Bad customer service from Telkom

My mother, who is a pensioner has been without her landline for six weeks now. She has reported it numerous times, received sms's that it fixed and it's still not working. This is the only way she gets to communicate with her family and friends in the Cape and she is becoming very depressed with this situation. She then was told to order a wireless phone from Telkom a this would solve her problems with a landline. She did this and received the SIM card but no phone, then a few days later the phone arrived. Great excitement, she received an sms to say that the SIM had been activated, so we set up the phone for her, and it comes up 'invalid SIM card' so off to Telkom shop in Lakeside Mall, they tell her the SIM card is not activated and they will email the department that deals with that, well it's now another 24 hours on and still no working phone. We have tried phoning the number provided to follow up, but that doesn't get answered. This is unacceptable as this elderly lady is using up all her cell phone airtime trying to get her phone up and running, she cannot afford the cell phone costs, and it is a security risk to have her without a working phone. Please could someone attend to this issue asap.