DSTV promotion is a complete **** and customer care service is a sham

In February, I signed for the premium special running at the time for R599. The special was running for two months until end of April. The message received as a reminder to make the payment was the full amount of the premium package. I followed with a call to enquire if this was a genuine discrepancy, to my surprise I was informed by the call centre agent that I need to pay full amount and then it will be credited, the following month I will pay a smaller amount.

Beginning of March, I paid ~R850, subsequent to that no credit passed and I chose to delay payment for April until I got disconnected as I was dissatisfied with the arrangement. Needless to say, if my account is disconnected there is a fee payable should I elect to reconnect. Beginning of April, again I paid an amount of ~R730, still no special promotion price. I have followed on the billing numerous times, DSTV customer care is non-existent, my airtime finished on hold, lady retrieving my account and trying reconcile. The team cannot follow up on dropped calls from customer (my contact details are in the system. I call again to follow up, a different agent and to my frustration there is no record of the previous call, matter discussed and reference as to the status of my query.

I phoned beginning of May to follow up again, the lady was quite helpful, did a full recon of my account and advised that I have an outstanding credit for the month of April and March. I should pay R399, can continue with premium if I choose or revert to DSTV Compact. I rush to pay at the spar, the outstanding amount is R499 to my surprise, I pay and discover my PVR is deactivated I then pay R50 to activate a few days later.

I have resigned myself to any solution from the team, the promotion was a complete **** and costed me greatly.

It doesn't end there, beginning of June I made a payment on a Saturday the 2rd of June, eager to watch the SAMA. I get home my decoder is not working, E04- E06 error, the following day a Sunday I got DSTV call centre to log a call to resolve the issue. I spent 30 minutes the lady asking to take my card out, wipe it, put it back in. Switch off the decoder, reboot, take out the cable, connect it back. NOTHING HELPED.

I phone again, 4 days later, with the same error, agent gives me the same instructions as before still no resolution. I could not believe how useless the whole process was, the fact that the DSTV agents are either not trained, just reading a manual and a complete waste of my airtime. To my fury, I hung up on the lady.

My services were off for 18 days, meaning I wasted my money and the fact that DSTV is unable to track usage and active connectivity is an indication of the lack of diligence in ensuring that customers are constantly enjoying the full benefit of the services offered.

My colleague advised that I take the decoder to a multi choice centre nearby, only then I got resolution to my problem where the decoder was replaced.

I was only connected for 10 days and then I receive a hash reminder to pay on the 26th June, now that was the straw that broke the camels back. And 4 days later, my services were disconnected.

I have since then, connected fibre in my house, Afrihost offers the best, available on whatsapp, most effective customer care and signed up for other platforms like Netflix.

I love my local content, but DSTV has just lost the plot with simply providing the most basic services: correct billing , resolving customer customer query be it technical or account and simply following on customer query that cannot be resolved on the phone.