The Great Telkom Circus

Item: Telkom
Rating: 1

Fault ref: ********** 5 The Great Telkom Circus Our Telkom mobile router went on the blink without any notice or reason. Hoping it may self-resolve, we contacted Telkom a day later on 22 December 2016. The first act of the Telkom circus was the online chat facility available on their website. After providing the same lengthy security information 3 times with the chat "disconnecting" inexplicably, I asked that the agent call me back. Thankfully, she did, yet frustratingly the agent insisted we load airtime onto our account, although the problem we experienced with a red light indicator on the unit had never before appeared in instances when the bundle had depleted. Nonetheless, we obliged and purchased airtime knowing full well that the agent was reading off a trouble shooting list, for reasons of lack of training or simply the absence of s****, ignoring the information we had provided to her. Ofcourse as expected the problem persisted, after us having attended to all her suggestions. She then finally logged a fault. My wife and I asked that I be listed as an authorised party to access the account. The agent advised it required a password to be set, which could be done on the phone at that time, however I was in a rush due to the long call and ended it without doing so. Act 2 of the Circus.Telkom failed to get back to us for four days. In essence it took Telkom four days to advise us to take the unit into our nearest Telkom office. Act 3 of the circus. Yes, it gets worse .We made the trek into the telkom office at Gateway, Durban on 30 December, during our rare and precious vacation leave. It quickly became obvious that we were not alone in our suffering. A long stream of customers waited painfully in line to be attended to at the circus front desk. I waited 25 minutes,there was just one "technician" who could check the router, Sithembiso, available; but he was also tending to another customer service terminal, so I had to wait. It was entirely bemusing that none of the otherwise available staff, and there were at least four walking around chatting to each other, could not attend to the processing of the sale that Sithembiso was completing so as to free him to attend to his primary duties of being the only technician there. Following a very basic diagnostic test, removal and then replacement of a new sim card on the unit, he concluded that the unit required repairs. Act 4 of what now felt like a never-ending circus. The router needed to be booked in, and we were informed it would take 2 to 3 weeks. Naturally and obviously astounded, I asked why? "Well it's the festive season", we were told. Telkom would not continue your service if you failed to pay and provided the reason that it was the festive season, you had overspent on family gifts and well you know, Janu-"worry" and all that. Naturally, your service would be suspended for failure to pay regardless of your personal issue. Yet Telkom considers the festive season a valid reason to justify this nonsense. Act 5. We asked Sithembiso to create a password to authorise my access to the account held by my wife. He advised it should be done over the phone as he was not able to do so from the terminal. So my wife and I proceeded to one of the phones as the store and called Telkom customer care. My wife spoke to Sicelo Hlengwa who conducted a full security check and asked for my details as well as security password to enable the access we required. He placed us on hold and returned to state he could not complete the function as my wife needed to do so in the store with a customer service representative. This circus had now turned into a tragedy of idiots of which we were the unfortunate victims. After a few desperate attempts to convince the agent that his assertion was contrary to the advice of two other Telkom agents, the first being the agent we first communicated with over the phone (in act one) and the second the one we spoke to in store, I resigned myself to just getting it done as we had been in store for over an hour by that time. Mlu Mcombela finally proceesed the request in store. It would seem that Telkom finds its own security checks over the phone to be unrealiable, in as much as it would not permit a client to authorise her husband to have access to account once having completed such a security check. This is astounding, I would be interested to know how Telkom reconciles this approach with adherence to the present law. More especially when it becomes abundently evident that the measures in place to protect customers, actually hurt and inconveniences them. Surely our contract with Telkom worked with mutual respect and benefit. Surely Telkom should provide quality, timeous service and further ensure that the consumer not pay for services / goods not provided. Well it is obvious that Telkom could cares little about the best interest or convenience of their customers. From a poorly functioning online customer interface, even more poorly trained and unhelpful call centre and store personnel, to frustratingly inconvenient procedures and an overall disregard for the time and money of customers. At the end, ( I wonder though if it really is going to be the end of this circus as I am sure there are further acts to come) of this saga thus far, we are without wifi for about 2 weeks which could be for a further 3 weeks. Needless to mention that Telkom will debit us this month and the next with no rol***** of the data we have not be able to use due to no fault of our own. We could potentially receive a refund, obviously we will have to fight for this as well. The moral of the story. Don't be like us, do not attend this expensive and painful circus. We are tied in for a few months longer you don't have to be at all.

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