Paying for a suspended account

Item: Telkom
Rating: 1

"It's policy" is what the call centre agents keep telling me. Some time in June my telkom 4mb uncapped ADSL account was suspended due to non-payment. The following month when I wanted to make payment, the bill, which I had thought would be the usual R900, was up to R1350, I assumed this might have been a prorata rate for the half a month I used the line before the suspension. This was unfortunately more than I could afford, so I resolved to pay it the following month, but by then the bill had increased to R2250. I phoned the billing department to enquire as to how the bill could be that much. They informed me that even though the account was suspended, I still had to pay it, as they were still providing the service. When I explained that I cannot be expected to pay for a service that I CANNOT MAKE USE OF, they simply said "I'm sorry sir, that's policy." I then requested to speak to a manager in order to question this "policy" of having customers pay for a service they are unable to make use of. The manager then tried to use the analogy of missing a payment on a home loan to explain her point that outstanding payments will still have to be caught up. I explained that in that example I would still be able to LIVE in the house I am paying for, but in the case of my telkom account I don't get to still make use of the service I am being charged for. She then told me "I am sorry sir, but it's policy". Eventually a payment areangement was agreed upon, and that very day still I made the first payment of R900. Today when I wanted to make payment of the whole outstanding amount I discovered that it was once again up to R2250. They had once again charged me R900 for the service THAT WAS STILL SUSPENDED. I once again phoned the billing department to query this. They told me that the payment arrangement that was agreed upon was for the outstanding amount only, and that I would still be charged for the service they provided, even though they know full well that I cannot make use of said service. Upon pointing out how unfair this was, the person on the other side simply said, you guessed it, "I'm sorry sir, it's policy". That's not an excuse. In the meantime I have payed the full outstanding amount, as not only does my wife need to make use of the internet to run her business, but it is also our only entertainment, due to tge fact that we refuse to be ******ed by DSTV. I missed payments, and that is my fault. I have no problem with paying what I owe when I had the benefit of making use of the service. But I refuse to accept this policy of forcing customers to pay for something they were not getting the value of. That they could not use. I refuse to accept the fact that I have given R1800 towards something from which I could not derive any use what so ever. Just because it's "policy" does not make it right, and I will not let this matter rest until I have been refunded.

Helpful (0)

Replies (0)