CUSTOMER EXPLOITATION

My experience and regard for Telkom has been a very daunting one. On two separate occasions Telkom has suspended my residential phone line without my knowledge. Which firstly is misleading and inappropriate. Professional service providers don’t do things like that. The crux of my complaint is that the 1st time they suspended the line, the claimed an amount of R 220 for reconnection fee, which was totally their faulty because they never notify me of the arrears and went ahead and did the same thing. I laid a complaint with the billing department concerning the same and they said they can’t help me. Wow, this money down the drain and the phone was never even disconnected only suspended.

The recent dilemma was this Saturday, when Telkom did the same thing, in fact cut the line based on a arear payment of R 248. 00. I further still never receive a call from Telkom to state the same as I would have rectified the problem immediately with remedy of payment. We had a severe storm in the area on Saturday and I thought due to the storm the lines were down. We even reported the same. Telkom sent us a reference number :262CNZ290917, stating there was a problem on their side which they are attending too. A week has passed and a further sms is sent to me to state the line has been restored, but in actually fact, the line is still dead. I contacted the call center (billing department) spoke to a lady by the name of Fikile who said that I needed to pay the amount of R 248 as the line was suspended. I told her why, is not Telkom sending me a notice to state the same, it would have been paid. It seems Telkom has no interest in customer service and feel they can just do what they like to customers phone lines without contacting them . Fikile said I must pay the said amount, which I paid R 400 , once I make payment I must phone the call centre to speed up the process and they will dispute the re-connection fee , because I was not advised of the disconnection . I made the payment, phoned the call centre , spent 15 minutes on the phone , with someone that is totally blonde , she said she can’t help me , she sent a request to Fikile to contact me . I told her I want to speak to her supervisor ,which she further left me hanging on the line for 11 minutes without a response. I am utterly and bitterly disappointed with this kind of service from Telkom, I am not sure whether they are learning from the Government how to treat people, by just doing what they want to do and exploiting people in the process. The thing Telkom needs to understand is that I am business owner, I run a legal practice and sometimes I can forget to make payment. Today is only the 06th of the month and the line has been disconnected. Bad customer service, poor service delivery are traits of an entity that is failing its system and its customers progressively. My regard for Telkom and its service is very lowly esteemed. From being the no:1 service provider in South Africa at one stage , to now , being one of the worst . I will be looking for another service provider that will meet my need. I deal with clients across the world because I am a business specialist , and I definitely won’t be referring any clients to Telkom for any of their services. Further, I am still waiting for a call from a supervisor of Telkom named Themba Mkhize , a senior to Fikile and its as I expected , that call will never come . A BIG THUMB TO TELKOM <