that we can find some solutions here.
Not sure who your source is here - I can definitely say that's not how we do it. When we have an undesirable client like a spammer or an abusive client, we call them directly and we give them options to go forward. A passive aggressive approach would be ineffective, expensive and just downright painful for all involved.
We also don't try to get out of paying refunds - I have personally seen a few clients get their refunds in good time, and it's very unusual to take this long - though bear in mind we are busy with out financial year end and preparing for audit. That makes everything go very slowly because accountants usually want everything to stop.
LetsDance
Expert Member
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2012
- Messages
- 2,205
- Reaction score
- 1,319
Update:
Cancelled all my accounts and business accounts with Afrihost after the original incident(s).
Afriguy kindly helped refund this months charges, so thanks to him.
Despite the help from Afriguy, I can't recommend Afrihost to anyone. If I didn't have an Afriguy to talk to, it would have been impossible to get this issue fixed.
Cancelled all my accounts and business accounts with Afrihost after the original incident(s).
Afriguy kindly helped refund this months charges, so thanks to him.
Despite the help from Afriguy, I can't recommend Afrihost to anyone. If I didn't have an Afriguy to talk to, it would have been impossible to get this issue fixed.
I'm glad this has finally been resolved, even though I guess it's not what we expected. Let me know if there are any outstanding issues for you that I can clear up - just drop me a PM at any time
Is it not actually Afriman who did this? I keep hearing how all these decisions go through him, even the accounts section defers to him.
I did this:
When I saw the primary backup solution here:
http://www.afrihost.com/site/product/dedicated_hosting
I am starting to think Afrijoke needs to sell all their infrastructure to roadworks so we can have more speedbumps and safer roads :/
Do IPS's still hire NOOBS?
When I saw the primary backup solution here:
http://www.afrihost.com/site/product/dedicated_hosting
I am starting to think Afrijoke needs to sell all their infrastructure to roadworks so we can have more speedbumps and safer roads :/
Do IPS's still hire NOOBS?