iBurst vs Cell C vs Vodacom re Internet Access
On February 23 2011, iBurst summarily (without warning) suspended my account and sent me an SMS informing me that I owe them R4318 which must be paid immediately to be reconnected. I passed. I’ve told them to sue me for it and I will defend any actions they bring. I have been with iBurst since February 04 2008 and in that time, they have previously suspended my account a number of times (I believe it is 3), and each time it was their fault entirely. The first time they did it, around July 2009, they confused me with another customer, but they still deprived me of access for 3 days and offered me ZERO compensation for being offline. They did not adjust my bill or compensate me for the inconvenience in any way. I didn’t even receive an emailed apology. Fuck all. That’s how little iBurst gives a fuck about their customers – FUCK ALL. You are a big fat fucking ZERO to iBurst, if you are their customer. A big fat fucking zero.
iBurst suspended me again in November 2009 for a longer period. They had forgotten to bill me one month and when they discovered that, they suspended me again. Even once they had received the missing payment, their system did not reconnect me and it took me days and days to finally speak to someone who fixed the problem. Again no compensation, no apology, no fuck all from iBurst. Bunch of fucking loser wankers!
Despite this absolutely shit treatment from them, I remained their customer. Obviously they are complacent as fuck, because they think they can treat their customers like shit and still have a business.
In February 2011, iBurst suspended me for the last time and claimed that they had been underbilling me for several months now, going back to about September 2010. Each month they had been receiving from me around R1735. I was on their highest wireless service the 15GB package which costs R955 per month. I had been purchasing additional blocks of bandwidth of 10GB for R390, which brought the bill up to R1735.
I checked through the statement they sent me but I can’t actually tell whether the figures are made up or in error, because of the inherent unreliability of their billing software. I may have been underbilled, but I reckon that it is their problem entirely and they should write it off. If they had bothered to install reliable billing software they would not have this problem they claim to have. But I’ll be fucked if I am going to pay in R4318 now after they suspended me again. I have previously told iBurst that if they have a problem with my account, they must contact me FIRST to resolve matters BEFORE suspending me, but they couldn’t give a fuck what I want. They suspend accounts, demand payment and then fail to reconnect for days on end. So fuck them to hell.
So I looked for an alternative Internet Access Provider and decided that Cell C offered the best deal. I decided to apply for their R299 per month contract x 12 months for 5GB of data bundle. They credit vetted me and their system approved me, but they had no stock, so I waited patiently for a couple of weeks. When they finally got stock in, their system refused to give me a R299 per month contract because I failed to meet its criteria, whatever the fuck that is.
This past week I went into a Vodastore on Monday, March 14 2011 and chatted to one of their sales reps and he told me what I needed to bring in to apply for a data contract. The next day, Tuesday March 15 2011, I went in with my bank statements and ID document and filled in an order form for a MyGig2 data contract. Their system approved me and I was immediately provisioned with a USB modem, the K4505-Z (21.6Mbps), and a SIM card. The only niggle was that the SIM card could not be activated in-store. I had to wait till the next day. The next day my SIM card was activated and I got online for the first time since iBurst had disconnected me. In the interim, I had used iCafes and a good friend had helped me get my mailing list out.
I did, however, have a problem with the Vodafone K4505-Z USB modem they provisioned me with. It disconnected continually. I went back to the Vodastore in Kenilworth Centre and got a replacement K4504-Z but it suffered from the same problem. There is a discussion on MyBroadBand which confirms that there are problems with the Vodafone K4505-Z. The bottom line is to avoid getting this modem until they have resolved the issues with it.
So I decided to downgrade to the K3805-Z (14.4Mbps) which has given me no trouble so far. My sales rep had to wait for authorisation to downgrade me, so she provided me with a loan store USB modem to use while they sent my faulty K4505-Z away. The store USB modem only operated at 3.6Mbps but it was completely adequate. More on speed further down.
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