Telkom Billing Issues

I would like to express my grief with the poor, often unhelpful customer care provided by Telkom.

I have been having problems with my payments due to financial difficulties with my workplace. I've missed 2 payments in January and February, which I paid after a few days after the debit order was supposed to go off for both occasions.

My normal monthly fee is R349, in March I paid R551 as a penalty for February’s late payment, and in April I paid the same amount of R551 as a penalty for January’s missed payment.

I was instructed by a gentleman named Koketso (on the 9th of April) to make April’s payment of R551 before the 14th of April via EFT to avoid having to pay a third penalty at the end of April given my workplace pays me late again. I paid the R551 on the 9th of April, but on the 4th of May, I received yet another bill of R551 which was due on the 15th of May.

Bear in mind that I have changed my initial debit order date to the 15th of each month to be safe during these times of financial difficulties. The same gentleman (Koketso) told me that the new date of the 15th would only be effective as of the 15th of May, but on April the 18th, I received an SMS stating that my account is now in arrears and that I should make a payment of R551 as soon as possible to avoid Credit Bureau listings.

I have been struggling to speak to someone who can help me as I never get through to the Mobile customer care services, all the options never lead me to a human being whom I can speak to. When I call the home customer services they tell me to contact the mobile department even after I tell them that it doesn’t work. I’ve visited a store to take up this query and they told me that I need to phone the mobile department after I too had told them about my difficulties getting in contact.

I decided to pay them this fee over the counter at a Pic n' Pay till point on the 18th May, after struggling too much I just gave up and decided to just pay it.

I then contacted them to make sure that they received this payment and they assured me that they have received it and I am not in arrears, I will only have to pay again on the 15th of June. To my grief but also not to my surprise, they decided to debit my account again with R551.70 on the 22nd of May when my workplace finally paid me. This is an extra amount now that has been taken from me and I can't get through to them, they are ****ing me and my time.

I am at a point now where I am very skeptical about moving forward with Telkom due to the unnecessary mental and financial stress they are causing me.

I would appreciate a follow up on my concerns.

My ID number is *** 085.

The phone number in question is ***.