Is it Disgusting Service or **************? You tell me

I write this review in great disappointment in one of our leading ISP in South Africa – TELKOM.

On the 25th of May I app**** for a DSL line order ref: 24***********, to date this has not been fulfilled As I was not getting any feedback from the mentioned ISP I contacted their Sales follow up Team to query my order. Prior to my last call to them, I made two previous calls and on both times I was informed that the order is all good and that due to Lockdown that there is a change in the Service level Agreement for delivery and that the turnaround time now is 7-14 working days, but order still shows status ‘in progress’ I must admit I was not too happy with this feedback as I was informed on the initial sale that my order will be delivered within 5-7 working days. I accepted the feedback and then decided to hang ten until all gets processed, however the 14 working days passed and I still didn’t received any feedback from Telkom, besides the following sms I received within 48 hours after the initial sale. Welcome to Telkom Internet’ Access username: jc****** ‘Email login: jc******** ‘Password******’ ‘Email address jc********@telkomsa.net’ ‘For any assistance setting up your Account or to purchase any additional Value added service please contact 10210’ On my last attempt to reach out to Telkom I spoke to a consultant by the name of Thembalethu, based in Durban. She also gave me the same feedback that the order is still in progress and that I need to understand that they are short-staffed.

Honestly all this just sounded like a lot of excuses, firstly because I needed be informed on the initial sale that due to lockdown the SLA has changed, which would have created a better expectancy of me as the client, however they failed to do so. During my call with Thembalethu I requested to speak to a manager, she informed they do not have any manager’s available but I can only speak to a Teamleader, I had to wait so long to speak to a TL as her own TL was not in the office and another needed to take my escalation.

Minutes later I spoke to a lady by the name of Cailyn, I had to explain my whole story for the umpteen times again. She then asked I hold on as she needed to go into my profile, after a few secs she informed me that my order was actually cancelled due on the 26th of May( a day after my successful sale) due to our area being a risk for theft of cables and this information was uploaded to my profile on the same day, with a message to the sales team informing they needed to contact me to arrange for another sale of another product. On this note I want to elaborate the following: Yes I do stay in Mitchell's plain, and YES I understand that areas within Mitchell's plain is a risk, but not all. So yes I understand that they feel that Cable theft might be a risk in my area and I respect that, HOWEVER ONE FLAW: I DO NOT STAY IN THE AREA THEY HAVE ME LISTED, and if Telkom did their research they would have known that not all areas within Mitchells plain is high risk, as a matter of fact. Telkom firstly has my residential location wrong, which already indicated that they have their facts wrong, Secondly in my area we have never had any sort of Cable/Wire Theft at all, But if they did their research they would have known this.

I would also like to indicate that, if this particular service I was applying for, if it was available to my area, why was my sale put through, should this not have flagged already at sales stage that we cannot provide the requested service in the mentioned area, should the sale not have been declined at that sale, due to the reason indicated, yet it was successful.

At this point I feel like I’m being discriminated against and honestly that is not cool… I walked around in my area yesterday and could see so many internet cabling, sad that none of them is for Telkom. So further to my discussion with Cailyn the TL at Telkom. I explained to her that I was interested in this package as financially this one makes the most sense right now, and honestly would not be able to afford any other, and all she told me was there is nothing she can do.

I’ve been a loyal customer to Telkom for years, not missing one single debit order, but all they have been doing is giving me the high road, for example, (1) I went into their branch located at my place of work asking if they could change my package cause I use the internet a lot for research and work obligations and its running up cost, I was politely informed that unfortunately they cannot assist, however I must admit I called in once for another query and at the end of the call the consultant asked how she can assist, I informed her of the data issue I have and without hassle she changed my package. (2) I also made numerous calls and visits to Telkom regarding the bad reception I have at home, it mostly affected my internet, not allowing for any successful internet connection or it loops continuously, I was informed network it fine and nothing they can do…yet as I sit here I am not able to connect to my internet and run a successful search engine, based of poor internet connectivity. (3) And then the biggest ****er of all… I took my daughter for a mother/daughter vacation to Durban, all excited to visit Ushaka Marine World. Holiday started so well and then boom My phone gets disconnected, I don’t know if Telkom don’t know what a phone is, but a reminder it’s the one thing that keeps you connected to the world when there is no other means of communication, especially in a strange area you don’t know. So here I am no phone line, and no calls from Telkom prior to cutting my line to inform me of what was about to happen, I can remember sitting in Wimpy with my daughter, have a heated argument with one of the Telkom consultant when I called, querying why my line has been disconnected. Their excuse, I reached my Credit limit, something which they never explain to you. I can remember asking the consultant how to fix this and I was informed I need to make a payment on the outstanding balance. Now I asked him run an immediate debit so you get your monthly and my line gets reconnected and again I was informed - NO UNFORTUNATELY WE CANT.

So there I am without my phone, in Durban, and no way to make a single call if anything had to happen to me or my girl…. I guess by now you should be wondering then why still bother. Guess it’s because I grew up with the saying, Rather the devil you know, then the devil you don’t.

Just called the contact centre, spoke to Phakiso, informing she cannot pick up any escalation made on the 10/06/2020, clear instruction was given to Caylin on the date informing my preferred way forward, seems that fell on deaf ears as no escalation was created and confirmed by Service consultant - Phakiso . Ref for call 18/06/2020 - ***.