No service from Telkom

My pensioner mom had a wireless phone dropped at her house (not at her request abut at the choice of Telkom). There were no instructions on how to get it working and her normal landline was cut two days later. It has been almost three weeks of fruitless phonecalls to the call centre to have the SIM card on the new phone activated. Nothing has happened despite providing details over and over again for 2.5 weeks.

Today once again I have been promised that in 24 hours the phone will be activated and I am confident that it wont' be like the other 4 times have called. I have a pensioner mother who has no access to her landline but will still have to pay the line rental! It's absolutely appalling service from Telkom but should I be surprised? No.