Are You Breaking The Law For Using A South African DStv Account?

A lot of people and local businesses now have South Africa DStv accounts instead of Zimbabwe DStv accounts. While you probably knew that unaccredited agents who are facilitating the process of opening these South Africa DStv Accounts (SRAs) are doing something illegal, did you know that as a customer you are breaking the law as well in using that account? Multichoice said:

If an agent is not authorised, we at MultiChoice cannot verify that the service to be obtained will be successful and of the right quality, nor can we guarantee that connection to the DStv service will happen at all or it may well be erratic, and the (DStv) service may possibly even be illegally sourced. And with illegal business activity, all parties end up being guilty of involvement, even the customer.

In other words, DStv services that are being delivered in Zimbabwe through SRA DStv accounts are evading tax, so the agent who is installing the service and the one who is receiving the service (the customer) are both breaking the breaking the law.

Accordingly, to avoid being on the wrong side of the law, DStv is asking you to use accredited installers and agents who don’t install illegally sourced services.

Why are people using illegally sourced

The thing is, people turn to unaccredited agents because they are usually close to their residence and better yet, they are cheaper than accredited DStv agents. I’ve just asked two accredited agents how much they charge for the same DStv support services (installing DStv decoder) and I was told $30 and $40 but two unaccredited agents in high density surburbs I’ve just asked are charging $10 and $15.

As customers turn to these close and affordable unaccredited agents, that’s when they are exposed to SRAs DStv accounts – which one can easily get. SRAs are cheaper to subscribe than local accounts so people don’t have second thoughts when given a chance to have them.

A blessing in disguise

Of course, unaccredited agents who deal with SRAs DStv accounts are draining Multichoice Zimbabwe’s revenue. However, not all unaccredited agents are bad. Well, there are unaccredited agents who just deal in local DStv accounts and not SRAs DStv accounts. These type of agents are beneficial to Multichoice Zimbabwe. Why?

These unaccredited agents are increasing the uptake and usage of DStv services since their support services are within the reach of a certain bunch of customers than accredited agents. Additionally and most importantly, their rates for the support services are more affordable than accredited agents. You then realize that this unaccredited network of agents is actually playing a crucial role for Multichoice Zimbabwe (and Dstv too) even though some of them don’t do a perfect job like the accredited agents supposedly do.

What Multichoice should do

Multichoice Zimbabwe should persuade these unaccredited agents (both who deal with with SRAs and local DStv accounts) to come and get trained. After training them, Multichoice Zimbabwe should incentivize the previously unaccredited agents to urge people to use local DStv accounts. If the incentives are not enough to make them stop helping customers to open SRAs DStv accounts, then the only way to put an end to the practice is by just matching the subscription prices and content of Zimbabwe DStv accounts with SRAs DStv accounts. That way, Multichoice will get more revenue whilst it maintains a wide and easily reachable agent network.