Telkom Mobile false advertising & Expecting to pay for products not received

On 4 November 2017 I took out a new contract with Telkom Mobile. I visited the Telkom Mobile store at I’langa mall in Nelspruit (Mbombela). I took out a Freeme Family Unlimited contract with a value of R1,499.00 per month.

The entire purpose of this contract was so that I can add more than one sim card on this contract and all resources can be shared between the sim cards attached. I even went as far as to port my number to the Telkom network on a prepaid sim card from Vodacom before I did visit the Telkom Mobile store, to make the entire process run more smooth. This however, was not the case and since signing up for the contract, I had only issues, mainly with service delivery and the incompetence of their personnel.

When the contract was taken out, they issued me a new sim, as they could not use my current prepaid sim to change over to contract (I don’t know why, all other networks are capable of this). I accepted, and the lady informed me that within 24 hours, my current number (**********) will be activated on the new sim card.

On 5 November 2017 I realised that my number was no longer active on my prepaid sim, and I started to utilize the contract sim card that was provided to me. It quickly became clear that the number of the contract sim card is also a new number allocated and that my number (which I have used for 10 years now) is lost within the system and if it was called a message would indicate that the number no longer exists.

I phoned the call centre in this regard, and it took me more than 2 days to get this issue sorted out and my number attached to the sim card I was using. I should have stopped there and cancelled the contract, but in faith I did not.

I started requesting the multi sim cards to be attached, and all went quite normal. My first sim card was attached, but I had no need to allocate data as this card was for my own personal use in a modem and it could share data from the main pool.

When I eventually attached a sim card I wanted to use for my child, on 7 December 2017, I started the issue of not being able to allocate data and minutes to any of my multi sims attached. I logged a fault with the call centre the same day, but when I followed up on this, 3 days later, I was informed that the query is empty and the consultant did not fill in any information as to what was wrong.

So the call was logged again on 11 December 2017 at 20:56 with reference number ********** 7. The consultant from the call centre that Telkom would resolve my issue within 9 working days from the date it was logged. Came end of December, nothing was done. I phoned the call centre on 3 January 2018 and a team leader informed me that he will have a look into this, and get back to me before the end of business. I am still waiting for that call.

On the morning of 12 January 2018, I received a message that my case was resolved and it is now closed. I did use my mobile phone to see this and use the service only to realise that it has not been done at all. I phoned the call centre once again, and the one call centre agent even went as far as to tell me “If they said it’s resolved, it is done and you are doing something wrong”.

After another hour of arguing, the eventually transferred me to a manger called Audrucia Rampersad, who logged the query again at 17:38 on 12 January 2018 with reference number ********** 1. She also clearly indicated to me that she will keep me updated on the progress, and they query will soon be resolved.

I have been trying to get in contact with her via the call centre on a daily basis since then, but no one in the call centre is willing to transfer me to her, and always having the excuse that she would phone me back , or that she is currently on another call. No one has phoned me back!

Again, on 16 January 2018 the query was closed and listed as resolved. Again I went through the same process to check if it’s working and to no surprise it is NOT!. And yet again I could not get hold of Audrucia or her manager Sheldon ****son from Telkom Mobile to provide me with answers.

The notes that was made on the first closed query states that “No transaction request was received and therefore no fault is being found”. That does not make sense to me in any way. I can’t do a transaction if I don’t have a number to do a transaction on.

None of the 3 multi sim number I have is showing when using USSD, so it’s impossible to do a transaction if I don’t have something to do a transaction on. When using the mobile app, I get an error that tells me I am not authorised to perform this function.

Telkom Mobile expects me to keep paying my account every month at R1,499.00 for services I can’t utilize, and the account department even informed me that if I have an issue with this, they would list me on the credit burau.

The call centre also refuses to provide me with a working number for the head office, or a customer services manager. All calls must go through the call centre at 081 180.

Telkom has provided me with a service they can’t deliver. The have advertised a product that does not work (with me at least) and they are not willing at this point to do anything about that. They are not willing to provide me with feedback, and they have given me no customer service in this regard.