Multichoice SA disconnects services & charge reconnect fee for services paid for

I have been a dstv (Multichoice SA) customer for over 15 years since my varsity days and have always enjoyed the services until recently (November 2018). I have an account that I have been paying via my bank's online and App and prior to the EFTs and Apps, my account was initially on debits until I changed to EFT and later bank's App. Every month I would pay my account through these platforms and in most cases I would use the App to pay. But for the first time, Multichoice did not allocate the funds I paid into my dstv account. I usually pay, by latest on the 25th of every month, which is the last day to pay to avoid disconnection and have never paid after the due date. But in Nov 2018, I paid earlier than usual, on the 24 Nov (Saturday) morning but this amount was not allocated to my dstv account the whole day, and on Sunday 25th the amount was still not allocated and with fear that my services would be disconnected and thinking that maybe my bank had some technical problems, I asked my wife to pay again from her bank account. Now there were two amounts paid for one month but none of them was allocated to my dstv account. On the 26th Nov I made a telephone call to their call center/ customer care explaining my anxiety over their none allocation of the funds paid and the consultant requested that I sent the proof of payments, which I did and later received an automated reply with reference number. On the same day around 13:00hr I made another call to enquire if my services would be disconnected since dstv/multichoice had still not allocated the funds to my account despite paying well in advance. I was assured that services would not be disconnected but surprisingly, on morning 27th Nov the services were disconnected. I had to make another call to find out why my services were disconnected while I had submitted 2 proofs of payment. The answer was that the DSTV accounts department had not yet allocated the funds as it takes aout 24hrs to allocate funds. I found this delay not only appalling but also disrespectful in that my services got disconnected even when I paid for such well ahead of the payment day. The only thing that DSTV could do was just to reconnect and reverse the re-connection fee they had billed into my account. My bank had assured me that the payment was processed successfully into the Multichoice SA bank account and that it was the responsibility of the beneficiary that I paid to trace such funds. Even on the 27 Nov, midday the funds were still not allocated and when checking on the DsTV Now App, the message that an amount due was payable immediately. This time I left it at that point because the services were already reconnected after I made a call to their customer care. I still wanted to know why it was taking more than 4 days to allocate funds. If my payment date is 25th of every month, do i have to pay on the 21st from now on in order for the funds to be allocated by the 25th? Having paid twice, what benefit do I get for having my money staying in the account of dstv for the following month. If I had not paid in time, Multichoice would have made me pay the re-connection fee that they charged on my account but as an individual I do not charge them interest for my funds sitting with them and inconvenience caused. Multichoice should get their accounts department in order to avoid wasting my time and resources by making me make calls because they could not allocate funds. There are so many service providers that I can utilize if after so many years Multichoice cannot handle a single task of allocating funds. It is not good enough that you just reconnect my services while it was not my fault. I guess this was the first and last time I experience this unprofessional conduct. I am ready to switch. I never even received a courtesy call after the funds were allocated 4 days later.

Regards J. Khumalo (Dr)