cancellation nightmare

The cell number this refers to is ***

This contract has been a nightmare since day 1! Although my account was on debit order and funds available in my account , Telkom would not submit the debit order every month and would then double debit my account every 2nd month. Resulting in my son’s phone being suspended half of the time. Despite numerous calls to Telkom this was never resolved.

I contacted Telkom at the beginning of January to cancel my contract and was told that since the subscription is billed in advance and my debit order was taken off in December, I had paid up until the end of January and therefore the contract would only be cancelled the end of January and there would be no further debit orders on my account.

I went into a Telkom store on the 2nd of February and they confirmed my contract was cancelled and that my account was in a credit of just over R130. I received the January invoice which reflected a credit of R133.59. I received an invoice dated 1 February which had Final invoice across the invoice and reflected a credit of R129.73. Telkom then proceeded on the 1st February to deduct via debit order, R578 off my bank account. Then on the 20 February another R256.27 was taken off my bank account.

On the 9th of February, I received an e-mail from Nu Debt regarding my account which was in arrears according to them. I phoned them and advised that the contract had been cancelled from end January which they were not aware of. I sent them an e-mail with the relevant invoices and proof of the payments that had been deducted from my account and requested when I would receive the refunds for the 2 amounts taken off my bank account in February. I received no response. I followed up a week or two later and was told they received my documents and were looking into my query.

I received an invoice dated 1 March which showed a credit of R964 and in April I received an invoice dated 1 April showing a March invoice (with no description) for the amount of R964. Telkom effectively invoiced me out for absolutely no services provided for the full value of the credit so they don’t have to refund me my money.

I followed up with them Nu Debt on Wednesday 17th April and asked when I can expect to receive my refund. I received a response that the account had been closed and sent back to Telkom.

I then received an sms from Nu Debt on the 18th April regarding an outstanding payment. I called them and the agent told me that there is a balance of R386 outstanding. Needless to say I lost my cool completely! This morning I received a notification from my banking app that Telkom had taken R386 off my bank account. I was absolutely seething and burst into tears out of pure frustration! I went into my bank and as it was a DC payment, they could not reverse it. I then went into one of your franchise stores and was told that as they are a franchise store, all they can do is log a query. They also informed me that the description on the April invoice is “refund not claimed”.

Telkom owes me R964, the credit reflected on the March invoice and the R386 taken off my bank account today.

I am really at my wits end with the whole account experience I have had with Telkom. Pls can someone take the initiative and sort this out once and for all as I have been struggling with this account for over 2 years now!

FYI, i mailed this query through to Customer first and Billing disputes at Telkom on the 19th and have received absolutely no response!