Dismal Service - Line Transfer, Fault Logging & Poor Accounts Administration

My review covers various areas of Telkom’s service, and as such is an accurate reflection of just how dismal their service is. Folks, if you can get your internet through satellite providers, or get fiber directly with another ISP please do so – don’t waste your time with Telkom!

The saga begins early in March when I booked a line transfer to be done in the beginning of April. Telkom did not hesitate to cut our service on 30 March as requested, but it took them until 20 April to come and install our new line, despite having known about the line transfer since the beginning of March.

Once the installation was done we saw that we had no internet service, so I checked with our data provider and found that our account is still active and therefore the fault must be on Telkom’s side. I gave Telkom a call and was told that the exchange is down, a problem that needs to be fixed manually on site and cannot be done remotely. The service consultant I spoke with promised that the technicians would be sent out before the end of the weekend, as we desperately needed the internet connectivity for work and studies.

Needless to say, today is Tuesday the 24th of April and nothing has yet been done. I called Telkom the 23rd of April and requested that the case be escalated – the service consultant promised that she had escalated the case and apologised for the inconvenience. Having received no feedback I called again this morning (24th April) and yet again asked that the case be escalated. I then called the accounts department to inform them that I will not pay for the days I have had no service and was told that I cannot report the problem to them until my service is fixed. Infuriated, I called the technical help department again and now two new facts were brought to my attention: 1. My address is still reflected as the old address 2. The case I requested to be escalated was never escalated

Apparently you cannot speak to a senior technical consultant until your escalation has failed, so I have now had the case escalated for a third time (this time I recorded the whole call) and have to wait 24 hours before receiving feedback. The kicker is this: If I receive no feedback I need to phone Telkom again, complain another time and hope that I may speak with a senior consultant. The service turnaround time is 3 business days, which means that with the long weekend coming up I could easily sit without service until a few days into the new month.

Telkom simply shrugs this off and makes excuses around every corner and I am almost 99% sure that when I request they credit my account with the lost days, that they will simply shrug and say that I must pay despite the lack of service connectivity.

DO NOT SUPPORT TELKOM IF YOU HAVE ALTERNATE OPTIONS