What price loyalty?

Having been with Afrihost since 2010 I decided to move to fibre with Afrihost, keeping my same three emails. The actual work by Octotel and delivery of router by Afrihost went well. We were somewhat shocked when Octotel left telling us we had to set up on our own. My son spent 1 hour on the phone setting up the laptop. It worked well for 2 weeks, Yesterday suddenly I was not able to receive emails and a box appeared wanting my user name and password. I typed them in but still no emails. On phoning Afrihost this morning I was told I had cancelled my emails and they could not be retrieved. I denied this but the consultant said there was nothing to be done. I spent an hour on the phone but the end result was that I have to decide between accepting the new email and changing all my contacts, and for my business address either a forwarding system from the first address or a email domain for my business address involving extra costs. I'm already paying R150 more than they charged a month ago, as Octotel increased their prices and now I have to pay more and live with the inconvenience. Apparently to appease customers they have increased the speed to 15 mbs, which I don't really need. I am on a strict budget as I am in tourism and we all know what has happened to that.

The whole process of changing to fibre is flawed. Firstly one needs help to set up after fibre is installed. This wouldn't have happened if I had had a professional to set up.

Nowhere in the info I read did it warn against cancelling emails when changing to fibre. Why did Afrihost actually ask this? My son still refuses to accept that he told them to do that.

I am extremely frustrated and irritated at the inconvenience and stress this has caused. And the problem hasn't been solved and I will now have to pay for a professional to come and sort this out, if indeed that is possible.

As a footnote, please Afrihost employ more people or more lines, as often the wait is 15/20 minutes to get through. I know one customer who left Afrihost due to this reason alone.

Ruby Ward