Telkom Failed to Cancel My SIM, Left Me With R11K in Charges

I had a contract with Telkom when my phone was ******. As soon as I found out, I went to a Telkom store and requested that my SIM card be deactivated. Despite this, the following month I received an invoice that was three times my usual debit order, showing over R3,000 worth of data purchases. I immediately called Telkom customer service, only to be told they could not be held accountable for what happened in-store because it was “not on their system.” By the end of the next month, I was billed an additional R8,000—because Telkom only issues invoices at the end of the month, meaning I only discovered two months later that the SIM card was never canceled. To make matters worse, Telkom never communicated the missed payments to me directly. Instead, a debt collector contacted me with a lump sum amount, without even providing an invoice or breakdown of charges. I had to drive two hours to another Telkom branch because my local branch could not access my records, claiming that billing falls under a different department. In the end, I canceled my contract, paid the full amount, and made it clear I will never use Telkom’s services again. Throughout this entire ordeal, there was zero accountability, no apology, and the same response: “We have nothing on the system showing you reported it.”