Misrepresentaion in sales and customers pay the price

18 December is exactly one year since we walked into the Telkom service center in Centurion to ask information about an account received from Telkom. The account was R2500 more than expected and we did not understand the reason. It became clear that the new service that was offered on 17 October 2019 was completely misunderstood and communicated to us as customers. We requested at that time, 18 December 2019 if we can listen to the recording in order to understand what was missed in the agreement.

Early in January 2020 a call was received from Telkom, indicating the sale was a misrepresentation to us as customers and we need to go to a shop to downgrade in order to sort out the problem. We did not want to downgrade but the fact was that it needed to be sorted out at a Telkom service center. A few days later I walked into the Centurion branch at the bottom of Centurion mall to discover that the permissions given to me to deal with the issue was removed and nothing of the complaint was listed anywhere on the system. That is where our discussions and complaints escalated to new levels of frustration. With the billing department which says the data was used and we need to pay and the sales department which I seems to never get hold of taking responsibility for the problem. No person from any call center could put me in contact with anybody that can help me. I constantly asked if conversations are recorded and I always was assured it is, thus anybody can go to every complaint and discussion, to hear how many times I indicated that we want to listen to the recording to understand why we are paying for something that we were assured it is going to be the same as what we had before.

An extract from a letter regarding this problem that has been send to a number of people that I got email numbers for, summarizing the issue is as follows:

The complained was again lodged on 31 January 2020, 5 February 2020 and on 10 February 2020 I was told that the problem will be send to another department who will be able to deal with it, Reference number ***4. I do not know which department that was.

I phoned a number of times in March to the sales department to only hear the system is offline and they can’t help me at that stage. It happened twice that, after I explained my issue in full, the line was cut before any action could be taken.

Summary of the complaint is as follows

• The information given on the order number *** on 17 October 2019 was not sufficient and we were not given all the relevant and correct information regarding costs. • The information given was that costs, including internet costs, will be the same as in the past with this agreement which is not true. (Previous costs were R12 per GB after cap was reached and the new cost is much more expensive) • The process to upgrade to Uncapped within this situation is not as easy as it was indicated. • The fact that the contract is a 2 year contract and a penalty is payable if the agreement is cancelled before the end of the 2 years was not understood and clearly communicated.

Our experience with Telkom and the after sales action is absolutely unacceptable. We want to listen to the recording of the sale from 17 October 2019 to make sure that we are correct in our understanding. If the sale was done properly, we will accept the account and pay, but until that time, we query the sale, how the product was sold to us and the subsequent account we have received.

My next stop will be the National Consumer Commission as I feel that I am not heard at all by Telkom in any way.