Wednesday, 11 April 2007

MyAdsl

Its amazing what a strong community the MyAdsl web site has become. I am all for such open communities and applaud the site and Rudolph for the fantastic work they are doing in being activists towards bringing down the costs / improving service levels in the broadband space in South Africa. Its exactly what we need.

I believe strongly that by making broadband access (not so much the speed but the always on-ness) affordable to main stream South Africans, will be the single biggest stimulant to growing online commerce in South Africa (while adding many South Africans to the Internet economy thereby uplifting the country overall socially and economically).

Having said this, from my personal experience I have found some of the members on MyAdsl to be quite scathing having posted very negative things about bidorbuy for example (without having substantiated their information). Some times it seems we as South Africans have become very negative and cynical towards things (and companies in particular). I almost want to say to these guys making these negatives posts, "While we are a business so we need to make money, I'm on your side! We want the same things - fairness and justice in this world." I want bidorbuy to be a strong close knit community like the MyAdsl community where the majority viewpoint of our community rules. Perhaps that is a bit idealistic?

I suppose it is par for the course that as we grow we will get more and more of this type of thing happening on open forums. Also, I suppose it only takes a few disgruntled customers to initiate these negative posts. What can do?

7 comments:

Antowan said...

Nice post! :o)

Daniel J Colyn said...

Hi Andy did you buy on Eden Island?
I bought and are a bit worried about broken prommises moving goalposts etc.
It is not un-common for developers to walk a bit, but I was hopeing Pam Goldings and Barclays Bank international reputation would help.
I am afraid not.
Do you know any other owners?

Daniel J Colyn said...

I would be interested to make contact with other owners.

djcsys@iafrica.com

Unknown said...

Sorry, Andy, but MyADSL is not an open community. It has become a vehicle to push Vodacom products and services. There is only one Official representative on the forum and he is given protected status.

The Vodacom company uses so-called polls conducted by the forum to advertise their products. However just try and get information about how the polls were conducted and see how far you get. You can slate Vodacom on the forums, but if you ask too many of the 'right' questions you might just find your posts removed (common occurrence) or your user name banned with no reason given.

Unknown said...

Hi Andy
My user name on bidorbuy is micavdm. Read on one of your blogs that you are on the user side. I hope this is true. My account was disabled for alleged shill bidding, i contacted Morne Booysen and explained that it cant be. I actually went so far as to get hold of the buyer and as it turns out he is a techie at @lantic service providers. He quickly got both his and my ip adress and can proof that it was not done from the same pc's he also spoke to someone at bob but to no avail. I tried speaking to attie as well but got no answer from them only that my account will be blacklisted if I keep it up. I apologise for bothering you but also read on the net that you worked real hard on making bob a huge success but that these few individuals are making your hard work undone. I really hope that you can assist me as I do want to follow all routes. Thank you

Unknown said...

Hi Andy
My user name on bidorbuy is micavdm. Read on one of your blogs that you are on the user side. I hope this is true. My account was disabled for alleged shill bidding, i contacted Morne Booysen and explained that it cant be. I actually went so far as to get hold of the buyer and as it turns out he is a techie at @lantic service providers. He quickly got both his and my ip adress and can proof that it was not done from the same pc's he also spoke to someone at bob but to no avail. I tried speaking to attie as well but got no answer from them only that my account will be blacklisted if I keep it up. I apologise for bothering you but also read on the net that you worked real hard on making bob a huge success but that these few individuals are making your hard work undone. I really hope that you can assist me as I do want to follow all routes. Thank you

LukeWarm said...

Hi Andy

It is with great interest that I read this post.

I think that should the BidorBuy network actually want a more positive close-knot community, the attitude of the administrators need to seriously change.

Consider staff training in conflict management and people skills as after being on the sidelines on a number of disputes with the team, I think this is the CORE of the problem.

Further, the avoidance of the tough questions doesnt help the image at all. Remember, the buyers and the SELLERS is what makes your site great.

A good start would be by replying to the actual issues of the client.

There is a list here that goes back a year, without a single rebuttal from your team:

http://www.hellopeter.com/comp_report.php?company=bidorbuy&period=365&page=2