Affinity, bad service into infinity

On the 1st of May, my keys were accidentally locked in my boot by my son. I phoned the assist line and this is where it all went pear shaped. Firstly, the lady who answered was a trainee, and she did not know how to handle the call at all, I could hear someone else coaching her telling her what to ask. I had to repeat myself 20 times and the whole process was really painful. I told her that we are at the Voortrekker Monument in Pta and had to spell and explain this several times. I was then told I must pay cash to the locksmith and then I will be re-imbursed. We were at the Military feast and the mobile ATM placed there did not work. So we walked all the way up to the monument gift shop and that ATM did not work. So we had to purchase something from the gift shop and they were nice enough to inflate the sale to over R700 so that we can get the cash from them.

I was told by the operator that someone would be there in half an hour. More than an hour later, I get a call that they are in Voortrekker STREET, and cannot find us. Seriously!!! So I explain again that we are at VOORTREKKER MONUMENT. Then eventually about 30 – 40 minutes later the locksmith arrived.

Then Maxine at Affinity tells me on the phone, that due to all the inconvenience caused she asked her manager and they will REIMBURSE ME the R695. Wait, what??!!!! I was told from the beginning I need to pay cash and will be re-imbursed. Now suddenly I will get re-imbursed because they caused me a super headache? Then on another later occasion Maxine told my that I should never have paid cash to the locksmith, are you kidding me??? It took us more than an hour to eventually get hold of that cash!

I submitted my claim on the 2nd of May as per Maxine’s instructions. I heard nothing from them until I sent Maxine a whatsapp (luckily I have her number) on the 9th of May. On the 10th, I get a phone call from Kholokazi, again a trainee, who has no understanding of how to handle a phone call and derive information from a client, it was so bad, I eventually told her I will e-mail all the details to her, she gave me her gmail address which came back undelivered. So I send another Whatsapp to Maxine, who confirms that Kholokazi is a trainee and she will make sure the teamleader gets my details.

So up to now, I still don’t have the refund. Maxine told me that from when the call was made (9 May) it takes 7 days, I assume 7 working days. Today it is 9 working days.

The service is pathetic to say the least, if I had to service our clients the way that Affinity does, we would be clientless already ages ago. We as clients spend thousands of rands a month on our insurances, which is most of the times hard to pay, one would at least expect to get a level of service that is acceptable.