INTELVISION NAMED AND SHAMED

Many people have called our offices this week, apparently at the end of their tether, to complain about the services offered by Intelvision. The criticisms were more pronounced in respect of its internet services, which are more offline than online, although other areas of its services were also singled out for criticism. Unlike Cable and Wireless and Kokonet which had in the past experienced slow connectivity because of alleged bandwidth problems, Intelvision have substantially less subscribers to its internet services and should not, by any stretch of the imagination, be experiencing such problems. The problems are so bad that even tourists who have visited our islands and have experienced their services first hand, have surprisingly gone out of their way to post their complaints on the internet. We publish below some of the complaints:

“For a cable television company, Intelvision leaves a lot to be desired. Frequent signal loss is a big problem that occurs on almost a weekly basis. The outages can last from minutes to hours. It is extremely frustrating for all viewers.

Intelvision is now offering cable internet and a phone system that is attractive in price compared to the other local companies. But their practice of taking your money and making you wait for a minimum of a week before installation is nothing short of criminal. I base this on the fact that individuals are getting installations on a “testing basis”. That should have been completed long before offering the service to the public. How can a company accept your funds, tell you to wait and in the mean time install for what seems to be certain elite people on the premise of “trial testing” and make long standing customers pay and wait? Appears to be loading the bank for interest profit to me.”

George Toplis from the U.K wrote:

“Hi, my experience regarding Intelvision is absolutely the pits. My wife and I go to the Seychelles every year and use a friend’s pc to communicate with family, work and I also check my Emails of which some have needed urgent attention. I found it impossible to connect to my provider in the U.K.to retrieve my mails. Talk about slow; my old dial up was certainly faster than the Intelvision “service”. If Intelvision were operating in England they would not last one month. I gave up trying to connect to England and spent a small fortune using my mobile. Intelvision really needs to get their house in order to survive in the world of global communications. George.”

The complaints are not only limited to the internet services as subscribers have also complained about the customer service as well which is more or less non existent. People who have called the company to complain have stated that there is a pre-recorded computer message which replies but no one actually pick up the phone. Even when customers have paid their Rs.600 subscription fee by standing order they have complained of disconnection though Intelvision had been paid.

Intelvision commenced operation in Seychelles on October 9th 2004, and described itself as an innovative cable operator. The company boasts that it provides a diverse range of telecommunication services in the Seychelles. It further stated that its aim was to capitalise on the huge capabilities of broadband technology in Seychelles and that it has revolutionised both the entertainment and communication industry in the country with just one click. However, the experiences of customers are manifestly different to what the company professes to be offering. Remember the old adage that the customer is always right?