Formal Complaint: Ongoing Service and Billing Issues – LTE Account Still Not Active

I am writing to formally lodge a complaint regarding the ongoing poor service and billing issues experienced with my mother’s Telkom LTE account. Despite numerous attempts to resolve the matter, the account remains inactive, causing great frustration and inconvenience.

The issue began with an incorrect billing error, which led to the suspension of the account. It took Telkom three weeks to correct the billing error and lift the suspension — a delay that is completely unacceptable. However, despite the billing being rectified, the account is still not active.

To date: 24 April 2025

We have made three follow-up calls to Telkom’s call centre.

We have escalated the matter multiple times without any resolution.

My 72-year-old mother has visited Telkom stores at Cresta and Campus Square, accompanied by her sister, hoping to resolve the issue in person.

During these visits, they were met with disrespectful by providing incorrect information and unhelpful customer service.

Staff provided inaccurate and conflicting information, including the incorrect claim that the account is on fibre, when in fact it is on LTE.

One Telkom staff member even suggested they should “go from pole to pole to check if cables were ******” – an absurd and offensive suggestion given that this is an LTE service that does not use cables.

This level of service is disgraceful. My mother is a pensioner who relies on this connection for essential communication, and the stress caused by Telkom’s repeated errors and negligence is entirely unacceptable.

We demand:

Immediate activation of the LTE account at our business not at the Telkom shop.

A written apology for the distress caused and explanation as to how are we expected to pay for a full month of no service?

An explanation of how such a serious mix-up occurred and is still not corrected.

Consideration that we will still be billed at the end of April 2025 and for an extended period of no service due to Telkom’s failure. We will have to pay because every time you call they conveniently mention the line is active

Please treat this matter with the urgency it deserves. If no satisfactory resolution is received, we will have no choice but to escalate this further to the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud and other public platforms.

Finally in closing, we work with children and their parents should be able to get hold of us at any given time and we them. We received a handset that has never worked from day one.