Out-of-box failure, poor customer service and no one to assist with the problem

I would recommend against any purchase from Selldirect. They call you claiming they work with Telkom, but it turns out they are a 3rd party just hungry for sales.

I don't know what else to do because Selldirect is sending me from pillar to post.

They talk a good game on the phone. I was called by Micayla Bailey, very sweet girl when she has to make the sale. I took the phone, which was the biggest mistake I've made to date. After she told me that I can migrate/port my prepaid telkom number, it turns out that I wasn't able to. Which now means I have to operate with 2 sim cards.

Anyway, the phone was delivered to me the Monday afternoon 15 October 2018. The Tuesday or Monday, not sure, it gets activated and then I try to migrate/port my number so that I can have the contract on my existing number. I call in and am told it takes a day. That's how I land up on Wednesday. Nothing happens and I call in am told that I need to go instore. I go in store and then am told that I can't migrate/port because my number was originally a Vodacom sim. Anyway, long story short - I walk out miserable but decide fine I will just keep the new contract number. I start using the phone Wednesday night/Thursday. But this is where the fun begins, the phone starts giving me problems on the Friday. It switched off once and I think it's a user error, that maybe I pressed the on/off button unknowingly. Saturday the phone keeps switching off and on again and by Sunday the phone is now stuck in a loop of switching off and on, all my apps are deleted and the phone basically freezes when I try to use it. I cannot call Selldirect as they have business operating hours so I wait to call them on the Monday morning.

Monday morning at 8am I call and get through the Micayla, the same person who sold me the phone. She delivers the worst customer service in the history of mankind, shouting at me and being condescending, not showing any willingness to assist. I am then transferred to Tashreeq Achmat, who tells me to go instore and they will sort it out at Telkom.

I drive to Telkom, only to get told that they cannot assist me. They confirm that it is an out-of-box failure and that Selldirect needs to give me a new phone. I drive back to work, call Selldirect and am on the phone with someone new - Jamie (didn't get her surname). I explain everything, she is very helpful and says that she and her manager will investigate and pull up all the calls I've had and sort out the issue for me. She promises to call me back in an hour.

3 hours pass by and I am back on the phone with Selldirect because Jamie didn't call me back. I get through to John this time - also didn't get his surname. He transfers me to someone else, turns out I am back to Tashreeq. Tashreeq is helpful and now wants me to go back to Telkom. I refuse because I have a job too and can't just leave. Also Telkom didn't let me call Selldirect from their store so that's not an option.

It seems like no-one wants to take responsibility of the faulty phone and I am not sure what more I have to do. I did everything right. I only started using the phone late last week because I was waiting for a sim port/migration which was I was told by the Telkom instore people that I can't do, or if they do it, I risk losing my number. So I decided to just leave it and keep the new number too. If I was told from day 1 that I couldn't do it, I would not have take out the contract in the first place. I decided to leave it and use the phone anyway because I didn't feel like the drama of returning the phone, but now that there is an actual problem, Selldirect is refusing to take ownership of their poor customer service, false advertising (the call center agents are bamboozling the customers) and now I can't seem to get anyone to assist me with the problem.

The day is almost over and I am no closer to a solution than I was this morning at 8am when I made my first call to Micayla.

I am waiting for Tashreeq to call me, he said he'd call me back in 30 minutes. It's been nearly an hour since I called him. If I call the call center back, I will have to explain this to someone new. Tashreeq says he's the best person to assist me so maybe I should be giving him a chance, but I can't risk reaching 4:30pm and not having this problem sorted.

I really hope that I can come back here and say that Selldirect sorted out their problem. Please be wary of them.