Active since Mar 2009
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22 reviews3 months ago
Stay away from this dishonest company
So in 2024, I had a surround sound system that was not working so great anymore. Phoned a bunch of places to find out who can repair it and MasterCare came up. On the phone, they convinced me to take out a contract to save on some costs for the repair and they misrepresented themselves, claiming that they can not only fix my system, but that they "fix Sony Mgongo systems all the time". Based on this misrepresentation, I opted for the contract. After signing up, I took the system in on 6 June 2024 and after about a week, I tried following up, but no feedback. I kept following up, but nothing. Then about a month half later, I received an email saying that my repair has been completed, but after another 2 weeks of following up, I still haven't received my system back yet or any feedback on when it will be delivered. After finally going in, it turns out that the system wasn't repaired. In fact, they didn't really even attempt anything except to order ORIGINAL replacement parts from Sony. This was never an option because the system is obsolete which was the whole reason I took it to them in the first place: To repair or to replace with alternate parts. I even told them when taking out the contract that they can't get original parts for the system anymore, but they said that "they repair Sony Mgongo systems all the time". So on the 25th of July, I sent them an email requesting cancellation as they misrepresented themselves and at that point, I wanted nothing to do with them anymore. The email was read by a "Bruce Rabie" according to the Read Receipt and subsequently ignored, so I blocked the debit order and their contact numbers. In October, they followed up with regards to payment via email since they noticed that their debit orders were being returned, and I rep**** with a detailed message saying that I cancelled the service and highlighting their misrepresentations. No response to that was received. They have since kept sending me statements showing outstanding balances and now at the end / beginning of the year, I actually have time to take on this nonsense. I've tried sorting this out privately but emails to them largely get ignored and I refuse to talk on the phone because I have no paper trail then. So now we're doing this publicly and after that, I'll take this to the consumer ombudsman. First off, I gave written notice for cancellation in the form of emails (valid under the CPA) which means that in the unlikely worst case scenario, I would be liable for the 10 remaining months of the 1 year contract, so you can forget about the R5000 on your statement. However, I would dispute even the 10 months since you misrepresented your services and the CPA allows early termination of whatever fixed term contracts you may have, by giving 20 business days written notice. I might have cancelled the debit order a bit early after my cancellation notice, so at most, I'll be willing to pay two more months of that contract in the spirit of fairness. You've got my email address if you want to communicate to rectify my account, but if I get another statement from you, we'll escalate this to the next avenue.
112 replies
3 months ago
The end of an era
It is sad when companies lose what makes them unique and opt to simplify their menus so they can be just like everyone else. KFC removed pineapple and completely dumbed down their menus, Romans removed a number of toppings (incl banana) and it now seems that Debonairs removed their sweet & sour range. When Debonairs launched, you had 2 big things going for you: Free / fast delivery and a unique menu with options and flavours that you couldn't really get anywhere else, the latter being my main attraction to Debonairs. We would drive over 20km to our closest Debonairs back in the day just so I can order one or two subs plus a Sweet & Sour chicken pizza plus whatever the rest of the family wanted. Subs and your sweet & sour sauce are things that some of your competitors do offer, but they don't compare to the quality and taste that you had. When you discontinued subs, my orders dropped from almost weekly to maybe monthly and with the discontinuation of sweet and sour sauce, I'm afraid that this is now the end of the road. To be fair, you still have things like the double stack and triple decker that I suppose is unique to you, but that's a bit "weird" and never really appealed to me (tried it, didn't like it). So I guess this isn't really a complaint, but rather a farewell. It was a good 25-ish years and you will be missed. P.S. I don't suppose you can tell me where I can buy your specific sweet and sour sauce in large quantities (or how to make it)? I've tried almost every sweet and sour sauce I could find and none compares to yours.
0 replies
5 months ago
KYC: Unacceptable blocking of bank accounts without notice
Yesterday I noticed that all the accounts for my business have been removed from my banking profile. After not able to reach either our business banker or private banker, I resorted to phoning the business desk who then proceeded to transfer me back and forth between departments. Eventually, one business desk consultant managed to figure out that an "Oupa" made changes on my mandate earlier the day without my consent and that she'll escalate this to her manager and phone me back in 15 minutes. After no feedback, I finally got a KYC email this morning asking for updated information and documentation. Up to this point, there has NEVER been any warning or communication regarding KYC. We did have a change of directors earlier this year and I've enquired about how to effect this change on our banking profile, but the request only came from our side. At no point did FNB contact us about it. In fact, even the email today says nothing about losing access to accounts and instead says "This email is with regards to a request received to change signatory....". A request I never initiated other than enquiring about why I can't access my business accounts. I've sent through all the documentation now (which might take 2 - 4 business days) and then escalated it. However, we have a VAT payment due today which will incur a R13,000 penalty if not paid on time. Since FNB has locked me out of my business account without notice, I will be passing this fine on to them if my access isn't restored today. The point of this review though is that FNB has become absolutely pathetic where communication has become non-existent and they'll rather just block access to bank accounts before sending a simple email to let the client know that their KYC is not correct. This behaviour is contrary to the Banking Code of Conduct. I'm seriously rethinking my entire relationship and overall portfolio with FNB.
106 replies
18 months ago
Great service on a tight deadline
Already reviewed them on Google because I didn't see that they've got a HelloPeter page. So I'll just copy and paste that review here. Good thing I didn't read the bad reviews before ordering, otherwise I might have missed out. We needed professional quality brochures printed: 2000 of them and on a tight deadline. I first had a couple of them printed and delivered for a physical proof of concept and then ordered the remaining 2000. With regards to the quality, it was perfect and we received numerous compliments on how good and professional the brochures were. Sure, a lot of that praise is probably intended for the designer, but the quality of the brochure self also played a role. With regards to the service, the people actually respond to emails within an hour. I was kept in the loop most of the time and the brochures arrived on the promised delivery date. They even threw in some free lamination for the brochure covers. Over the past 2 months we've been dealing with various printing companies from business cards, t-shirts, banners, water bottles, flags and then these brochures (all done by different companies) and this was the best company we've dealt with. Will use them again next year when we maybe do this all again.
0 replies
36 months ago
Help - I need Coke
This is a sequel to my HelloPeter complaint from 9 October 2022 (15:06). In that case I got lucky and found a proper batch the very next week. Can I please get some Coke that actually tastes like Coke without any weird after tastes or smells? My taste senses are quite fine so ever since the standards of Coke has dropped, I've been struggling to get Coke that is drinkable. With Coke it is either one of two extremes: Awesome or disgusting. I stopped buying Coke for years until I discovered some drinkable batches last year and have been very happily consuming Coke until about February. Since then there has been no drinkable Coke. Here are the batches that I've bought and tried (by expiry date): Awesome batches: I was fortunate enough to find drinkable/awesome batches that expire on 14 September, 14 December, a batch in January and February (can't remember exact expiry dates) and specifically: 2, 3, 21 and 24 March (my stock however ran out around end of March) Disgusting batches that I've tried since then from all over South Centurion: - April: 3, 20, 24, 25, 27 - May: 1, 4, 9, 13, 16 - June: 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 28 - July: 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 15, 18, 20, 25, 26, 31 - August: 1 & 2 So since March when I started recording the batches, out of 42 different batches, only 4 were drinkable. At the moment I'm drinking one or two cans a day of imported Cherry Coke which is ok, but not ideal (and expensive on top of it). I'm starting to give up on finding a decent batch again so I just want to try and find out where exactly the contamination is happening. Do you manufacture the syrup here in SA or is that being imported and you only mix the imported syrup with bad water? If the syrup is being imported, I'm open to looking at the option of maybe getting a fountain setup myself like the restaurants have and "manufacturing" my own Coke with proper water. However, I don't want to spend all that money if the syrup is already contaminated with whatever causes the bad after tastes and smells.
53 replies
38 months ago
Paying double insurance because they refuse to respond
On 4 January, they send me a policy document for new insurance out of the blue. I can't remember if I signed up for it a year ago or not (when we signed the building loan), but on that same day, I responded to that email and asked them to immediately cancel the insurance and provided proof of my own insurance that I've been paying for two months already. I've sent multiple emails, I spoke to a home loan consultant on around the 6th about it and they just said to send proof of my insurance to the email address I already sent it to. I contacted the Insurance complaints department and even the main complaints department at Standard Bank. Nothing gets these people's attention. The main complaints department responded a couple of times and helped to force the home loans side to finally respond to queries on their side but they seem powerless to get anything done on the insurance side. As a desperate measure, I'm considering stopping payment on the home loan altogether until they cancel and refund my insurance premiums. The fact that they're negligent on their side and not reading their emails shouldn't cost me money. I'll first see if anything gets resolved through this complaint before resorting to that.
56 replies
41 months ago
The reviews are misleading
For my new house, I had to order a lot of aluminium frames and double glazed windows. I was skeptical about using these guys due to the number of bad reviews both here and on Google Reviews. However, my building contractor managed to get the cheapest price from them and insisted on using them (he has used them for years). Now due to it being end of the year and lots of loadshedding, they said that they were behind schedule and delivery would take about 4 weeks. After one week, 80% of the frames and windows arrived, the next week the last things arrived except for side windows for the one folding door. Those arrived literally the day before or on the date that they were originally supposed to deliver everything. After the plastering, there was one issue on the one door that didn't want to close properly and another door that was s****ing when opening / closing. They came out promptly after we notified them and they fixed both issues. Other reviews mentioned the "lack of staff friendliness". The owner that came out came to do the measurements and he wasn't particularly friendly or unfriendly... just professional. I prefer that to wasting time talking about the weather and standing around smiling like an idiot. I did also go to their shop yesterday to order some glass shelves and doors for some of the kitchen cupboards and the lady couldn't really give advice or recommendations, but she did say my shelves that I eventually ordered, would be ready today and it was.
0 replies
42 months ago
Great service from Damien
Now that my business with CTM has concluded on my building project, I thought it would be good to finish it off with a review. While in the beginning, things were a bit of a mission (think I even logged a complaint here), I finally came across Damien Abdoll and he was so helpful, that I stopped trying to email CTM and just phone or email him directly. I would send him an email and he would reply within reasonable time and get things done. Never really had to follow up or anything and he was most patient and helpful while I kept moving delivery dates. So this is basically just a good review of Damien and not so much CTM. Without him, this review would have had far fewer stars.
132 replies
43 months ago
The taste of Coke
I tried contacting Coca Cola directly, but not sure if the email reached the correct people / company, so here goes. I’ve been a big Coke drinker since I left school many years ago, averaging about 2L a day, sometimes more in summer. I do have rather fine taste and thus I don’t really like most of the drinks out there (like coffee, alcohol, etc.), but I have always liked my Coke (as long as it’s not flat). From around 2005, every now and then I would get a “bad batch” that would either taste horribly disgusting or have an extremely nasty aftertaste. As the years went on, this was occurring more often (the taste and more specifically, the aftertaste kept getting worse) until somewhere in the 2010s, the situation had become so bad, that finding a drinkable batch was like winning the lottery. I eventually stopped drinking Coke altogether, but I would always buy a couple of cans / bottles per month just to check if there wasn’t a drinkable batch. When I find one, then I buy thousands of rands worth of Coke and I’d drink it over the following months. The last time that happened was towards the end of 2016 until now… By some luck I recently found multiple drinkable batches in a row. First there was a drinkable batch (expiry date of 26 June), then another (batch expiring 17 August) and then the last one was the batch that expired on 14 September. I have exactly one and a half bottles of the 14 September batch left (less by the time you're reading this), but I would really like to keep drinking Coke. Clearly these last few batches are proof that you still know how to make Coke that tastes good like it used to (even with the reduced sugar recipe). Is it perhaps possible to track through your quality control, the conditions under which the above batches were produced and advise of newer batches that are produced under the exact same conditions? I’ve tried random batches (plastic bottles) that expires in October, November, 27 December and 7 & 9 January and I haven’t been able to find another drinkable batch yet. I don’t know if it is the concentrate that is contaminated or the source of water that it is mixed with to produce the end result (however Coke is made), but obviously something is different between the good batches and your regular batches. Someone has pointed out that it might be the way it is stored, but that’s not likely. My last stock has been standing in the hot garage for over a month and are almost a month past the expiry date and they’re still fine. If it is the water source that is bad (and not the concentrate), I would even consider getting a soda fountain like they have in the restaurants and mixing it myself with my own purified water, but I think that setup is somewhat expensive and I don’t want to gamble that money away on something that might not solve the issue. So, any recommendations or is this the end of the road again and back to plain water for another few years?
266 replies
46 months ago
Useless online support
I ordered products online and despite me specifying the correct company details and VAT number, the invoice is not made out to the company and with the wrong address. Further, there was an item they did not have in stock and I've been trying to get a refund ever since. After numerous emails and phone calls, I've still not received a response to get this resolved.
536 replies
Review Distribution
5 Star
4 (18.181818181818183%)
4 Star
2 (9.090909090909092%)
3 Star
1 (4.545454545454546%)
2 Star
7 (31.818181818181817%)
1 Star
8 (36.36363636363637%)