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I can break the news that a massive 17 000 TopTV subscribers who have active standing debit orders with the South African pay TV operator have been affected and been hugely inconvenienced when TopTV ran a debit order instruction incorrectly, wrongly, and way too early, on thousands of unsuspecting TopTV subscribers' bank accounts.
Yesterday I detailed TopTV newest debit order disaster which has TopTV subscribers fuming and now I can reveal that it affected a whopping 17 000 subscribers who trusted TopTV with their bank details.
The latest TopTV debit order drama comes exactly a year after TopTV created a double debit order disaster by running a debit order instruction twice on 1 500 TopTV subscribers whose bank account details TopTV had - as well as on the bank accounts of people who were no longer TopTV subscribers.
After outrage from subscribers who suddenly discovered money missing from their bank accounts, TopTV admits that a massive 17 000 TopTV subscribers had money taken out of their accounts at the wrong time when TopTV run a debit order incorrectly.
Many TopTV subscribers incurred bank charges and costs because of insufficient funds when TopTV suddenly ran a debit order instruction on March 16 – weeks earlier than subscribers indicated and their chosen debit order date. Several reacted with outrage about the unexpected gap in their monthly budget. TopTV targets lower to middle class income earners in South Africa.
Irate subscribers who had the money unexpectedly taken from their accounts struggled to suddenly pay for anything from transport and taxis, to electricity, food and even pet food. Several also complained that TopTV then debited then twice, running another debit order after the first debit order which was done incorrectly, did in fact go through.
TopTV told angry and tearful subscribers that it was "a technical problem". The debit order mistake from On Digital Media's (ODM) accounting and payment department on subscribers' bank accounts comes exactly a year after TopTV's first double debit order disaster. A year ago TopTV took double the amount of money from 1 500 current and former TopTV subscribers' bank accounts, and in some cases more.
TopTV then apologised profusely and blamed an upgrade of TopTV billing and accounting system for the double billing. Last year TopTV said the company is "adamant not to have a recurrence and is better able to handle this". Earlier this year TopTV's new interim CEO, Eddie Mbalo, promised better customer care and an improvement in customer service levels.
TopTV says "approximately 17 000 of subscribers' monthly debit orders were incorrectly debited on 16 March, which was earlier than their chosen debit order date. The debit for these subscribers was not reversed. Of these, only those customers who defaulted on their payments had the debit order resubmitted on their chosen debit order day."
"TopTV sincerely apologises to those affected subscribers for this error, which was of a different nature to the one that occurred last year," says TopTV. "Checks and balances have now been put in place to ensure that this will not happen again."
