Mismanagement and a complete lack of systems is the downfall of this company

I am a new tenant at Boardwalk Heights, having moved in September 1. The agent in which we were introduced and were managed by throughout the process, Matimba has been excellent, despite his own personal health concerns that caused him to be hospitalised for about 2 weeks the day after we signed our papers. We saw the place in early August, and filled in our paperwork shortly after. I'm self employed and a foreign national so they asked for additional paperwork, and 2 months deposit. That's fine, and I provided everything. They also only offer Vodacom fibre service at this location because they have a special deal in place with Vodacom. The same day we fill in our lease papers is when I also fill in the Vodacom fibre application for a 1 year contract.

Then comes move in day, September 1, 2019. My wife arrives before our moving truck to get the keys, only to find out that they can't find our lease documents, and wanted my wife to sign them all over again, and that move in is at noon. That was never told to us. Originally we were told that we could move in on August 31, but Matimba had to correct that and said that maintenance was cleaning and repairing the property that day, so it had to be the 1st of September. They had to phone Matimba while he was in the hospital to ask where the paperwork is, only to then find it was filed by him properly, so luckily we did not have to redo the lease documents again. So, move in is scheduled for noon, but it's mid morning and the truck is about to arrive, so we have to get the manager involved who finally got the keys for her and had Chulu give the inspection. It turns out that the prepaid meter was not activated, as I only received 1 SMS instead of the 2 that was necessary. As a result, no electricity. We then work on unloading and unpacking, while going to the sales office to speak to Chulu and then phoned her again to say we are unable to log into the Prepaid app system they provide to activate the system, because whoever was supposed to set up our account only did half their job. Evening is now setting, and we are sitting in a dark apartment, with a baby, and we are unable to boil water for her bottle. We got the number of the new maintenance manager who is unable to help us, and stops answering texts and phone calls, and the utility provider was closed and their voicemail was full so you can't even leave a message for them to reply to. So we went and stayed somewhere else that night. It was a very frustrating experience that no one was onsite for what is a common move in date to handle these types of concerns, and no one even seemed to care or follow up. Also, after getting our fingerprints into the system for the gate, as we are driving out of the estate, the spike barrier had retracted the spikes, but as we drove over, the housing for the spike is sticking out of the ground quite high, and it sc****d the undercarriage of our car and pulled the exhaust pipe out of it's housing which required us to take it in for a service since it was now just dangling, Boardwalk Heights later in September lower the housing into the ground because a lot of people were complaining about that.

September 2 comes, and we're back at the apartment unpacking, when there's a knock at the door, and 3 guys from Vodacom were there to install the fibre. I thought that was great. We would have fibre by the end of the day, and when this electricity issue is sorted out we'll have internet, because the property seems to be a deadzone for cellular reception except in a few small spots if you stand there you get LTE, otherwise it's 1 or 2 bars 3G, and this has been tested on Cell-C, Telkom, and even Vodacom phones. So they come into the apartment, and they see that the fibre has already been physically installed into the wall, so they say that the next step is to get the router to plug into the wall, and that's not their job, but they'll phone their supervisor to get this taken care of. I figure that since they came to the door, everything that my Vodacom order was successfully taken care of, even though I didn't get any notification or confirmation about that happening. We still had to sleep somewhere else that night.

September 3, 2019, we are back at the apartment, when Matimba comes to see us and to apologise for what happened and for him not being there on our move in date. He says he was in the hospital since we last saw him, and to let him know if we need anything. I let him know that we still don't have access to our electricity app, and he's very shocked and says he will go and fix this immediately. He also said he will follow up on the Vodacom fibre, because I never got a call about the installation date, which he said wasn't right. 2 hours later I get an SMS from the Utility company with my login details, and I activate it and we have electricity. No one except Matimba seems to care about Boardwalk Heights, and that the tenants are happy. He says he'll let me know when he hears back from Vodacom.

Sept 6, 2019. Matimba lets me know that there was a problem with my application to Vodacom, but didn't get into the details about what that problem was. Something about my ID being entered incorrectly, but that it hasn't been processed yet. I told him that someone already came and installed the physical cable, so there had to be at least some record that it was in place, and that we can't continue to have this problem. He then escalated this up to the head office where they are actually handling the process because it's now out of his hands. I am given Yolandie's email.

Sept 7, 2019. It had rained that morning briefly, but everything dried up. Shortly after, we heard a steady dripping sound. When going for a walk outside, we saw that it was water d*********** of the roof of our block. It was constant though, and since the geysers are on the roof for solar power, it was concerning, because that is consistent with a valve failure. I sent an email to Client Care of the issue. No response. It dripped non stop throughout the night and caused us to have a very restless sleep for 2 days.

Sept 8, 2019 Yolandie tells me it was a system error, and she's on the case.

Sept 9, 2019 Yolandie forwards me the application as it has only been submitted now. 9 days after we've moved in, despite filling in the paperwork back in August. Regarding the geyser, there was no response at all from client care, not even acknowledgement they received my email. So I email Matimba and Yolandie about this and express my concerns that no one has responded to me about it. The dripping has continued this entire time, and is quite loud.

Sept 10 to Sept 13, I ask for an update every day, and Yolandie says that it hasn't been approved yet, they are still vetting my account at Vodacom. On September 13, 2019 the geyser has burst, and water is flowing down the roof. Immediately afterwards maintenance crew are on the scene and fix it. I send another email to Matimba, Yolandie and client care about this, and still no response from anyone. They have never responded to this day to those emails

Sept 16, 2019. I email Matimba for my lease documents. I haven't received a copy of the lease yet, despite asking several times for it. Yolandie has now followed up that Vodacom is requesting additional documents to process my order. The month is now more than half over and they're asking for documents that should have been requested at the very start. They wanted my company registration document from CIPC and a surety document. I immediately send the COR14.3 and ask for the surety form to sign.

Sept 17, 2019 Yolandie then receive the surety form for me to sign. I sign and return back the same day.

Sept 19, 2019 Vodacom responds to my surety saying they also want the witness fields signed. I don't know why it took them 2 days to tell me that. So I have that signed too and sent back. They also didn't want a certified copy of my passport for some reason, so I resend a plain copy.

Sept 25, 2019 I have had no response or acknowledgement of anything for days now. I send an email expressing my frustrations about this.

Sept 26, 2019 Yolandie responds that both she and Matimba whom she had asked to help again with this issue have been off sick. I understand that illness can occur, but how is it that a company that claims to have more than 22,000 properties doesn't have systems in place for email delegation, out of office notifications, or automated email responses? Yolandie passes on a further document request from Vodacom now that they require my business permit. 10 days after they requested an uncertified copy of my passport, which included my bar coded business permit by the way, they are now asking for that information again. There's just one problem, my business permit has expired now, and I've been in the process of renewing that since February of this year. I have submitted my documents to VFS Global, and gave Matimba the receipt of that when I signed the lease back in August to prove I'm still legally permitted to be in South Africa. Central Developments accepted that response as evident by the fact that I am a resident of Boardwalk Heights. I express my disappointment to Yolandie about this nonsense back and forth and re-explain the situation, and provide the documents again.

Sept 27, 2019 Yolandie sends me an email that Vodacom has received the permit notification, and will follow up to see when they will call for an installation. I request an update the same day, to which I receive no response.

Sept 30, 2019. I send another email asking for a response, or anything at all, even if they don't have any updates just to keep me in the loop. Unsurprisingly at this point, I get no response to that email

Oct 1, 2019 Yes you read that right, it is now over a month later. I request another update. Email goes unanswered.

Oct 2, 2019 I phone Vodacom directly now that I have a sales order number to reference, only to find out that the order still hasn't left the vetting stage. I speak with a representative named Bongi, and she is unable to help directly because it is the vetting department that can only move the process forward and for some reason Vodcam doesn't allow for inter departmental communication or some other lame excuse. I express my utter frustration at this entire debacle and she promises to get this resolved. She then finds out that the vetting department is again requesting my barcoded business permit document. They aren't accepting the receipt that my permit is in the process of renewal, and don't seem the care that the timelines given by VFS global is that I should expect to get that document back in my passport only at the end of October. They tell Bongi that the sales order is on hold until I get that document back. I tell Bongi that answer is unacceptable and to escalate this to her manager. Turns out she called me from her cell phone as she had already left the office but will get the manager from the vetting department to call me tomorrow and ensure this is resolved.

Oct 3, 2019 I received no phone call from anyone. Big surprise

Oct 4, 2019 Yolandie sends me an email that Bongi is still looking into this issue and will call me today. The saga of incompetence continues.

What I have come to understand is that Central Developments is not overly responsible for the complete failure with Vodacom, but they share the blame in not responding to my requests in a timely manner, and that just seems to be their primary method of doing business. Ignore your customers until they make complaints. I build business automation systems. There is no excuse for a company as large as Central Developments to allow things like this to fall through the cracks. Especially when I have made it clear that this is an issue.

Other things of note: There seems to be no enforcement of rules in the complex. You are not permitted to wash your car on the property because they have a car wash facility, yet I have seen multiple people do it, even parking out in the middle of the road to do it. You are not permitted to play loud music from your car. People do it all the time, blasting their music so loud you would think they are in your unit. Nothing is done about this. You are not permitted to park anywhere except in marked parking spots, and yet the Boardwalk Heights van parks across from our parking spot making it difficult to enter, parking in some vehicles for hours on end, while playing loud music and the guy is washing his vehicle. So if they won't even follow their own rules, how would you expect them to enforce it upon the tenants?

The expiration of our lease cannot come fast enough to escape this comedy of errors.