Afrihost - the new Telkom

I signed up for Afrihost Fibre in December 2018, which was installed in the beginning of jabuary 2019. I never had any issues (except that we never got the speed we were paying for) with their service. In May 2019 I closed a bank card that was linked as my payment method for my Afrihost products. In June it came to my attention that my Afrihost account is in arrears, I phoned Afrihost to make an arrangement, as a courtesy, that I will settle the account immediately, which I did, and linked a new card as payment method to ensure that the payments go through timeously . I also informed Afrihost that our fibre cabling has been damaged to which they suggested that we only suspend (dictionary definition: "temporarily prevent from continuing or being in force or effect") the service (which I did) and then we can simply re-activate it again after our cabling has been re-installed.

June month, due to my line of work requiring me to have internet access at all times and being a loyal Afrihost client (all my connectivity and hosting services including those of my businesses as well is with Afrihost), I signed up for their wireless LTE in the meantime.

Today a cancellation charge for R 999 went through for the fibre. I immediately made use of their WhatsApp help line (as their call centers are closed on a Sunday) to find out what is going on. WHAT A NIGHTMARE! A useless person with the name Sakihle S assisted me. Never greeted me, took 15 minutes to reply (with a 5-word sentence that doesn't help at all) and ended the conversation while I was still busy with the conversation. His manager is Lizelle Mgaga (***) which I definitely will contact to discuss the incompetence of her staff member.

Anyway...I did ask him what the cancellation fee was for as we had a month-to-month contract by the way. He said it was for the router I got (which I got free of charge) when I signed up for Afrihost Fibre but due to me cancelling within 6 months I had to pay a cancellation fee.

So this doesn't add up: - I followed the advice they gave me and suspended the service (not cancel) - I never requested any service to be cancelled. - For argument sake, lets say I did cancel it, I was using the service from Dec 2018 (first payment made in Dec 2018 already) till end of May 2019 which is 6 months but I still get charged a cancellation fee.

It doesn't add up Afrihost. Are you also now becoming the same money hungry, no service orientated pain in the neck service providers as your competitors?

I want to continue with my fibre (in suspended status as advised by yourselves, till my cabling is repaired) and I want the cancellation fee of R 999 back in my bank account (not a credit on my Afrihost account as the previous times you guys made a mistake) ASAP.