Telkom sucks at Customer Service

I have been with Telkom for possibly 8 years, I had purchased my first contract when they were still 8Ta. The initial 24 month contract has been renewed every year automatically as I was happy with their service, I even have a Telkom Mobile contract for my Cell and have been raving about the service, that my mom, and brothers migrated to Telkom as well.

My Home data package has come to an end again and instead of Cancelling it, I wanted to keep the contract till the end of this year(2018) and possible upgrade in the new year. What I had done though is pay Telkom upfront for services that have not even been rendered yet, yes UPFRONT payment to cover me for the rest of this year for both my Home Wifi and my Cell phone contracts and I had decided to Cancel my Debit order as they already had the money in their banking accounts, enjoying all the benefits of interest,etc .

My invoice for last month, indicates that they will be deducting an extra R200,75 on the 5 July 2018 as a Debit order rejection fee. I called on the 8 June 2018 @ 08:15 to query this matter as I didn't see why they had actually put through the debit order when they had my money in their account anyway. I spoke to Magaboke, a call centre agent who was unable to make any decisions on my issue, he proceeded to log a call Ref: # ********** 9 and specified in the request that I wanted a call from the someone in the Billing Department. Needless to say this never happened. The agent that my call was assigned too, just sent me an SMS on the 11 June 2018 and closed my call. I was appalled, I meant is this how Telkom treats their so called Valuable clients.

I've been with them for so long and I don't even warrant a call when I have a problem?????

I called back on the 25 June 2015 @ 11:04, I spoke to another call centre agent by the name of Fundo, who listened to my problem and after speaking to his line manager it was decided that the original call logged (Ref:# ********** 9) would be reopened and assigned to a Billing agent who would contact me. In addition Fundo told me that he would send me a blank email and I could reply to him with any questions or even if I just need him to check up on the progress of my call as he would keep an eye on the matter. I received an email from a Telkom email address which I naturally assumed was from Fundo whom I've just spoken to, upon replying to the email to ensure it was indeed him, the email bounced back to me, with a message "Address Not Found"

I waited, but nothing from Telkom for the rest of the week. So I called yesterday, 2 July 2018 @ 10:24 and spoke to another call centre agent Tshepiso, after explaining the entire matter to her and asking to now speak to a manager as I wanted this matter resolved. She eventually said she was going to transfer me to her manager by the name of Masilo Mogale. She put me on hold to transfer the call and conveniently the call got cut off, Needles to say I was angry at this point as I had been on the call for 44:58 mins.

I called back and eventually got through to the Call Centre, this time spoke to Nozipo who told me that she was unable to transfer me to the Masilo Mogale as she was in the Durban office and he was more than likely in Johannesburg, so I asked to speak to he manger as I wanted the matter resolved. After putting me on hold, she notified me that her manager, who's name is Lungelo Zikhali, was busy on another Escalation and was unable to take my call, but that he would call me back. She proceeded to confirm my Cell phone number for the call back and apparently logged a call, but as she was about to give me the reference number, the call again got cut off, how convenient. I was on the phone this time around for anothr 29:57 mins

Today is 3 July 2018( 09:00) and I am still waiting for any feedback from Telkom, meanwhile they have about R2000 of my money in their account (for both my contracts paid to the end of the year), it seems I can't even get them to talk to me about a problem of their making and now I'll probably battle to get my money back from them.

I would like my experience to be a warning to everyone, it seems that a giant like Telkom has not learned that Customer Retention is much easier than acquiring new clients,but maybe they just don't care because they are so rooted in South Africa. Their customer service is the worst, they lie without any shame and then don't mind charging you extra for the privilege, they are no more than ******* in my opinion, seriously I have been a customer of theirs for nearly 8 years, I have never been in arrears and they never had a problem with my account and this is the treatment I receive, its appalling. I would have given them less than half a star as a rating if I had that option on this site

I will be lodging a complaint with the Ombudsman to report them.