Kicking the poor in the teeth when they are down

Absolutely unacceptable experience with Afrihost.

I attempted to buy R150 worth of mobile data. The payment bounced, so I immediately loaded funds onto my card to retry the purchase, only to discover that my account had been suspended and an additional R50 “admin fee” had been added.

So a failed R150 top-up suddenly becomes R200.

What kind of company policy punishes people with a 33% penalty for not having enough money at the exact moment a debit runs? These kinds of fees disproportionately target people already under financial pressure. It feels less like administration and more like exploiting customers who are struggling.

The support consultant was polite and helpful, but the system itself is deeply anti-consumer. Instead of helping customers stay connected, Afrihost chooses to lock services and add punitive charges over a failed prepaid top-up.

A company’s values are revealed by how it treats people when they are short on money, not when everything is going smoothly.