HELLkom is an understatement! NO service! NO help! NO hope! Utterly useless!

Primarily for security reasons, my 85 year old aunt recently moved houses; prior to the move she timeously app**** for her landline to be transferred to her new address, she was given a reference number & an estimated time for the installation. At the time, no potential problem with either the order or the installation was mentioned. She moved, weeks passed, nothing happened, no sign of Telkom. Hours & hours on the phone turned up nothing, we were told to wait a bit longer, no mention of any issue with the order. I eventually traced the order online, & came up with a status of 'Sorry to see you go'! Hours & hours on the phone again to try & clarify this status, I was told that there were no more lines left for a phone installation, cables this, copper that ... this, despite their being an active line at the house she moved into just 2 days before her arrival, this despite an installation going in at her neighbours directly next door (neighbours who moved in ONE day before she did), this, despite an order taken and a reference number given. We processed this 'wonderful' piece of info, & eventually put in a new order for a 'Fixed Line Look-a-Like', which we were told was the next option. I'll save the long painful story, save to say, the EXACT SAME thing has now occurred; I've checked the order status & watched it change from 'Checking stock in warehouse', to 'Thank You for choosing Telkom' ... to 'Sorry to see you go'! I actually thought I was seeing things! More hours on the phone trying to clarify the situation, only to be told now that there are no Telkom towers in the area to facilitate a 'Fixed Line Look-a-Like', & that 'there is nothing more' than can do for us!!! There is a gigantic Telkom exchange & tower no more than ONE kilometre from where my aunt now lives!! How is the Fixed Line Look Alike not an option!? Why was it actually suggest to us!? When I said surely there must be something they can do for my aunt, she is 85, (incredibly) hard of hearing, the landline is for security purposes, AND it is her only form of communication, I was summarily shut down & told they are a call centre, it is not their problem! The mind actually BOGGLES! The facts ... The house my aunt has moved to is in a complex of 26 little cluster-houses, I personally know of at least ten houses that have landlines, one installed a day after my aunt moved in. Two orders were taken. Two orders were cancelled. NO notification of either cancellation. She has now twice gone to all the trouble of giving her 'new' number to all & sundry ... the two numbers she was 'supposedly' having installed. Hours & hours & hours spent on the phone trying to sort this mess out, every call centre operator has a different story ... I've actually lost count of the time taken & the people spoken to. When I asked who this could be escalated to, I was told NO ONE, when I asked what I could do, I was in no uncertain terms forthright dismissed.

An EIGHTY-FIVE year old is currently sitting without a land-/life-line, while everyone around her has one! I actually haven't had the courage to go to her house to tell her. I am utterly DISGUSTED! The one star I selected for this review is one star too many!