Billing dispute and unfair treatment

To whom it may concern.

Good morning I trust you are well, firstly I am heavily disappointed on the experience that Telkom has been giving me since the year 2022 has begun. I have a contract on 2 mobile phones paying R488.00 monthly and everything was good since I have started in the previous year. I agreed that the direct debit should be on the 5th of every month which was done accordingly at the first years.2022 February Telkom started not to take the debit orders on the agreed date and when I inquired the rep just brushed me off by saying sometime the payment is not taken at the agreed date and I should not worry about it. The months continued and Telkom kept on debiting on incorrect dates like the 15th or the 25th which I still did not give consent to. As a person that receives payments on a monthly bases I budget hence why there is a set agreed date to take payment and if you take payments on a date that we had not agreed on it is a bit unfair, biased and bridging the contract agreement.

The months continued and Telkom decided on not taking the debit orders at all mind you there are not even communicating at all nor closing the services so that I could see that there is a problem somewhere. I kept on calling to dispute this issue with the agents and they kept on giving different opinions instead of resolving the matter as it was clearly a debit order error. I have spoken to customer services, Billing and Retentions and know one seemed to be able to resolve this matter. What happen was everyone looked into it and gave me case/reference number to checkup the progress of my issue and when I checked up using these case/reference numbers to a new agent they say they do not exist which is still not customer friendly. I Finally had spoken to a lady that was kind enough to look into my issue, my account and did not just give another case/reference number. She advised me that my account was in arears and has been handed over to another department which has never had made contact with me so I could have knowledge of it and this of the account being in arears was not my doing as the funds where always there on the agreed date. She advised that to fix this issue I must pay the owing amount in full with the extra fees that I have been charged which I clearly do not recall and my account shall be fixed and the debit orders will carry on as normal. Because of her kind help I did not dispute that, She gave me an account that I should use to make a EFT payment and send the proof of payment to her email address (***) she provided made the EFT payment midmonth and submitted the proof of payment and she did not communicate back. On the same month around the 26th I had a debit order which was triple the amount and if you recall Telkom had stopped taking payments on my bank account which was strange and I have made an EFT payment as well.I called in and disputed this issue again, the agent said they will look into it and get back to me which till this day have not happened.

Because of this debit order issue I ended up changing the debit order date to the last date of the month and the agent I was changing it with assured me that this issue will no longer happen and I was glad to hear so. The months had continued and Telkom has still not taken any debit from my account. I called again to find out what is the issue as it was 2 months Telkom has not taken payment and the agent advised that the account was still under the collections department and they have not cleared the previous payments that I have settled which is very disappointing for a very huge company to do such activities to their paying customers. I have made means to reaching out to a polite manager from another department who was kind enough to get back to me and to here my situation out, he concluded on advising that he will escalate it to the Billing department to get it fixed as he was from fixed line department and could not do much.

Today I have been debited an amount that is 4 times the amount that I am owing with no communication whatsoever. The amount has in my account does not even cover it.My bank is in the process of reversing it back to my account as it is a debit order that has not been authorized to be taken from my account. This has now come to a point that is now affecting my credit history which is unfair in every way possible.

I have made communications in many ways to trying to reach out and fixing this matter and know one from Telkom seems to have the care of assisting me as a client. I have reached out using Hello Peter and WASPA regarding my matter and they had also advised that you have not yet looked in this matter as yet which was several months ago.

I would like the company to reimbursed me for time and effort that I have made to try and fix an issue that was supposed to be resolved by the departments and employees that you have hired to resolve customer issues. I have attached some statements that Telkom have been billing me and proof of EFT payment on below.

Yours sincerely Muzi Dladla - ***