Lack of transparency, customer service, sickening tenant exploitation & breach of contract

I am a dissatisfied tenant at 714 Frank & Hirsh who is concerned about how Afhco is all about money and not customer satisfaction and affordability as they blatantly advertise.

I emailed Afhco customer service to dispute my water charge since it has increased by about 500% in the last few months and I was assured that they only charge for hot water and it will way be less than R150 on average since it's just me and my girlfriend living here and not a family. This all changed in April when I received a R537.75 water bill l while also receiving an electricity charge although I have a prepaid meter where I buy my own electricity, yet I get charged for it!!!

I emailed customer care on the 23rd of March 2021 and only got 1 feedback email even after 2 follow-ups, the conversation below is between me and a customer service consultant. It just proves the non-existence of this department at Afhco since it seems customer problems do not matter which is also in breach of the lease we signed: ************************xx My email 23 March(Subject: Shocking Water Bill): ************************xx Hi,

Water

Abraham here from unit 714 at Frank & Hirsh Doornfontein. I'm getting in touch due to the recent increase in rental by about R500 from February and April. We are only 2 tenants here who are indoors most of the time due to the pandemic so there is usually no need to make use of excessive water for bathing purposes every single day like so I would like to know where these figures are coming from and how are they calculated as we do not have a water meter inside our unit.

In March, the statement is very sloppy and confusing as it seems I was billed thrice for the water with one being reversed and reintroduced...

Electricity

We have also been billed for electricity as of the 3rd month from the signing of the lease(January) where the lease states that we will be charged R0.00 for electricity which makes sense because we buy our own electricity. Can I get clarity on this, please?

Conclusion

I have attached page 5 of the lease with all the charges that should reflect on my statements. You will notice that the utility charges have rapidly increased after February, notable enough is March where I got a R137.50 early payment bonus but still paid R100 more than I did in the month of February.

Can you please make sense of the numbers including price per/unit and also where the building gets the readings from and if it is possible to have transparency every month regarding that water meter for now. But going forward, the lease agreement seems to have been breached by AFHCO as these hidden costs, are nowhere on the contract with actual rands p/unit or fixed values. I Will be waiting for your timely response and have attached all statements to this email. ************************xx Response from Itumeleng Tlou on 23 March 2021 who is probably just a computer(Customer Service Representative ************************xx

Good day,

Thank you for contacting us. We, at Afhco value your communication and take pride in attending to your query as speedily as possible.

Kindly be advised your query has been escalated to our utility department for further assistance.

Should you need any further assistance or require any additional information, do not hesitate to contact us at *** or telephonically on ***.

Kind Regards ************************ My first follow up 26 March 2021 ***************************xx Hi Itumeleng, hope you are well!

I still have not received communication from the department in question since we last spoke. Could you kindly do a follow-up on this please as this is a matter of urgency.

Thanks, Abraham *************** My second follow up 6 April 2021(no response to the first) ***************xx Hi Itumeleng, hope you are well.

This is a second follow-up after the one I sent 11 days ago, can you let me know if there has been any progress regarding this case?

Thanks, Abraham ***************x No response whatsoever in about 16 Days!!!!!!!!

So disappointing, you can view my recent statements