Open letter to iBurst (SA)

This morning (16 July 2009) I received an sms from a credit collecting company wanting to claim R2 299 on behalf of iBurst, for an account that was closed in December 2006/January 2007. While Shaun Green, a helpful employee at your company has now resolved the issue, I want to tell you my story, share my experience of the company with the company – a kind of anti-inspirational story, if you get my drift – and simultaneously warn anyone considering it as service provider to stay well away from iBurst (iBurst will cause you unending grief). Again, while I appreciate Shaun’s speedy resolution of my account – hopefully it’s indeed final, but who knows what the collecting company might do with my file – while I appreciate his efforts, my experiences with your company over the past three years I feel now lies in me like a bad, black humor. So see this as an exorcism of sorts on my part and something you might hopefully learn from. Take whatever lessons you want, they are free. And people looking for an ISP, you more than anyone else, take this lesson for free, but take it to heart. The problems I experienced and that are detailed below, still happen, and they happen to scores of people.

Shaun Green’s speedy resolution of the case gives me scant satisfaction. (His efforts, well-praised all over MyBroadBand as they may be, seem to me like holding a finger in a dyke.) It is scant satisfaction because you, iBurst, have repeatedly just ruined my fucking day, despite all reasonable efforts on my part to forget that you exist. You have ruined my day when I’ve least expected it, and you have done this repeatedly, now three times, after I had thought things between us had been resolved (more than once) and I was free of your magnificent incompetence. You have ruined my day by dredging up and returning me to my pitiful experiences with your pitiful fucking company.

Your continuing existence, the thought that iBurst as a company can exist in the face of the overwhelming odds that, surely, your own continuing, dreadful and shameless incompetence must present to your business… dit gaan die verstand te bowe. It is inconceivable. And that is why I get scant satisfaction from the fact that the case is now resolved and why I still write this. The idea that you just continue on your way, merrily ruining people’s days, that you haven’t folded yet: that pisses me off, in a big fucking way.

Let me tell you how it goes.

In late 2006, my external antenna was stolen. Without the antenna, I had no signal. I struggled to find another antenna. The reseller from whom I bought the modem and antenna was not answering nor returning my calls. So, finding it too much of a bother to find the hardware (strike 1), and figuring that an external antenna will just be stolen again, I decided to switch to ADSL. Within five days of calling Telkom, I was connected. I’ve never had any major problems with ADSL since. I had a connection problem once and a technician was at my house within 2 hours. I don’t own shares in Telkom and this is not a piece of marketing in their favour, but I have to give Telkom two ticks against your strike.

Despite me having no hardware for the iBurst service, and thus unable to use the service, iBurst still wanted me to follow the 30-day notice procedure. My case wasn’t a normal case: I wasn’t an individual who had stumbled onto a better deal and wanted to change ISPs. The issue was that I no longer could access the service, and yet iBurst wanted to keep on charging me for the service, based on a legalism that made no provision for extraordinary or unusual circumstances. In other words, iBurst followed, machine-like, a procedure that didn’t care for the variety of human circumstances – not very inspirational and not in tandem with inspirational messages that may make appeal to the human spirit. So, I cut my losses and paid for 30 days of iBurst use without access to my 3 Gigs of bandwidth. (strike 2)

Then, in December 2006, my final debit order for iBurst amounted to a whopping R4 829, while normally the monthly debit order was in the region of R500 or R600 (I can’t remember exactly, it was 3 years ago). I was fuming. I found a number at MyBroadBand, called it and spoke to someone at iBurst. I then learnt that this money was apparently owed for extra bandwidth.

Yes, I regularly topped up my bandwidth and, no, I didn’t regularly check my bank statements. I was then told that many debit orders, especially for top-up bandwidth, did not run every month (this is an old story for old customers of iBurst – I hope you have fixed that; I mean, you are an IT company, why the fuck can’t you get your debit orders to run?), and thus the R4 829 included the fee for my notice month (during which, remember, I couldn’t use the service) and outstanding fees – those debit orders that never ran for most of the second half of 2006. (strike 3)

Forgive me for being lazy with my own banking admin., but I would expect a 21st century corporation to be on top of their own accounting and run the debit order on time, accurately. I would also expect to trust an online company: as per agreement, they bill me for what I use, I pay them for that use. What I now had to do, was go through my statements and reconcile debit orders that did run against bandwidth purchases. Guess what? Of course I didn’t keep a record of my bandwidth purchases. Who the fuck does, since we trust the company’s accounting department and only notice figures that are way outside the average debit amounts? Besides, would a note scribbled in my diary in any case count as a legal record and proof against erroneous claims? At that time, there was no online facility at iBurst where one could check (and thus keep record of) top-up bandwidth bought. (strike 4)

I’m no longer with iBurst, of course, and thus do not know whether you have such a facility. I have been happy at Cybersmart (2 ticks) for 3 years, and they have such facilities: on any day of the month you can request online an automated invoice that will include top-up bandwidth bought to date. Magical, what one can do with software. Also, guess what, I’ve never been charged by Cybersmart for bandwidth that I haven’t bought. Nor has there been any problems with debit orders. (2 more ticks for Cybersmart)

In any case, I thus moaned and complained and appealed to your representative on the phone. Finally, he agreed to a compromise refund: R2 300. Clearly he had some authority in this regard because a few days later I received the refund of R2 300. I licked my wounds: at least I got some money back, I was happy – and still am – with Telkom ADSL and Cybersmart. Case resolved. No more surprising big debits from WBS Holdings. In fact, no more debits from WBS Holdings.

Invoices from iBurst, for R2 299 R7 000+, kept on appearing in the post, though [update].* I called. Some nameless person on your side told me that there have been problems in accounting and that, if I have closed my account, I should just ignore the invoices. It’s just lag. The invoices then stopped.

But then, a few months later, the invoices started arriving again. In the meantime, I was coming across more and more horror stories about iBurst accounting incompetence. Horror stories, reappearing invoices… nervous times. So I called your notoriously unhelpful helpdesk (strike 5) and was given the normal helpdesk runaround so endemic to 21st century corporations. No one knows anything fucking useful, no one can understand a not wholly complicated story – it’s all so fucking frustratingly incompetent.

Again I should point out the difference in experience with Telkom and Cybersmart: I’ve never experienced anything anywhere near the incompetence with either that I have experienced with iBurst. Despite Telkom’s bad reputation, whenever I’ve called – just to be on the safe side – to say that I’ve made a payment by EFT but it will be a day late or to request an extension to a bill, Telkom’s call centre staff have been helpful and friendly. In fact, so impressed have I been with Telkom that I made a point of spending 10 minutes on the phone recently answering a survey. I kid you not, I gave them on average 9/10. (2 ticks for them).

With Cybersmart too. If I need them to suspend a debit order for a particular month when finances are low, they do that – a simple email request 3 days before the end of the month and within 24 hours I receive a response saying that the debit order has been suspended. I then have 15 days to make the payment, and I don’t need to email or fax them the proof of payment. Close to the time of the next debit order, they will email to remind me that the debit order is in place again. If I need that one suspended too, there is no problem. And the few times I had minor technical glitches or where there was a discrepancy in bandwidth usage records, a simple telephone call resolved the issue on the fly. (I’ll give them 3 more ticks)

Again, I do not wish to market any company, but I mention these experiences with Telkom and Cybersmart to show that your company, iBurst, lags far behind in almost all matters, and that excellent service, however many lightyears away from you it might be, is possible.

Anyway. Again. I tried again. I was told someone important would get back to me. It never happened (strike 6), and the invoices kept coming. I ignored them for the rest of 2007 and eventually forgot about that ruined day back in December 2006.

Sometime in August 2008, a credit collection company contacts me. That’s right, my fucking day ruined: iBurst wants R2 299 from me. (strike 7) I tell them the story. Oh no, of course the onus is on me now to furnish them with proof, while it is iBurst’s accounting that has screwed up. I post a report at Hello Peter (12 August 2008), and iBurst contacts me. Eventually, Mr. X calls me (a name! what fucking pleasure and relief! at least there’s a name I can hold onto). Again I explain my story. He tells me that no debit order ran on my account in December 2006. I send him the reference number for the debit order of R4 829 by email. He replies, thanking me for pointing out the error, promises an apology if iBurst is indeed in error (he needs to check), and even offers a refund of R230 (I’m sure he meant R2 300) in the event of such iBurst error confirmed on your side. I’m prepared to withdraw 2 strikes at the promise of the refund being duplicated, but I then wonder whether Mr. X has actually understood my story: that I had received a refund and I was not now appealing for one; that my account is or should be closed and resolved.

In any event, that’s the last I hear from Mr. X.

Who knows what byzantine machinations work themselves out in the bowels of your company to explain no apology nor confirmation of an accounting error (yet again) forthcoming from Mr. X – perhaps he moved to another department, perhaps he was about to email me and was called away to a meeting or was cajoled into early drinks on a Friday, then by Monday had forgotten; after all, it’s just one bothersome account in a company that holds millions of them, I’m sure. But in the absence of any further contact from Mr. X, I naturally grow to believe that, finally, iBurst has resolved my account.

Lo and fucking behold! Today, 16 July 2009, almost a year since your company never got back to me on a case that was supposed to be resolved 2 years prior to that, you ruin my fucking day again. I receive an sms from a credit collecting company, asking for R2 299 on behalf of iBurst. Can you fucking believe it? (strike 8).

I go to MyBroadBand and resurrect an old thread with an angry post liberally laced with swearing. I husband my anger and litter expletives all over Twitter. That’s when Shaun Green contacts me. He is sympathetic, sincere and clearly dedicated. He’ll look into it. He calls me back late afternoon. He can’t find any details of an account for me on your system! Now can you fucking believe THAT? No fucking details for me on your fucking system!

What does one say? How in heaven’s name do you hand a dossier to a credit collecting company when you do not have any details of an account yourself. Now, I understand that credit collecting companies may buy over bad debt from each other and thus, without iBurst knowing, take over old dossiers, but, shit, do you people not reconcile amongst each other? And clearly Mr. X never did shit to resolve anything with the first credit collecting company if indeed bad debt was handed over to a new collecting company.

Or did Mr. X just throw his hands up in the air in befuddlement back in August 2008, hoping that shit wouldn’t reappear on his watch, but now here we are again, back at square one?

How can anyone do business like this? Looking at internet forums and Hello Peter, it’s clear that it’s not only one or two accounts that are causing consternation and anguish for your customers. You are ruining many people’s days, constantly, still, and there is great fucking gnashing of teeth across the land. Tell me, how the fuck is it possible that you’re still in business? I’d like to know, so that I too can open a business and do fuckall but still make money.

I understand that your boss is in the habit of writing inspirational emails in the face of much pessimism and adversity. In the context of what I have been experiencing with iBurst – a company I thought long dead to me since I switched to ADSL, but which has reared its ugly fucking head like some surreal bureaucratic monster Kafka would have wet his pants for – in that context those inspirational emails sound ridiculously idiotic. (strike n, where n=any fucking number you can think of greater than K, and where K is the constant of my anger and irritation at your company, which is big, fucking big)

Mr. Bossman,* do you know what effect your company has on its clients, existing or former? What accolades do you yearn for in writing inspirational notes, while your company remains faceless and clearly incompetent in dealing with the accounting of a measly (to you, I am sure) R2 299, that stretches back to an account that was closed at the end of 2006? I’d like to know the exact nature of the accounting error that has led through three years to this point of me eventually writing this long, angry piece. Was it a fly caught between a typewriter’s ribbon and paper, as in Brazil? Can’t be; we use computers and paperless forms. Did Mr. X look away for one moment at a bird’s sudden flurry of wings past his window, then returned to his monitor but inadvertently and absent-mindedly started on the next case? What? What did cause this drawn out fucking saga?

You know what else? I’d like to see you wring some inspiration out of this story. You want to be some inspirational guru? Is that your dream? Come on, inspire me and get me to switch back to iBurst – that will be an achievement. Show me how iBurst has improved over the past 3 years in customer service, in developing meticulous accounting, in price scales, in the breadth and depth of staff training. (But spare me any bullshit pseudo-philosophical or new-business speak. Or the tedium of inspirational discourse.)

I should warn you though that it is an impossible task – relieving my aggravation at your company – but I am sure you can inspire the Sisyphus in yourself.

Or, how’s about actually looking at iBurst with a cold, calculating, business-like but humble eye, admit defeat and close it down – its a woolly mammoth wandering way outside it’s time-band pretending it’s an IT expert with nimble fingers and good business practice. And that would be a greater achievement.

Furthermore, as an inspirational gesture to the many customers whose many days you have ruined many fucking times over, why not write off their debt or give them free bandwidth. And those who have been double-billed, or who are still being billed after they’ve cancelled the service, who have been handed over to credit collectors, who still suffer the deep troughs of incompetence in your accounts department, who I bet are whipped into financial panic mode because of unexpected credit collection notes, apologise to them, sincerely, send a box of chocolates, erase their records. Fucking do something. Such magnamity would be a far greater achievement than any warm fuzzy feelings you get from writing inspirational emails or from the false notes in any goodbye note.

Seriously, tell me, how does this story inspire you? How, do you imagine, does it inspire confidence in your company? How, do you imagine, may it inspire prospective customers to join iBurst?

While Shaun Green has been very helpful and has resolved the issue, I cannot help but feel that my immense irritation at iBurst will be long in dissipating, because of the unending fucking switchbacks to this overlong saga. And no matter such resolution, whenever I hear someone contemplating getting connected through iBurst, I will snort into my drink and do my utmost to discourage them from joining iBurst. The same I will do whenever I hear about your inspirational emails.

Yours ever pissed off

Rustum Kozain

Notes

* I’ve been rooting around in old MyBroadBand threads and found a post dated 26 July 2007 in which I complain about an invoice for R7 000+ and which an iBurst representative told me to ignore. I do recall invoices for R 2 299 reappearing. I may still have some of them in a folder which I prepared in 2008 when the first credit collector contacted me – but ja, that’s in a stack of paper somewhere in this untidy study… but which I hope to clean next week. It may be instructive to read the whole of that thread in any case, reminding yourself that it’s from the middle of 2007. And a few months later, another one – here a commentator complains that “there have been warning signs of incompetence for a long time now mainly in the accounts department”. In both these threads an issue that I have forgotten about came up: when I closed my account, I went to Nedbank to stop the debit order. Nedbank said they couldn’t stop the debit order, that that was entirely dependent on iBurst. I remember I thought that that was some scary stuff. But apparently, according to some commentators in that thread, at other banks there were no problems stopping debit orders from iBurst.

** I’ve just learnt that Mr. Inspirational is no longer at the head of iBurst – he resigned in March this year, apparently due to ‘family reasons’. He remains connected to iBurst as consultant until August. So I think I’ll just leave (enhanced) references to him in the post.

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Afterword

– I urge people who are considering getting or switching to iBurst to have a look at some of the complaints against iBurst at HelloPeter. It is a place filled with anguish.

– In a strange way, I feel sorry for some of the employees who have to respond to the complaints. They’re trying hard but fail miserably at sounding sincere, at trying to treat each complainant as an individual, ‘valued customer’ even as the repetitious responses and faux-gratitude for ‘bringing the complaint to their attention’ collapses in on that rearguard action. Who writes these scripts? What MBA genius thought that pretending to be grateful and humble will endear your customers? It’s patronising, especially when it’s so evident, on HelloPeter, that it’s more or less the same problem that people have been struggling with for a very long time with iBurst: billing, accounts – the overwhelming majority of complaints are about this. It’s so blatantly dishonest pretending that you’re grateful that someone is complaining about your miserable service: “Oh, we’re so grateful that you’ve brought something that we’ve known about for years to our attention. What would we do without you and your complaining ass?”

But, yes, I feel sorry for some of the employees. Can you imagine them, at drinks of a Friday evening, people chatting:

X: So, what do you do?

B: I work in customer relations.

X: Where?

B: At an IT company…

X: Which…

B: … er, at i-… sorry, will you excuse me, I need the powder room.

X (looking at G, shrugging shoulders): I dunno, I just asked where s/he worked…

– Some useful advice should you find yourself lost in the iBurst labyrinth, from a poster at MyBroadBand.

– iBurst started tweeting on 7 April this year. Here’s a blogpost from January looking at iBurst’s tardiness in this regard compared to others, the impact of social media on bolstering or damaging a company’s reputation and how a company can gain or lose customers depending on its own interaction (or not) through social media. Interesting how Mweb picked up on someone dissing iBurst on Twitter and apparently offering that person a free trial.

– iBurst slogan: “Broadband. Simplified. (End the suffering!)” That should be: “Lowband. Byzantine. Relive the suffering.”

– “Byzantine” has been a favourite word these past two weeks, inspired by experiences with another bureaucratic process.

– I wonder what the advertising gurus call my experience: negative experience with company, shunning/forgetting company, unexpected reliving of negative experience, return of ‘brand awareness’, but in a bigger, more negative sense than the initial negative experience had left.