A trail of **** promises and service

In 2015 the NGO that I manage was in the market for a new PABX telephone management system. In the course of sourcing 3 quotes we approached Midlands Communication which was the only Pietermaritzburg based supplier we could find at the time and advertised regularly in the local newspaper. Their sales rep tried to sell me a system for R39,000 “with a free TV.” When I told him we could source one in Johannesburg for R26,000 without a TV he dropped the TV and the price to R28,000. When I told him we had a 3 quote system he offered to source me three quotes, “all under different company names.”

We did not mind paying the extra to have a local service provider for maintenance support. But before placing an order I visited the owner, Lesley Gounden, and told him how a dishonest salesperson nearly cost him a new customer. He gave me 3 trade references at my request (obviously safe ones), adding that he serviced many NGOs in the city and offered them maintenance at no charge.

For the first year he was true to his word. A technician came in to update the MAN3000 software at no cost. The following year a message popped up to say we needed to call for an update. Suddenly there was a R500 re-licencing fee. I visited Lesley who said he would replace the software at his own expense with one that did not need an annual licence. In fact his technician updated the MAN3000 and told us when the prompt message pops up the following year to ignore it. We did and it did not affect the operation of the system.

In May my PA’s desktop computer, on which MAN3000 was loaded, had to be replaced. Lesley demanded R2,500 to reinstall MAN3000 and in a separate e-mail a further R650 for “licencing.” I refused to bow to this ******ion and asked around the local NGO community if anyone had an alternative supplier and service provider. This unleashed a torrent of complaints about Lesley Gounden – here are some of them:

“Midlands Communication is hopeless and we also had problems with them. Very unprofessional.”

“We also have been tearing our hair out with their service provision this past 6 months or so. They have recently parted ways with a staff member who seems to have made many an empty promise so there has been a lot of damage control being done to assuage my anger.”

“Have dealt with midlands com as well. Same experience here – they were charging me for months on a system that the actual supplier had not been charging for –so we were paying them for nothing – eventually after some drama – I sent them a final letter informing them that I had asked them to cancel the debit order and if they did not –we would take legal action against them – 2 months later the debits stopped!”

In the course I was referred to SamCom and Nashua. Reps from both companies confirmed that MAN300 comes with the PABX and there is no annual licence fee for it! They told us we could download the software for free from the Web with the Product key on the casing of the PABX. When we tried this, the same Midlands Communication “please call us for support” message kept popping up over the active screen. Our charity is being held to ransom by a **** licencing **** and our PABX has been rendered useless by the very company that supp**** it.