Telkom - Unashamedly *******

Telkom are trying to get money from me for a line that I cancelled, but they never seemed to have processed.

At the moment, my account has been handed over to some debt collectors (Debt In, I think they're called, but the operators always talk in an unclear rushed manner as some kind of ************ tactic, so I am not 100% sure of the name).

These guys are now calling me constantly at all times (anything from 8am to as late as 8:30 pm). They claim that my account (approx. R1200) had been handed over to them by Telkom in March 2019, and has now climbed to just under R2000 in the space of 4 months. They claim that the increases are due to interest on the outstanding amount, as well as a charge of R20 per phone call (even when they don't get hold of me).

The situation is this: I had activated a Telkom line in a flat I was renting, so that my flatmate and I could have internet. The ISP we used was Afrihost. Early last year, the owner of the flat informed me that they would arrange for the installation of Fibre and that I could cancel the internet setup I was using at the time.

So my flatmate asked Telkom how we should go about cancelling our line and we did all of that. We sent them the necessary cancellation forms, cancelled our service with Afrihost and also paid our Telkom account for that month. This was in April 2018.

Shortly thereafter (June 2018), I moved out, and my flatmate stayed on in the flat. In July of that year, my former flatmate informed me that she had been trying to get confirmation from Telkom that the line had been cancelled, but was receiving no cooperation, and that she suspects they did not process the cancellation. I have screenshots of all her communications with Telkom, and it shocking to see how poor their customer service is. Anyway, I told her that it was Telkom's problem and that we did everything we should have done.

Then, out of the blue, Telkom sends me an e-mail in November 2018, to inform me that my service has been suspended due to non-payment... this was the first communication I had received from Telkom after having cancelled the line 7 months earlier.

Now I am being pestered constantly by this collections company who somehow has a total interest rate of about 110% per year or 10% per month. And this on a Telkom bill that kept running for 7 months after I had cancelled my service...

This is really disgusting practice and they are sorely mistaken of they think I will just keel over and pay them.