South Africa's most pathetic company. One star is way too high.

It's difficult to conceptualise exactly how a company can become so incredibly less competent over time, particularly when there are so many customer "lessons" they get on a daily basis, but Telkom seem to manage to do it.

I live in the UK and have been here for five years. I noticed a Telkom debit order running off my SA bank account and sent off an email to ask what this was for since I had not signed up for anything from them (and never would if given a choice).

Here's a quick chronology of my first class Telkom experience:

02/07 - Sent an email explaining the *****. No response.

09/07 - Sent another email, explaining it again.

14/07 - Telkom finally responds asking for my account or phone number, for an account or phone number which I explained that I never signed up for. I respond explaining this to them.

19/07 - Telkom asks for a copy of my ID. I send a copy of my SA ID, Passport and UK drivers license

24/07 - Telkom tell me to report a case of ***** to SAPS. Once again, not the slightest desire to read and understand that I don't live in the country. I explain in detail where I live and why I can't do this.

03/08 - I get a copy/pasted list of Telkom required hoops that they expect you to jump through before they will even begin to investigate. Once again, they tell me to open a case with SAPS and call a local toll free number to speak to an agent. I explain for the fourth time in extreme detail where I live and why I won't be doing any of that. I give them my UK number and instruct them to leave a note on their system to reject any new requests for service in my name.

18/08 - After a month and a half of explaining in detail in every email and trying to get any of the six or seven pin-headed, low energy support agents to understand what the situation is, I get a response simply telling me that if I live in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA then they'll be able to open a case......but I have to get an affidavit first.

So. The debit order was already cancelled and reversed a month and a half back, no loss to me at all. However, if Telkom is honestly hiring people, not just one or two, but SIX people that all can't seem to understand what the problem is or how to tackle it, despite me really wanting to try help them out and they're also hiring people who honestly can't tell that London is in fact in the United Kingdom and not the United States, then I have a suggestion for them:

Close your doors, Telkom. Send all your under-qualified, low paid "support agents" home, give them an office plant maybe as a parting gift. Put all of your overpaid executives on a gravy train waiting list at Vodacom perhaps and sell anything that's of any worth to a company that has an interest in what they're doing, because it definitely doesn't seem like anyone that works at Telkom has any level of competence to deal with even the simplest instruction.

Oh, and good luck investigating this ***** because I've wasted enough of my time dealing with your company!

/´¯/) /¯../ /..../ /´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸ /'/.../..../......./¨¯\ ('(...´/..´./.. ¯~/'...') \.................'...../ \.............. _.·´ \..............( \.............\...