So today I have been trying to get my DSTv decoder sorted… in anticipation of the big Bok/All Black match… having moved house on Monday. Before disconnecting my decoder I checked that the hugely hyped new channel changes had occurred. Indeed they had.
However, my decoder was not working.
When I phoned DSTv, I was told I was 50th in the queue… and never had another update about my progress in the queue, so had no idea how quickly I was progressing and whether or not I should persist. Eventually 40 MINUTES later… 40 minutes of listening to incessantly repeated monologues promoting DSTv products… I get a human being… after much tooing and froing and repeating the steps I’d already tried I’m told the software is not up-to-date with the big changeover on 1 October. He fact that I checked that the update had indeed been done before disconnecting carried no weight… my software needed up grading. So I had to drive to Goodwood from the Southern Peninsula – three quarter of an hour away.
Yes, indeed it was my software I was told at the Help Centre although the lady could not explain what had happened to the software. She took it to the back for a software installation. After another three quarters of an hour later I left, having been assured repeatedly that my decoder would now work.
Yet another three quarters of an hour later I get home, plug ion the decoder and…? It is still not working… So I have to call my friends who were coming over for a braai to say they should make hasty plans for a braai at another house.
So I call the DSTv helpline again.
I am told I am 44th in the queue and am also told this time that the average waiting time is six minutes. After waiting for another half an hour listening to the same incessantly repeated product plugs with no further update in my queue status I hang up.
I phone a friend and ask him to phone his friend who has a friend who is an DSTv agent. The message comes back to me that “Oh no… if you have the new software it won’t run on your old LAN… you need to get a new LAN…!”
“Why, I ask, if the decoder was working perfectly on Monday AFTER the big channel shuffle and upgrade…? Why, if my decoder worked then with the same software and LAN, must I now have to get a new LAN because DSTv reinstalled the software…?
I am now gatvol of DSTv and Naspers… They make ten of billions out of their exorbitantly expensive products (I am a Premium subscriber and have been since they first launched satellite TV in South Africa.) They continually increase prices without offering any real increase in products or service. In fact, they now repeat programming several times a week to milk even more profits out of subscribers and have cut back on programming they used to boast about being so good. I have written about this previously.
Sure this new upgrade may add to the product offering… but by connivingly forcing people to upgrade their hardware too they are still making extra profits on the deal.
And they continue to pour out new ‘mobile’ products which don’t work because despite the tens of billions they make out of subscribers each year they are too rapaciously greedy to ensure proper coverage for reception on those devices. I bought a drifter and have never picked up a signal anywhere but in central Cape Town. Not a single friend’s house is in a solid reception area. So what is the pint of this useless paperweight…?
DSTv continues to underwhelm with their products, delivery and service. Not for them the old adage of trying to exceed expectations. The only thing DSTv and Naspers continually exceed is last year’s profits. That is all they are interested in. How much is enough for these rapaciously ravenously greedy dogs..? These slathering dogs sitting on a pile of bones so large they could never chew through them if the lived to be 200 years old? But yet they still want more more more MORE MORE…? It beggars belief that people could be so determinedly lustfully greedy.
So you insatiably gluttonous dogs can continue to rape the South African consumer for as long as they let you… but enough is enough for me… you have crossed the line and placed the last straw on the camel’s back. I will no longer be at your mercy to do with as you please and increase your rates as and when you please. I am sick and tired of your arrogant indifference to your customers and will no longer tolerate your disgusting attitudes…
First order of business on Monday morning is to cancel my DSTv subscription and get rid of my television.
Yeah… I’m only one of your 5-million subscribers and only a molecule in a drop in the ocean… but know this the board of DSTv, the board of Naspers… this former subscriber despises you and for your arrogance and greed. Each member of those boards disgusts me.
Of course it will be interesting to see if News24 publishes a letter that criticizes their masters…???
We will see…
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