Poor administrative service in South Africa

I have been trying to get a spare decoder transferred to a friend of mine (we're both currently Premium subscribers). It seems that even with the help of a major South African DSTV hardware provider, we're unable to get MultiChoice to transfer the decoder into his name, after multiple tries, and almost 3 weeks of attempts! Now it seems the reference number/application we were given is not to be found on the system?!?!?! AND I'm told there is simply no recourse/alternate way to resolve this issue!!!! Unbelievably shocking!