Useless COT Call Centre for dealing with Municipal Problems

I have tried to call the City Of Tshwane Customer Careline (*** and also tried ***) now, on several different occasions on the 4th January and again on the 5th January of this new year, and each time I have not been able to get through. I have tried to load money onto my prepaid electricity meter unit, but it fails to load. I've tried to load this now for several days between 2nd and 5th January, and each time it fails to load. I seem to have a faulty prepaid meter, and I suspect that maybe, the Prepaid meter box needs to be re-programmed. I have called to log this faulty meter with COT on several occasions now, on their registered numbers, but after waiting for between 10, 20 and 30 minutes (at each time) for someone to pick up, the call has either been dropped by the Consultant who picked it up or diverted to a dead-end line piping non-stop music. These young Consultants have just cut me off all the time and it is very frustrating. No-one has this time to spare sitting on a phone call like this, We are working from home and busy during this Covid-19 period.

Instead the Call Centre has a recorded message that keeps advising you that they are experiencing a high-volume of calls. But they never get around to you, and as indicated after 30 minutes of waiting, they divert your call to a dead end line with more music.

I have also now sent SMSes to the City of Tshwane, together with my prepaid meter number, which when I normally pay at one of the designated Pay Points (e.g., Spar) used for COT accounts, it easily picks up what my name is for the meter. But when you send that same number by SMS to COT directly, they tell you they cannot find the meter number. What is happening there? Yet COT expects us to pay our accounts immediately, but their services via this Call Centre is hopeless.

The COT Call Centre account needs to be re-bid to a company that is more customer-oriented and professional.