Complaints about poor Mascom Services

| Friday June 21, 2013 00:00

Mascom InternetAs supposedly the best Internet provider around this service has lately been very poor. The speeds are way below advertised, and the prices feel very exorbitant. Every time you subscribe for day surfing the only thing that speeds by is the time you have subscribed for. The Internet speed cannot keep up with a snail.Recently Mascom notified us through SMS that it is hiking its night surfing prices from P5 to P15 due to its vastly improved network and Internet speed. I suggest that their advertisement could just have read, 'we are about to exploit you with a below par service for a significant price.' Frankly, many others and I couldn't be complaining had that been the case. Sometimes while surfing, the service disconnects itself automatically and reconnecting becomes a hassle. It may never reconnect due to various errors the average use cannot comprehend, or it reconnects after valuable hours you hoped to make use of elapsed. These lost hours are never recompensed because the subscription is for one night only. Whatever happened to payment for services rendered? Mascom seems to operate the other way.

Poor networkSometimes as a Mascom user I get SMS notifications that I missed a call a minute ago. Almost every time I get startled because the phone never rang, I have been holding it in my hand and when I check the signal indicator it shows that it's fully available.The same thing happens with SMSes. I can receive one that shows that it's been sent ages ago when my phone has always been on during the time the SMS was idling around on holiday. These delays cause reception of sms or these missed calls at times that more often than not are at inappropriate times to when they were supposed to be.

Talkmore weekendsAfter Mascom borrowed a leaf out of other mobile phone operators and needlessly introduced their free weekends to new sim cards only, most of us jumped on the bandwagon and purchased these relatively expensive sim cards. However, there does exist, in this service also, exploitation of the customer. They hiked the price to qualify for a free weekend and also hiked their treachery. As indicated you have to spend P30 or more to talk for free during weekends. However, often you struggle to tame your tongue one Saturday morning when your call can't get through after you are very sure that you spent over the limit during the week.Mascom rests safe in the knowledge that there is absolutely no way you can get to them. All their consultants will be busy for over 30 minutes when you try their call centre for enquiry.

Mascom call centreThis is another nagging issue in Mascom services. It is supposed to be a shoulder to cry on about the rest of the Mascom services but it leaves the customer lonely and deserted. One wonders if it is supposed to be a radio station nowadays or what. You can be put on hold for over 45 minutes because 'all our consultants are currently busy at the moment. Please continue holding for our next available consultant.  I think it is a deliberate ploy to rip consumers off.

Mascom knows that all its other services are a rip off somehow, and the only way they could recompense or face your wrath is through their call centre, so they choose to just put you on hold until your patience wears thin or other tasks demand that you give up. Because the call centre is dysfunctional I tried to contact them through their website which took forever to load since I was surfing on Mascom Internet. There is a 'Contact Us' at the bottom of the homepage. I followed the link and filled all the fields in their form but when I tried to send it couldn't do so. All it gave me was a red warning 'Sorry! The Server has not fulfilled your request.' So just how does one get hold of Mascom?

Concerned Customer