Telkom cancelation & harrassment nightmare

<p>We are a small private business, who followed due process of canceling our Telkom lines (ADSL and phone) when we moved offices at the end of last year. We submitted a cancelation request in October 2015 and were informed that both lines would be cancelled effective as of November 2015. We paid our last two month invoices (received as per normal on our accounts email address) and assumed the accounts were duelly settled. Much to our surprise, in January we received a debt collectors notice for an outstanding Telkom account. There had been no written notices from Telkom regarding this at any time. On speaking with Telkom they indicated that we would have to pay the debt collectors to avoid being blacklisted, then raise a dispute with Telkom for reimbur*****t of that payment. Myself as a Director, spent hours at Telkom, Rosebank on the phone and in discussions with consultants there. We paid the debt collectors and we raised a dispute with Telkom, and again thought the matter was settled.</p> <p> </p> <p>In June this year one Director received <strong>a sms</strong> from P&P Attorney's threating legal action for an outstanding Telkom account. There is no written notice, no supporting documentation, no emails-nothing. We alerted P&P to the cancelation yet they continue to harrass us via sms. We alerted Telkom to their error again, with no responses. Eventually after many frustrating attempts again, one consultant from Telkom responds with an apparent outstanding account for March 2016!! We responded stating that there must be an error as the accounts were cancelled in November- again no response. After much backwards and forwards we were eventually forced to pay an amount to P&P autorneys without any evidence of an outstanding account but based off the fear of being blacklisted, which for us as Directors would mean months of ongoing admin and work to clear our credit ratings again (no fault of ours).</p> <p>Telkoms' apparent attempts at contacting us (according to P&P) are <strong>two SMS's to one</strong> of our Director's phones. As per the consumer protection act- "When a consumer has defaulted, the credit provider must first notify the consumer in writing of the status of the account. The consumer is in default if his account is 20 business days in arrears. In the notice the credit provider must propose that the customer refer to the credit agreement to a debt counselor or a consumer court or an Ombudsman with the authority to handle any possible disputes. The purpose of such a referral is to enable the consumer and the credit provider to resolve the matter or agree to a plan to bring the repayments to date. <strong>A credit provider cannot take legal action against a consumer before first notifying the consumer of the default and to draw his attention to his/her rights in this regard."</strong></p> <p>A similar situation was raised in the following news article regarding P&P attorneys and Telkom: http://www.news24.com/archives/witness/dont-be-bul****-in-dealings-with-collectors-and-lawyers- ********** 0. <strong>You cannot alert a business of legal action via a text message!!</strong> We have to date, not received any notice of outstanding payments, letter of intent to handover to debt collectors or an invoice claiming the outstanding amount. You have our postal address as well as our accounts email- it's is basic administration duties. </p> <p>Despite following due process- Telkom and their 'hounds' have harrassed and caused endless frustrations all due to complete failure and incompetence by Telkom's billing department. I strongly recommended any business move away from Telkom to an alternative provider based off our and others experience. Whether or not you follow due processes it's highly likely you'll get a call 8 months down the line from a debt collector and spend valuable work hours chasing an error that was never yours to start with.</p> <p>Telkom, our dispute number I issued in January is: ********** 6 (to ensure both our lines were cancelled!). You provided an error to P&P autorneys (again) saying that our account was suspended due to non-payment in Dec. It should have been cancelled as per our request in October. I have emailed the following several times with no response: ********** and ********** I would highly appreciate your branch manager or CEO makes contact with us so that we can be reimbursed for the errors you made.</p>