Termination of service without you requesting it, and trying to reestablish your service.

I've been a loyal Telkom customer for the past 26 years without any problems and never been in arrears on my account. Suddenly one morning my telephone and ADSL line is dead. I logged a complaint with the technical department, and later that day a lady calls to inform me that she cant do anything for me as my service (phone and ADSL) was requested to be terminated/canceled by me and that I must take it up with the account department.

I contacted accounts (29/01/2018) and the person confirmed that I allegedly requested on the 1st of November 2017 (Ref number: ********** 99A) them to cancel/suspend my service on the 29 th of January 2018, which IS NOT TRUE. The confirmation reference number for this cancellation request is ********** 39A. The person said that it is probably a mistake on their side and she will send an urgent request to their IT department (Ref number: ********** 0) to reestablish my service the same day as I need my ADSL up and running urgently.

To no surprise my service was still unavailable the following day. I contacted the accounts department again the on the 30th of January 2018 to follow up on the case, and explained my situation to the person. The lady then told my that accounts can not do anything for me and that I need to call 10213 and reapply for my service for it to be reestablished.

I called 10213 and got hold of a sales consultant. She took my application and managed to keep my old number. With this application I added my ADSL, increased the speed and added some other services as well (Ref number: ********** 01A). She also told me that the request will take 24 to 48 hours to be enabled.

Two days later I called 10213 to check on the progress of my request. After 25 minutes of holding the line a consultant eventually picked up the call. After the authentication check I gave the lady my Ref number. She had to check different systems for probably 5 times, placing me on hold for about 4 to 5 minutes each time. After about 22 minutes she managed to escalate the request (Ref number: ********** ). So the 24 to 48 hour wait starts all over again.

Low and behold, 2 days later a technician contacted me and told me that I must meet him at my house so that he could come and do the 'INSTALLATION' for me. I explained to him the situation that it was an err on Telkom's side and that no installation needs to be done, it is only a matter of him to enable the line at the exchange. Both confused (me and the technician) I met him at my house. According to the job request he received he had to install a new telephone service (which was already installed and Telkom just suspended my service with no request at all). In the job order it was NO WHERE MENTIONED TO ENABLE MY ADSL OR UPGRADE MY SERVICE as per customer request (Ref number: ********** 01A). The technician explained to me that he only have to enable my phone on the exchange as every thing was in place. If he had an job request for the ADSL (as requested) he could enabled that ass well, but could not help me as it war not part of the job order. So what happened to the rest of the request? Any way 10 minutes later my phone was working again with NO ADSL.

On the 6th of February 2018 I called the 10213 sales department again and requested a sales consultant to enable ADSL on my line (Ref number: ********** 03A). Again the answer was to wait 24 to 48 hours.

The next day (7/2/2018) I phoned to check on the progress and again I had to wait 20 minutes for a consultant to pickup. Again the consultant had to check different systems for probably 5 times, placing me on hold for about 4 to 5 minutes each time. She escalated the matter again to the supervisor with Ref number: ********** . Hopefully something will happen now.

Two days later (9/2/2018) I decided to walk into a Telkom customer service center, as I was not prepared to spend 45 - 50 minutes on the phone again. The assistant tried to help me with the order ( ********** 03A) and escalation ( ********** ). She also tried to create an order for ADSL for me, but with no success as the option for ADSL is grayed out on my account and she had to log an internal request to the IT department to investigate this matter. At least the only positive side to the story is that she promised me that she will keep an eye on the matter and keep me posted.

On 12/2/2018 I received a phone call from the helpful lady the Telkom walk in client service center telling me that my order is still grayed out and that she still can't do anything. What she did find though is a new order on my account, Ref number: ********** 81A (I have no idea where this number came from as it was not given to me). This order was for ADSL which is right, with uncapped data which is WRONG. Nowhere did I specify any data packages or data option, as I have my own ISP. Again I had to phone 10213 and select the progress option. I knew I was going to wait for at least 20 minutes before a consultant will pick up the call. Amazingly after 18 minutes a consultant picked up the call and could assist me to cancel the bogus (Ref number: ********** 1A) order. She said that she had to send an request to the IT department to cancel the order (Ref number: ********** ). Poor IT people are over worked.

So that is my story, 8 days without a phone and 14 days without ADSL, and I did not request for the service to be terminated. Hopefully someone will look at this complaint, get in contact with me and sort out my problem. That's all I could hope for.