BREAKING. TopTV in big customer crisis as pay TV operator does double debit order payment runs on current and former subscribers.

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TopTV finds itself in a major customer crisis after the pay TV operator did an erroneous double debit order run, taking double the amount of money out of customers' bank accounts and even running debit orders on the bank accounts of people who are no longer TopTV subscribers and discovered with a shock that money have been taken out of their accounts although they've cancel their service months ago.

Scared and angry current as well as former TopTV subscribers are threatening to cancel their subscriptions, several of whom claim that the additional amount - ranging from R99 to R249 depending on their subscriped bouquet package (meaning some were debited R498 for instance instead of R249) - are creating massive strain on their personal finances, leaving them unable to afford food, petrol or pay for other basic services. Former TopTV subscribers who've canceled their subscriptions got a nasty shock when debit orders they thought were terminated suddenly went through again - taking money they haven't budgeted for.

TopTV recently admitted that some of its 200 000 subscribers are active and getting an unscrambled signal although they're not paying and are behind on subscription fees and blamed TopTV's billing system - the same system that now created chaos with the double debit order mistake. ''As everyone is aware we had issues at launch, one of those being our call centre being inundated with calls. During this period certain details were entered into our system incorrectly which resulted in some of our subscribers not knowing how or where to pay, and in certain instances us not having the correct details for TopTV subscribers,'' Elouise Kelly, On Digital Media's chief marketing officer told TV with Thinus on 27 January. It now seems the TopTV billing system has other problems as well.

Several TopTV subscribers complained since the billing problem first surfaced at the beginning of the week that started to swell to a massive amount of angry subscribers who discovered the wrong, bigger amounts deducted from their bank accounts and now demand their money back. Several have already been charged additional banking fees by their banking institutions for what is TopTV's fault as well as many customers who's accounts received penalty fees for insifficient funds. Many TopTV subscribers are so angry, they're threatening to cancel their TopTV subscriptions.

This is the biggest customer crisis TopTV is facing since its call centre capacity and installation turn-around time both proved inadequate for several weeks after its commercial launch in May last year. I have asked TopTV why this double debit order problem occured, how TopTV is rectifying it, how many subscribers are affected, and I'm awaiting a response.