If your phone is ****** and ********** calls are made, pray you're not with Telkom!

Telkom Mobile has the best value for money products but the worst customer service when something goes wrong.

After many years with MTN, I looked forward to the day I could end my contract and port out thanks mainly to poor service and expensive offerings. I did a lot of research and landed on Telkom as the best offering by far. I ported both my parents and my accounts to Telkom. I often recommended Telkom to people because the FreeMe product was really great value for money and I didn't have issues to speak of with Telkom.

That was until 7th May 2018. I was accosted in traffic in Joburg CBD with a gun and my phone taken from me. I found my way to John Vorster police station and waited 2 hours with no assistance to try to report it. I walked to the nearest Telkom store to inform them and do a SIM swap. The store assistant told me that I will need to come back the next day with my ID and proof of residence to do that. I didn't even realise at the time that she could've at least blocked the SIM in the meantime before the SIM swap and I left to go to work. That night a lady from Telkom's ***** department called my aunt who then passed the phone to me, telling me that my SIM was used to make ********** international calls and wanted to confirm it was ****** and they blocked the SIM. I trusted they would investigate and resolve.

The next day I went back to the store with my documents and completed the SIM swap. I bought a new phone the next day and put in the new SIM. Later found out that it wasn't working. I called Telkom, used webchat and went to store and was asked to do the SIM swap again. Eventually going back to the store with them telling me that they can't do it because my account has been suspended and blocked because of the ***** investigation and I need to wait for ***** department to finish. I asked for contact details and an update as to when this would be but they wouldn't give that to me.

The "investigation" ended up taking 2 months! My account and service was blocked for 2 months with nobody updating me. In those 2 months I tried every possible avenue of Telkom customer service to get help but nobody could help me. All I was told was to wait for that useless ***** department to finish. Icing on the cake is that I was billed for the 2 months where I had zero connectivity.

Through a contact I managed to get this escalated to Nox and Ntomboxolo in their escalations department at the office of the CEO and was encouraged that they would finally help me resolve this issue. They had the same story that I should wait and they would proactively give me feedback. Nothing of the sort happened. At the end of the June I was not only debited for the monthly bill but also R20,750 for the ********** calls that were made! What the heck kind of investigation is this? Then my account was magically unblocked but still with zero feedback. I found I could call but couldn't be called so I had to deal with their customer service again and wait a few days to get full connectivity.

Now I'm trying to dispute the R20K ***** bill as well as the 2 months of billing I was debited when I had no connectivity. I told them that my account had spend limits so nevermind the issue with the store assistant not advising me correctly, it still should not have allowed such a big bill to be run. However, Ntomboxolo and Nox are no longer responding to any communications and actively ignoring me. I instructed my bank to reverse the R20K debit and warned them if they do not respond to me, I will put a stop order and keep reversing their debits. Still no response from anyone in that useless company

I can't afford to lose my number I've had for 15 years but I will let it go if Telkom do not resolve this and try to block my account again. If they do not contact me, I will cancel all their debits and get a new number somewhere else and they can try to take it up with me legally. I did ask for a contact to get my lawyer to speak to but again utter silence. I thought MTN service was bad but I've never had worse service from anyone ever than I've experienced now with Telkom. Their behaviour and actions left me with more pain and inconvenience than the actual ******* itself. Telkom can go to hell