Telkom Overport City Durban Pathetic Service!!

Good Day All,

I hope this email finds you well.

I would like to lay a complaint about a Manager (Jose') and staff member (Prudence) at Telkom Overport City, Durban.

Its hard to get the correct email address online for this type of complaint and I prefer to have thing in black and white rather than a telephonic call, please refer to the necessary departments if you are unable to assist.

My husband was due for an early upgrade with Telkom on the 15th June 2020, he went to the Overport City Branch in Durban and was assisted by a consultant by the name of Prudence. He took out the upgrade with a Samsung Galaxy S20 for R1000 x 24 months, the consultant explained everything correctly to him and done her job professionally with assisting him with the upgrade. My husband then returned home with the phone and after playing around with it, he realised that the phone itself gets overheated and was very slow, mind you so not worth the R1000 x 24 months that he would be paying and wanted to change it for something else that he would be happy with.

He returned to the same Telkom Overport Branch the next day 16 June 2020 less that 24hours of taking out the contract and spoke to the same consultant Prudence about returning the phone and taking out something else, she advised him that it cannot be done and that he should come back the next day when the manager Jose would be back at work as she cannot assist him further. I then, being my husbands wife asked my husband to please put the consultant Prudence on the phone so that I can have a word with her as I myself work in the cellphone customer service industry and I am very aware of the CPA law for the customers and the "cooling off period". Prudence then came on the phone, I approached her respectfully and explained that it is less than 24hours that my husband wants to do the return the phone for something else, she was very rude and spoke over me, did not give me a chance to speak, still had the nerve to say that my husband is the client and not me and that she is going to terminate the call. In my 12 year experience in the cellphone customer service industry I have never heard of such unprofessionalism ecspecially when you as a consultant represent a brand like Telkom. She was not only impatient, she was extremely unprofessional and bluntly rude. You were polite and humble and done your job to the best of your ability when my husband took out his upgrade at you store but when it was time to exchange it u turned into a rude, unapologetic, unprofessional and *********** person. She should not be dealing at all with customers ecspecially in a time like this where many are loosing their jobs due to the crisis our country is facing, clearly she does not appreciate or is unhappy in her field of work.

My husband spoke to the Telkom Overort City Manager Jose on the 17th June 2020, who is another piece of work. He did hear my husband out but had the audacity to threaten my husband and say that he just got off the phone with his legal team. He then insisted that he would only change the device for the exact same one or terminate his existing Telkom contract overall, forgetting my husband is within his cooling off period which the manager himself refused to mention. He was basically forcing the device on my husband, imagine telling him that if he does not exept the device then he will terminate his contract and "Flash" him on the Telkom system so that he will never be able to take out a Telkom contract at any of the Telkom stores ever again. Now a manager that represents Telkom bullying a customer is totally unacceptable and unprofessional on so many levels. Lucky for my husband, I did go to one of our Telkom managers at my place of work for a second opinion because it was very strange to me that Telkom does not have a cooling off period yet all the other network providers do and i gave him a run down on this horrific ordeal, he then advise me that my husband is within his 5 day cooling off period and if he is not happy with the device he is within his rights to change it for something else. I then sent the screenshot of the terms and conditions for Telkom and sent it to my husband who immediately showed it to Jose the Manager who later says that he can assist him and change the device but it would take 2-3 weeks as head office needs to do it as it cannot be done in store.

You force a 24 month contract for R1000 x 24 months on a customer that is not happy with the device and when the customer refuses to budge you threaten to cancel his overall contract with Telkom. Jose also has the nerve to tell my husband that he just got off the phone with his legal team, as if what he was doing is legal? like we cannot afford or take legal action against him and Telkom for trying to bind a customer and force a customer for 24months to take a device he is not happy with knowing the CPA law is in place to protect customers against stuff like this and knowing my husband was within his cooling off period. He calls himself a manger yet he failed to even mention it to my husband, he thought we ******** and don't know our rights. You cannot threaten and force your customers that bring money into Telkom and that have been with Telkom for years, your job as a manager is to assist the customer to the best of your ability and not to **** them and abuse your power.

How can Telkom even employ people like this that give them a bad name and bring so much damage to their brand? That have no desire to help and try keep their customers happy at a trying time like this but to rather let them go and just terminate the contracts because they too lazy to do a job they get paid to do?

My husband is one of the lucky ones who managed to get it right, how many other poor people are they *********** and forcing binding contracts on and not advising the of the cooling off period?

I will not stop until my voice is heard and these 2 staff members that represent Telkom are dealt with accordingly. I will take this to the highest level, every social media site and the newspapers if I have to, to let people know the type of staff Telkom hire and that represent their brand.

If he cancelled and Flashed my husband like he threated to do, he was in for a surprise of his life because I would of made it my duty to make an example of Managers who abuse their power and who mistreat customers who are within the law and their rights.

In the end he did assist because he saw we know what we talking about, but for the hassle and professionalism that was given I would never advise anyone to take out a contract at the Telkom Overport City Branch until they up their Customer Service S****s and employ people with the Customer Service Drive. Pathetic Service Telkom Overport City Durban!!