Horrible Service from Telkom PMB Store

Hi there,

My contract was due for an upgrade on the 24th of September 2017. I upgraded to a Sony Xperia XA and after a couple of days I noticed the phone was faulty. I went in after 8 days with the phone and was told that they cannot replace the phone as it was after the 7-day return period. I explained that I had no phone to use and could not afford to sit without a phone for between 2 weeks to a month. I eventually had to give in and I gave the Liberty Midlands Mall in Pietermaritzburg my new phone to be repaired. 1 week after handing in my phone I contacted the Telkom Mobile Call center and they gave me the number for the repair center as I wanted to check on the status of my phone. When contacted the call center they informed me that the phone was still sitting in Pietermaritzburg and no plans have been made to collect the phone.

I got the number for the Telkom Direct Shop Call Center and I asked the call center agents to please get the manager from the PMB store to contact me regarding this issue I had. I called the Direct Shop Call Center everyday for over a week and asked them to please get the manager to contact me. She NEVER bothered to contact me once! I eventually had to go in store(Which is absolute torture, no staff willing to assist and all hiding in the back rooms even though they can see a queue going out the door) and after waiting for over an hour I finally got to the front of the queue. I asked the staff to please speak to the manager. I had to wait over 20 minutes for her to come out the back office to come and speak to me. When I asked her whether she received my requests to contact her she said she had. When I asked her why she hasnt called me yet she just said she was busy and offered no apology. After complaining about my phone still sitting in Pietermaritzburg she had an excuse that the system had not been updated and that the phone was sent which I highly doubt.

I was forced to wait for 2 weeks for my phone to be repaired and had to once again wait over an hour to receive my phone(Once again sales staff hiding in the back and not assisting customers waiting in line). After 3 or 4 days I noticed that the phone now had new issues to the point where it is almost unusable. I felt that it is unfair that I have to put up with a faulty phone as it seems to just pick up more and more issues(Currently it pops up with a message saying the system ui has stopped working, making the phone unusable forcing me to switch it on and off). It also completely freezes and restarts itself from time to time.) I contacted the Telkom Direct Shop to once again try and get the manager to contact me and after 3 days she didnt bother to contact me. I eventually had to get the direct shop call center team leader to call her to force her to call me. She had a real I dont care attitude and was not willing to assist me in getting a replacement phone as I am not happy with having a defective phone. I even tried speaking to the Area Manager Gugu and she had the same attitude, interrupting me whilst I was talking and actually being downright rude. I have had the new contract for just over a month and I have barely used the phone as it was either broken or being repaired. Why should I suffer and sit without a phone because you gave me a defective faulty phone??? Plus still pay for the contract when I received a broken phone.

I would like to cancel the upgrade that I did and let my previous contract run its course and expire so I can move away from Telkom. If this is the service I receive from Telkom I will go and look for business elsewhere.

Thank you very much.