Outraged TopTV subscribers are venting in yet another in a long line of customer crises for the beleaguered pay-TV operator, with subscribers saying that although their accounts with the Woodmead based satellite pay-TV operator are paid up and up to date, that they are suddenly being confronted with scrambled signals and unable to receive any TopTV channels.
TopTV subscribers are lashing out after they woke up on Tuesday with a black screen simply stating: "This Service is blocked (4)". It's not clear how many TopTV subscribers are affected but the problem launched an avalanche of complaints.
TopTV subscribers claim they struggled immensely and couldn't get through by telephone to ODM's call centre and that they're not getting any responses or answers by email from the satellite pay-TV operator which is currently being taken over by China's StarTimes following a bail-out earlier this year.
Prepaid TopTV subscribers were affected as well, saying its impossible to activate an account and being told that the smart card number is invalid.
As a barrage of complaints came flooding in to On Digital Media on Tuesday, bewildered TopTV subscribers all complained about the same thing: blocked channels. It appears that the introduction of yet another new billing system, this time a day-to-day billing system, is to blame which is creating some kind of technical issue.
With the new payment and billing system, it appears as if TopTV subscribers must make a payment before the 1st of a month or have their signal cut off, whereas customers still got an unencoded service when they paid on the 1st or within a few days after a month has started.
TopTV previously suffered embarrassment blamed on faulty implementation of billing systems. TopTV erroneously and infamously ran a double debit order on thousands of TopTV subscribers' bank accounts in February 2011 when it "upgraded" to a new billing system.
A year later in April 2012 TopTV again made the same mistake related to billing system mistakes and again made a debit order mess when it took money from more than 17 000 TopTV subscribers too early, incorrectly and in some cases double. Now it appears that TopTV cut subscribers off because accounts, although paid, did not reflect on TopTV's systems before or on 1 October - a consequence of the new billing system.
A TopTV spokesperson confirmed to TV with Thinus that indeed a new billing system was introduced.
The company didn't say why TopTV subscribers are suddenly complaining en masse and why subscribers who say their accounts are up to date suddenly found their pay-TV service blocked.
Anxious TopTV subscribers complain of being on hold for anything from 40 minutes and longer, desperately trying to get through to TopTV's call centre on Tuesday, eventually giving up and with many fearing a final shut down of TopTV which is in business rescue. ODM on Tuesday also ended two further channels on its bouquet - Top Crime and Top History - and ended Top Learn which became Mindset TV.
"What is wrong? Is this finally the end?" asked one TopTV subscriber, echoeing the sentiment of scores of TopTV subscribers who had no idea why their signal was suddenly blocked.
Several highly disgruntled TopTV subscribers said that the TopTV call centre was unreachable on Tuesday, some even after holding for as long as an hour in a desperate attempt to try and talk to someone at On Digital Media to try and get their signal restored.
TopTV subscribers who've never missed a payment and always pay on the first of a month saw their TopTV scrambled, just after being told they will lose two more channels permanently.
"TopTV should change their name to Worst TV. You pay, but the service is blocked," wrote a TopTV subscriber. "Your phone number does not work."
Another irate TopTV subscriber said "since my account and services are paid for, my questions is why am I not able to view them? If you have technical problems, the least bit you can do is inform the customers that are paying you!"
Another disgruntled TopTV subscriber said "I pay and then I must see channels taken down, channels that I paid to watch that month. It never gets replaced with a channel that is about the same thing. To contact them today cost me well over R100. But nothing. I could not even speak to one person. Who is going to refund me that money? Who is going to refund for the channels that keeps disappearing?"
