Vumatel False Advertising
Vumatel are getting away with False advertising.
Have had a terrible experience with them, where they know they are wrong but force us to pay for hidden costs.
My story goes as follows:
Purchasing a fibre package via their portal you go through the list and choose the appropriate ISP in your area. I had an option to choose Mweb and other ISP's We decided to go with "FireStream" as they provided an uncontested fibre link. When you choose the ISP, you are then provided the cost involved. For this instance its R999 - Once off ... I am going to stress their wording of "Once off cost" as that is very important to this issue.
I finalise the process by clicking on "Accept terms and conditions" and the order is sent. A call centre agent phones the next day advising the installation cost will be R1725. This is alarming as in the process of ordering your package it only mentions " Once off cost - R999"
I then phone Vumatel to bring to their attention that they have made an error in their cost calculation. I am then rudely told that is the installation cost. So I take the Sales person step by step through the process and strongly point out the once off cost fee. The sales person is confused and leaves me on hold for 10 minutes only to tell me to check the terms and conditions as its clearly shown there. So again we check it together and there is indeed a section mentioning paying an installation cost that has a clickable link to take you to the pricing page. You click on the link and all it does it takes you to Vumatel's home page and no mention of costing.
So lawfully, their terms and conditions are false, and the Sales agent is left handing me over to a senior person as he no longer wants to talk to me, as I wont back down from this really suspicious hidden costs.
So after explaining the scenario to the Senior person, she takes a whole month to get back to me, only to tell me the following in an email. I have of course removed names but you can see they do mention there is an issue with the terms and conditions but "because they say so" I must be forced to pay the installation fee that could be made up by the Vumatel employee as in different scenarios other ISP's can absorb the cost of the install and thus a Vumatel invoice could potentially show zero cost.
“Clause 18.2 of the Vuma fibre line installation Terms and Conditions states that the Customer agrees and undertakes to pay to VUMA the Installation Fee as listed on www.vumatel.co.za/pricing/ or as advised by VUMA and as set out under the Invoice.
Despite there appearing to be a technical error with the link provided in 18.2, the customer is in no way released from their obligation to pay for an installation. The clause provides for situations whereby a customer is notified of an amount which is payable as set out in an invoice. Clause 18.2 makes it very clear that the pricing on our website is not the sole method of proving indebtedness and the quantum thereof. In the event that a customer refuses to discharge their legal obligation to settle their account with us, we reserve the right to remove our infrastructure and initiate legal proceedings against the defaulting party.”
So they could not even meet me half way and state that since the process is actually a shocking mess and missing info leading to a poor experience. To maybe only charge half of the installation price.
I thus requested the equipment be removed as I do not want to deal with a company that will allow such a shocking experience to slide. 2 weeks later, I have heard nothing and simply just want their equipment off my site.