Scores of South Africans have raised serious accusations about a major DStv partner’s business practices. South African consumer sentiment gauging platform Hellopeter had just over 1,000 reviews of the company at the time of writing. The average score of these reviews gave the company a TrustIndex score of 1.7 out of 10.
Among the allegations against On Air TV were that sales agents claim their decoders would work without an active DStv subscription.
Myriad people have also reported that the company deducted debit orders from their bank accounts even though they don’t have an On Air TV product or were no longer customers.
The descriptions in the Hellopeter reviews reveal a deep dissatisfaction, with multiple people complaining On Air TV’s agents misled them.
Among its offerings, On Air sells decoders on 24-month contracts at R179 per month. It charges the same amount for the latest Explora Ultra and older Explora 3, but includes installation with the latter.
The Explora Ultra is currently priced at R1,999, while the Explora 3B sells for between R1,599 and R1,999 with installation.
At R179 per month over 24 months, a customer would pay R4,296 before the contract matures. That works out to roughly 38.5% annual interest on a retail price of R1,999.
On Air’s Explora offers are shown in the images below.
It appears that many of On Air’s customers were led to believe the installation also applied to the Explora Ultra but soon learnt they had to pay for this separately.
Another recurring complaint from multiple reviewers was that On Air agents allegedly told prospective customers the Explora Ultra was plug-and-play and that you could use its third-party streaming apps without a DStv subscription — which is not the case.
While the FAQ on the On Air website specifically states the offers are only available to DStv subscribers, the decoders are seemingly being sold to customers with no active subscription.
In addition to the complaints about the alleged false information on the decoder deals, several people reported issues with rogue debit orders taken off their bank accounts by On Air.
Some of these reports came from customers who had claimed they paid up their accounts years ago, while others were from people who said they never took up any of the company’s products.
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Others said the company had flagged false missed payments on their credit profiles, negatively affecting their credit scores.
“Took out a DStv Explora with them in 2019 for 24 months, paid up until 2021,” one user said.
“Surprisingly, now in July 2022, they went and listed a missed payment at the credit bureau.”
That customer’s complaint was one of a plethora relating to dubious debit orders.
At the time of publication, On Air had not responded to the majority of complaints on Hellopeter submitted during August 2022.
MyBroadband queried the complaints with On Air via its official dstv@onair.co.za email address, but our ticket was closed without the contents of our email being addressed.
The company responded to queries sent via its parent company, Ignition Group.
Company previously fined
A scan of On Air’s terms and conditions revealed it is the trading name of a company called Comit Technologies, owned by Ignition Group.
In a recent press statement about its partnership with MultiChoice, Ignition Group said On Air had sold 60,000 PVR decoders — including 15,000 Explora Ultras and 45,000 Explora 3s — in a year.
In total, it has sold 285,000 DStv decoders, the second-highest number of any distributor, and generated subscription value for DStv in excess of R1.1 billion.
Comit Technologies also has a poor average rating of 1.13 out of 5 on Hellopter, with numerous customers complaining about rogue debit orders.
Notably, Comit Technologies and one of Ignition’s other subsidiaries, Viva Cover, were recently fined R11,000 each by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).
That was for issuing policies and deducting premiums without the consent of policyholders between November 2013 and April 2016.
The FSCA also found that Comit and Viva Cover failed to provide certain compulsory information to customers and did not act with due care and diligence towards their clients.
Given the correlation between the description of the violations in the FSCA’s sanctions of Comit and Viva Cover, and the claims made by On Air customers, we asked the FSCA if it was also investigating On Air.
It did not provide feedback at the time of publication. However, since On Air TV does not provide financial services, this matter falls under the Consumer Goods and Services Ombudsman (CGSO) or consumer commissioner.
On Air parent company Ignition Group told MyBroadband that it was a member of the South African Credit and Risk Reporting Association and the CGSO and had built policies and procedures in line with these associations.
“In doing so, we have developed a robust compliance process to ensure that our sales scripts contain all the material terms governing the sale, that our sales agents are trained in the strict implementation of these sales scripts, and that any deviations are strictly dealt with,” the company said.
Ignition disputed complaints about packages being sold without subscriptions, saying it only has a bundled offering that includes a DStv decoder and “comes with additional service subscriptions, products and features”.
The company said it was “disappointing” that some of its “valued” On Air TV customers felt it necessary to resort to expressing their frustrations on online complaint forums instead of using its official customer support centre number or email address.
MultiChoice said that accredited dealers like On Air sold decoders on a separate finance deal, making the customer liable for the hardware they purchased from the dealer “should they choose to cancel their subscription”.
It said this was standard practice when taking out any contract that includes a device.
“This information is shared with the customer before the deal is concluded,” it stated.
It did not address customer complaints about decoders being sold without subscriptions, nor the allegations that On Air agents assured them they would not require a subscription to use the decoder.
Source: My Broadband
