Telkom doing one harm.

HERE IS A SAGA ON HOW SERVICE PROVIDERS IN THE PHONE OR INTERNET BUSINESS CAN TALK YOU INTO SOMETHING IF YOU ACCEPT THEIR KIND OFFERS, AND THEN THEY ACT COMPLETELY NOT THERE. Canny people know to say no.

Telkom phoned my home landline and all I could decipher was that she was offering me a new phone receiver for free! I said yes.

Two days later, couriers delivered a box which I didn’t think urgent to open. Two days later, my home landlines were cut off.

That night, my home alarm-system went on the beep. So I had to disarm it so I could sleep. We spent several nights with no alarm-system and couldn’t both be out of the house.

At some stage I opened the box and found a strange Wi-Fi receiver with instructions that were opaque to me. I called in a neighbour who is a tech person, and he spent an hour and a half here, spoke to someone at Telkom on his cell-phone, but couldn’t get through to the extension they recommended. I paid R1000 for the visit.

I went to the Telkom store at Cavendish Square, but they said once you’ve said yes, that’s it, and they can’t do anything about it anyway.

I got my alarm-system techies in, and it seems that once I’ve got no landlines, the alarm-system depends on a radio in the roof, and the battery for this had run down. Something like that anyway. That visit as a whole cost me R1000.

I managed to get through to the right extension and option at Telkom and said please restore my phone-lines. She sounded as if possibly in my favour was that my alarm-system had been connected to my land-line phones and that I had also had a phone upstairs.

She said she’ll pass on my message but that it would take 7 to 21 days to decide whether or not to switch me back on! It is now 8 days later, and I have no phone service at my house.

And I’ve heard they’ll only switch me back on and take back the Wi-fi thing, if I haven’t opened the box it was in!

I have heard rightly or wrongly that it costs an extra R1000 for another Wi-Fi phone upstairs.

Oh, and how will load-shedding affect this Wi-Fi phone which is plugged in to Eskom all the time? Should I unplug to avoid a surge?

It looks as if I’ll have to call in my neighbour again in the hope he can teach me to operate this phone. That’ll cost me another….

I am an ancient person and have no means of phoning for help on the 3 days a week I am alone. I don’t use a cell-phone. My wife is a smart-phone user but still finds the instructions for this new Wi-Fi phone opaque.

******* haven’t deprived me of my landlines but Telkom has. Such offers ought to be communicated comprehensively by email so so one knows what’s it about or can ask.