3 weeks without landline & ADSL service - fault still not resolved and no idea when it will be fixed!

<p>On 9 Dec I established that our Telkom land line was dead and we were without ADSLservice. I logged a fault online on the Telkom website on Sat 10 Dec: 87cwk101216</p> <p>Telkom technician arrived on Monday 12 Dec and advised it was an underground cable fault and that it had been referred to the "UG" cable division.</p> <p>I have followed up with the call centre about every few days day since then and I keep getting essentially the same response. "It is an underground cable problem and they don't know how long it will take to fix". They cannot give me anyone in the UG dept to speak to or someone senior to escalate the problem to. The call centre is one's only port of call and they cannot give one the information you need. At one stage last week, one of the call centre operators actually phoned the UG department while I held on and was told that the fault was caused during building operations on a private property in the area. He was told that hold up was due to the owner being away and that they could not get access to the site. He could not give me details of the address of the building site in question.</p> <p>Through a neighbour, I then established the relevant erf and owner's contact details. I also established that this particular neighbour had also logged a fault and that he had given Telkom the plot owner's name and contact details at about the same time I logged our fault. 126CWK101216.</p> <p> </p> <p>Having then contacted the owner myself, the owner reported to me that Telkom technicians had arrived on site 2 days after the incident and spoken to his builder. Telkom advised his builder that they would have to re route their cable outside of the property ( it was half a meter below ground ) and that this would be done from a Telkom manhole on Rathfelder. The builder worked through to 22 Dec and between 12 and 22 Dec Telkom had not returned to the site.</p> <p> </p> <p>I contacted Telkom last week and passed on the name and contact number of the owner of the property and today I phoned and passed on the name and contact details of the builder who is available to give them access to the property.</p> <p> </p> <p>Today I was given a telephone number for the UG dept - ********** 783. Predictably, there was no reply at that number.</p> <p> </p> <p>I am no closer to knowing when this problem will be resolved...</p> <p> </p> <p>At no stage since 12 Dec has anyone from Telkom actually phoned me to advise on progress or what is holding up resolution of the problem! Despite numerous requests and many promises from the various call centre operators I have spoken to.</p> <p> </p> <p>The online tracking system is useless - it has 3 stages "logged", "in progress", and "complete".</p> <p> </p> <p>At one of the earlier follow up calls, I made to Telkom, I was told by one call centre operator that we could obtain a data card free from a Telkom shop to replace the service we have paid for and not received.</p> <p> </p> <p>However having arrived at the Telkom shop and wasted time in queues etc, we were advised that this is untrue and the call centre operator was incorrect!! They could not assist with any info re the fault and advised us to buy an LTE router!!!</p> <p> </p> <p>This is atrocious service. </p> <p> </p> <p>Telkom survives as a business only because of its monopoly. No other business would survive with this level of customer service.</p>