by Thinus Ferreira
Angry DStv subscribers are slammed MultiChoice over its lack of communication for hours after an unexplained outage of the pay-TV company's DStv service on Tuesday with MultiChoice that decided not to answer specific media questions sent to the company that represent questions from its DStv subscribers.
DStv subscribers started venting on social media on Tuesday after they lost service, with many saying that they are unable to watch anything on DStv since all DStv channels are down.
DStv subscribers only got the E32-4 error message on their TV screens of: "Smartcard and subscription validation in progress. This may take a few minutes. Do not change channels or press any buttons on the remote. If the error continues after 5 minutes, clear this error using our Self Service channels."
Just before midday on Tuesday, MultiChoice finally acknowledged its unexplained "system issue" publicly, saying on Twitter that "We are experiencing a system issue which has impacted some DStv customers attempting to view programming."
"We are working to resolve the problem. Due to the nature of the issue our service agents will not be able to assist with reconnections until it has been resolved."
Meanwhile, DStv subscribers slammed MultiChoice for not responding to messages, calls messages on Whatsapp or any of the helplines, saying that they've been waiting for hours to hear from MultiChoice.
TVwithThinus asked MultiChoice several specific questions - all received from concerned DStv subscribers, many who tried to watch the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games on SuperSport - in a media enquiry to the pay-TV's corporate affairs division, headed up by Joe Heshu as MultiChoice's group executive for corporate affairs.
Can MultiChoice please say what led to the "system issue" that caused DStv subscribers to lose their DStv? MultiChoice has no response to the question.
Can MultiChoice please say specifically why it has taken hours to communicate and to speak to DStv subscribers to acknowledge the problem? Again, MultiChoice had no response to the question.
Some DStv customers are asking if they will get a refund for losing out on access and viewing, and people saying that they can't trust that DStv will show them the content they want to watch in terms of the Olympic Games when it's on. Does MultiChoice have any answers for these viewers?
Again MultiChoice offered no answer to this question from its corporate affairs division tasked to communicate with media.
MultiChoice only had a terse response, not addressing any questions specifically as asked, saying: "We are currently experiencing a system issue, which
has impacted some DStv customers attempting to view programming.
DStv has communicated the issue to our customers across our platforms and our
teams are currently working on restoring our service to those customers who
were affected."
