MISLEADING OFFERS BY TELKOM FIBRE SALES PERSONNEL.

<p>I wish to warn the public about the misleading promises of Telkom, who are not honouring what their sales teams are offering.</p> <p>Two Telkom Fibre sales personnel visited me at the beginning of May, enquiring of me who my service provider was and how much I was paying per month.</p> <p> </p> <p>They told me that Telkom offered the following packages:-</p> <p>a). 10mbps for R699 per month</p> <p>b). 20mbps for R849 per month (discounted by 50% for the 1st 3 months)</p> <p>When I asked them if there were any other charges they said “No, that’s ALL you pay” which includes:</p> <p>a). the line rental</p> <p>b). data (I presumed uncapped)</p> <p>c). a new Telkom modem</p> <p>Nothing was mentioned about a 2 year contract, or phone usage on top of this amount.</p> <p>When I asked what the position was regarding my existing ADSL account, I was told Telkom would take this over, but if I wanted to retain my present email address it would cost me an extra R15 per month, payable to my existing service provider. (I have since established the actual amount to be R59 per month)</p> <p>They also confirmed that when I go overseas from time to time I could suspend the service, on request, and not be charged for the period away. (I have since established that this can’t be done). After doing some calculations using my existing total costs they managed to persuade me that with their package my total costs would be very similar.</p> <p>I thus agreed to go for the 20mbps option at 50% discount, provided I could down-grade to the 10mbps option after the 1st 3 months and they confirmed that I could do this.</p> <p>I was given papers to sign, they scanned my I.D. book and then left in rather a hurry. I was not given copies of these documents.</p> <p>On 18th May Telkom technicians completed the fibre installation here and told me that they’ve put me on the 3 month free trial option. Then if I wasn’t happy with the deal they would simply remove the modem, re-connect me to copper and my old modem, and there would be no further commitment on my side. I asked them what the situation was regarding the papers that I had signed and they told me not to worry about that.</p> <p>When I received my account from Telkom they had billed me in advance for the following month plus pro rata from the date of installation and there was no 50% discount.</p> <p>To cut a very long story short I have spent a lot of time nearly every day, since receiving the bill on 30th May, attempting to get this corrected, as well as getting a copy of the so-called contract, without success.</p> <p>I have kept a record of dates, phone numbers, names of Telkom employees to which I have spoken, etc. and have been shunted from one department to the next, ad nauseam, in their call centre. Nobody ever phones you back when they say they will and even the local Telkom office in Hillcrest can’t help without a copy of the papers I signed.</p> <p>I would like to know if there is anybody at Telkom with the accountability or willingness required to ensure that they honour their promises? There doesn’t appear to be an ombudsman.</p> <p>Also, is a contract legal if it is only signed by one party who, at the time of billing, has not been given a copy thereof? If not, then surely I can demand that they cancel the whole deal?</p>