The Voice - Consumer's Voice

What should they do?

Kindly assist me here. I booked accommodation in Mogoditshane in mid-month of February. In one of the rooms, the room was not readily prepared as expected, I realized in the morning that the linen was dirty as I arrived at night, I called the one who offered us the room and showed him everything and he said he will come back to me.

I called them the following day. They gave me two options. Free accommodation or food and I told them I don't trust anymore now. One employee kept on giving false promises that he will call back after talking to the manager. Another employee was so defensive of the company and told me I was given options and have declined them, so I can't be helped. I asked them about their operational policy they don't want to share anything.

From 16th February I have been asking to talk to the manager or director and the three I mentioned, they always have stories, that the manager is not there.

I paid P859 for this service and slept in dirty sheets. They don't care about effects of their compromised standards in relation to health, in this era. Kindly advise me on the route to take, as I requested for a refund but no one want to take responsibility.

This is completely unacceptable. When we spend our hard-earned money in lodges and hotels, we can expect certain things. Obviously the more we spend, the more we can expect but I don't think it matters if we spend tens of thousands or just hundreds, we should always expect courtesy, smiling faces and, perhaps most important of all, cleanliness. Even the cheapest of places should offer us these things.
This place clearly doesn't offer even the basics. You deserved clean sheets, a warm welcome and urgent action if something went wrong. A decently run lodge would have been shocked when you reported your complaint and would have moved heaven and Earth to recover from it. They would have gone out of their way to make you a happy customer again. Rudeness, false promises and management who don't care are the wrong approach.

I approached the management of the lodge and they gave me a very similar response. Blue ticks on WhatsApp, unanswered messages on Facebook and emails that received no reply. Do they want their reputation to be any worse than it already is?

Must I pay?

I wanted to ask about school fees clearance in private school. I paid 1/3 of first term for my kids, and they stopped going to school on 25th February 2022, due to outstanding of fees. Now I took transfer for them to government school.

My question is I'm I supposed to clear the 2/3 fees outstanding without any discount since my kids only went for a month and didn't write any term exam. Kindly assist with the advice.

This will all depend on what is in the contract you signed with the school. My experience with private schools is that term fees are almost always payable in advance because of the difficulty many have with parents paying the fees late and the impact this has on their finances. Very often schools need the fees to keep the schools running, to pay salaries, power and water, books and internet access. That's why they want the fees in advance. I suspect you were lucky only to have paid one third of the term's fees.

However, that's where your luck might end. It's likely that you agreed to pay the entire term fees in the contract which you should check as soon as possible. If you committed to paying for the whole term then they're within their rights to demand you pay the outstanding amount.

Check that contract!