HELLkom : Consistent frustration guaranteed

A month ago and employee told us that we can cancel our landline and keep our fiber and internet package. But then,after sending the cancellation form all our services including wifi and top-up were cancelled. When I phoned and explained the situation, we were told to take out a new package, so we did and were told that we will have Internet within 2 to seven days. A week later we phoned to follow up. the call centre told us to “just wait , the technician will phone you, we can see the order is pending.” Two days later I phoned again and were told that the order did not go through because the cancellation was still being processed so we need to take out a new order and create a new account. Which we did, and were once again told that we would have Internet within 2 to 7 days. Seven days later we phoned but the Telkom network was down and couldn’t get through for 3 days. The next week we received a message with our new Telkomsa.net email account and password and a message saying we must phone in and the technical department will get our internet working. I phoned but was ping-ponged between the technical and sales departments (because we didn’t get the B number) Finally the technical department spent half an hour on the phone with me trying to install and get the Internet to work just to realise “oh it’s not working because the service is still being processed, I’ll put you through to sales, because they need to complete the order first.” I couldn’t get through to sales. I phoned again the next day and they told me to phone the technical department I’m sure by now you can see the circle. Then when I finally got through to sales they told me “oh we need to send out a technician.” !!! - that’s right, two weeks after the order was placed, was the first time that somebody realised that you need to send a technician to us! And, why, nobody even knows. Then the technician could only come two days later. We waited and waited but nobody came. I phoned the sales department before closing time and they told me “oh the technician said that he had phoned you” -which was a complete lie because we had our phones on us all day! I told the sales department to please take down another backup number and the entrance number to the gate which he can say at the entrance of the gated community. I was promised that the employee would come the next day, but, again, he never did! I’ve sent out tons of emails and I’m still waiting it is now been a month without Internet during lockdown! Sure I don’t have to explain what type of stress that has caused.

What’s worse is that HELLkom installed the fibre in our gated community and signed a contract to be the only company allowed to provide internet here, so they hold monopoly power.