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Cell C loses case, slam banner stays up

Johannesburg - The High Court in Johannesburg on Thursday dismissed an urgent application with costs by Cell C against a banner critical of service at one of its retail outlets.

"The application is not urgent," said Judge Sharise Weiner, as she dismissed the application.

As it happened: Cell C loses bid to censor disgruntled customer

The banner was put up by disgruntled Cell C customer, George Prokas at the WorldWear Mall on Beyers Naude Drive on November 6.

Appearing professionally printed and bearing the Cell C logo, it was prominently displayed at the mall along the road.

"The most useless service provider in SA - Cell C Sandton City," it read. It gave the name of the franchise manager and his phone number, claiming he had said that his "unnamed executive head refuses to assist the customer".

The dispute arose from a phone Prokas had taken up for his son with Cell C in 2013. The phone's indicated number turned out to belong to and was being used by a different person.

That individual ran up a bill of R5000, by which time Prokas ended the stop-order for the phone in October last year.

However, when attempting to buy a car earlier in 2014, Prokas discovered he was listed as a bad debtor as a result of the unpaid R5000.

He sought to have the bill waived by Cell C and removed from the bad debtors list by the end of October this year.

However, by the end of October the situation had not changed, with Prokas having exchanged e-mails with Cell C, indicating he would put the banner up unless his complaints were dealt with.

After his complaints were allegedly not dealt with, Prokas put the banner up.

The banner had been changed over this weekend, which Prokas had indicated he was not involved in, and now read "Cell C the most useful cellular provider", with the logo altered.

It was not known who altered the banner.

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