⭐ 1/5 – Three Years as a Customer, and I Had to Chase Axxess for Days Just to Pay Them

⭐ 1/5 – Three Years as a Customer, and I Had to Chase Axxess for Days Just to Pay Them

I have been an Axxess customer for approximately three years, and I currently pay R1,699 per month for a 1 Gbps fibre connection. Unfortunately, my recent experience trying to sort out something as basic as a debit order has left me extremely disappointed with their customer service.

The frustrating part is that the debit order had gone off successfully from the same bank account the previous month.

When I subsequently tried to add that same bank account again, the Axxess system locked the debit order option. I eventually managed to get through to a helpful person in Technical Support who unlocked the option for me.

I tried adding the bank account again.

It immediately locked itself again.

This happened repeatedly. Technical Support was helpful and did what they could, but they couldn’t resolve the actual debit-order issue because it needed to be handled by Accounts.

And that is where this turned into an ordeal.

I emailed Axxess, explained what was happening and attached proof of my bank account so that Accounts could simply assist with setting up the debit order manually.

No resolution.

I followed up again.

I then contacted Axxess through WhatsApp, explained everything again, went through the necessary verification and made it clear that I wanted a debit order, not the account changed to credit-card payment.

I was eventually told:

“I have escalated the ticket to the Accounts Department. They will respond to you shortly.”

They didn’t.

By 8 September, I had been trying to get this sorted out for approximately four days, with two tickets, emails, WhatsApp conversations and numerous telephone calls.

On 8 September alone, my call history shows repeated attempts to contact Axxess, including calls lasting approximately 6 minutes 42 seconds, 6 minutes 39 seconds and 8 minutes 35 seconds, as well as several shorter attempts.

I also spent hours waiting for assistance on WhatsApp, receiving automated messages about high demand, only for the support service eventually to go offline for the evening without my problem being resolved.

The situation became so ridiculous that I eventually gave up and paid the R1,699 account manually by card because I wasn’t prepared to risk losing my fibre connection while waiting indefinitely for Axxess Accounts to respond.

Think about the irony of that for a moment:

I was spending days chasing a company because I wanted to give them permission to take R1,699 from my bank account every month.

I wasn’t disputing an invoice. I wasn’t refusing to pay. I wasn’t asking for a refund.

I was actively trying to pay them.

And after emails, proof of banking details, tickets, WhatsApp conversations, escalations and repeated telephone calls, I ultimately had to find my own workaround and pay by card to make sure my service remained connected.

As someone who works in IT support myself, I completely understand that companies experience busy periods and support queues. I don’t expect every issue to be resolved instantaneously.

But there is a substantial difference between a reasonable delay and days of chasing multiple support channels without anybody taking ownership of a straightforward accounts problem.

I also want to be fair and specifically mention that the person I eventually reached in Technical Support was helpful and did what he could. He successfully unlocked the debit order option when it became locked. The problem was that every time I entered the same bank account that had worked the previous month, the system locked the option again. That wasn’t something Technical Support could resolve.

My complaint is therefore not about one individual employee. It is about the overall support process, lack of follow-through and apparent disconnect between departments.

After being a customer for around three years and paying R1,699 every month for a premium 1 Gbps fibre service, I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect an Accounts query to receive an actual response, particularly when the customer is literally trying to arrange payment.

The internet service itself has kept me as a customer for three years.

The customer-service experience I have had trying to resolve this has made me seriously question whether I want to remain one.

At this point, I don’t need another automated response saying my query has been escalated. I need somebody from Axxess Accounts to take ownership of the ticket, resolve whatever is causing their system to reject and lock a bank account that previously worked, set up the debit order correctly, and confirm that it has actually been done.

For a long-standing customer paying for one of their higher-end fibre services, this experience has been extraordinarily disappointing.