Telkom inability to timely assist and Data disapearing issues
I have a 20 + 20 GB 19/24 month old Lte contract with Telkom. Through the past few months I noticed that my data was not holding out until the end of the month as it usually did. Through these past few (say 5) months I read up on how to prevent auto updates and unintended data usage and all the tips and tricks in the book. My brother and his spouse was experiencing the same problems with their Telkom LTE contracts.
On the 29th December 2019 I realized that 5 GB of data got chowed in 3 HOURS! And I knew that it was impossible because nothing was running that could've used that much data in mere 3 hours. My data usage overview for Ethernet reflected this and my router's statistics viewed 0 WLAN users during that time.
I immediately called Telkom to find out what was going on only to be told that my data usage overview was not reliable enough as I was using my modem on multiple PC's during the month. They also informed me that the 5GB of data used in those 3 hours reflected on their side. My rationality told me that in a 3 hours time frame only 1 PC was connected and it used more data than the total amount of "data used" for that PC in the last 30 days according to the data usage statistics. With this argument I finally managed to escalate the case to the tech team to view the data usage logs on their side.
I bought an extra once off 5 GB LTE bundle with + 5 GB night on that evening (as i did with the previous months as well) and I cleared my data usage statistics to reliably track my usage for that evening. The next day we left for a family vacation and I unplugged my router. We came back on the 7th and I only connected the router on the 8th and I kind of forgot about this issue.
I got reminded about the issue today and went to see if there was any feedback from the tech team. I had no emails from Telkom informing me about the query so I decided to check the Telkom app for any messages. Inadvertently I saw that I have used 31 GB out of 50 GB (this includes the once off bundle I bought on the 29th).
Luckily my router was running from the 8th until today and luckily I cleared my data usage statistics on the 29th after getting that 5 + 5 GB bundle. The router recorded the data usage for 122:50:44 (which is from the 8th until today). According to it I used 6.42 GB (received) and 1.37 GB (Sent). My data usage on the PC reflected 7.18 GB take into consideration that 5 GB of this statistics might be from the 29th even though I highly doubt it, according to Telkom my 5 GB night remains unused. My phone's data usage is not reliable as I was connected to Wifi while on vacation and never reset it before I came back, so the rest of the data was probably from my mobile phone. I contacted Telkom again today to confirm that there was no data used from the 1st January 2020 to the 8th January 2020.
So for 13 days my modem was not connected for the first 7-8 days and 21 GB of data was used in the following 5 days (excluding the 5 GB day bundle I bought on the 29th and the untouched 5 GB night data that came with the bundle). Yet on my router's side I only used 7.79 GB in those 5 days.
Telkom cannot assist me more that to notify and to update the details of the prior query, which can take from 24 - 72 days for a reply.
If this is the service that a 19 month old contracted customer receives, after convincing 2 family members to get the a contract from Telkom (my brother and his spouse), which is also having the same issue. I do not recommend Telkom for anyone AT ALL.