hertenberger.co.za

iBurst has been my only reasonably-priced option for access to the Internet from home. I’ve been a customer for some time and have, until recently, been happy with the levels of service provided. But my patience is starting to wear a bit thin.

A few months ago, internal system changes at first resulted in my daily usage reports not being sent on a regular basis. Not too huge a problem, until a change to the company’s billing system created a discrepancy in the actual amount of bandwidth consumed versus the reported amount used. Some interaction with the call centre resolved that. Usage reports came back up, only to falter a short time later. A promise of free bandwidth to make up for the inconvenience could not be held by the customer call centre. No problem: just provide the paid service.

But the biggest annoyance that I’ve been trying to deal with in the past month is the inability of the self-service login to function. At first, its failure was explained away as a result of an upgrade to the site certificate. That should take a few minutes. I gave the service more than 24 hours. More than two weeks later, I still cannot login.

I consider the invitation to call a human being to boost my bandwidth ridiculous and of no use whatsoever: like I explained in my Screamer rant, I am unwilling to telephone someone to interact with a company that bills itself as an Internet service provider. If that procedure involved a fast interaction, I might even consider talking to a human being. But to have to provide personal details each time I want to spend ZAR 50 on a bandwidth booster is just not worth the effort.

Hoping to get more information and assistance, I tried iBurst‘s once-responsive Twitter account. No help there. And to think that a the Talk to us feature on the dysfunctional website would actually elicit some kind of response is a pipe dream. Like all other interaction features of this nature, messages seem to end up directly in the trash can. Talk to the hand would be a more appropriate heading for this service.

Bad service. An unresponsive company. Time to check out whether I have an alternative provider I can take my business to. iBurst seems to have lost the plot…