THE TELKOM NIGHTMARES

My 13 months of pure hell from dealing with Telkom ...

I cannot begin to describe the sheer frustration, anxiety, inconvenience, nonsense and utter despair that I have experienced through my trials and tribulations with Telkom since the end of 2019 to date.

I will keep it as “simple” as possible and put in bullet form the main hurdles I have had to face. Of note, I am 70 years old, and have been a Telkom client for more than 50 years.

• Due to the planned doing away of the copper landlines, I reverted to WiFi at the end of 2019. I was given a new router and a “telephone” from the dark ages. This ghastly instrument was most inconvenient as it had to be moved from room to room three times a day because it had to be plugged in; that is, from my study where I work during the day, to my lounge in the early evening where I watch TV, and then to my bedroom at night. The sound quality was pathetic and it was not user-friendly, so I opted to move the SIM from the phone to my cell phone.

• However, unbeknown to me, the new router was 4G and my cell phone was 3G so it would not pick up the WiFi. No-one at Telkom realised this and it took a whiz-kid at a computer shop to explain why my cell was not working! As a result, I had to buy a new cell phone!

• In July 2020 Telkom cut off my Internet connection for four working days, and as I work for an overseas company I had to be able to receive and send work. For those four days I had to commute to a friend twice per day to download new work and upload completed work.

• This was extremely inconvenient and unacceptable and I decided to cancel my service with Telkom and moved my Internet and landline to another service provider in August and September 2020 respectively. To this day I am still being billed by Telkom for my landline service!!!

• I wanted to maintain my existing email address because of the convenience and arranged that with Telkom. Then, in mid-November 2020, for no reason whatsoever I stopped receiving emails. I eventually discovered, after many emails and phone calls, that “a master” had been changed and the “dot” between my first and last name in my email address had been removed! No-one had given me any warning of this change, no-one had apologised for this change, and for two weeks I was unable to receive any emails. This is crucial for my work, and any emails which should have come to me during those two weeks are all still floating in cyberspace, never to be retrieved. None of them bounced back either, so no-one was aware that I was not receiving any emails. No explanation and no apologies from Telkom. I threw my toys out the cot at one of the Telkom shops in a shopping centre, and for 45 minutes two of the assistants worked on the system and told me they had managed to revert back to my “original” email address with the “dot” being re-inserted. Too little too late. I had spent those two weeks without an email address setting up a new email address elsewhere; my nerves were shot to hell and this was the last straw.

• In December 2020 I continued to be billed for my landline every month and after emails and phone calls complaining about the never-ending billing, I was sent an SMS saying the matter had been addressed and I was to phone the call centre for the outcome. The lady I spoke to assured me that the matter was now settled and the account was up to date and no more accounts would be sent. I removed the SMS from my records, thinking this was finally the end of my journey with Telkom, apart from the closing of my email address which will probably take another month or so to finalise on their system!

• Yesterday, to my utter disbelief and horror, I yet again received an account from Telkom for my landline. I thought I was going to have a heart attack! My anxiety levels are going through the roof every time and I just cannot believe this incompetence, inefficiency on the part of Telkom. I phoned the Accounts Department regarding the account and was told I needed to phone another department. As I had already deleted the SMS giving a reference number, I have now resorted to sending yet another email requesting discontinuation of my accounts.

This is a very abridged version of what I have experienced with Telkom. The endless emails which I have written over the past year regarding problems and hiccoughs in their service have nearly all been ignored. The many HOURS in total that I have spent on the phone with consultants at their different departments/call centres have been a nightmare beyond belief. I have been shunted from pillar to post more times than I care to remember, I have had the phone put down on me, I have had incorrect information given to me, and it has been a process of sheer frustration and anxiety as never before. Thankfully, I have had the good fortune of dealing with probably four or five consultants out of the countless others, who have been really helpful and cooperative and they deserve a medal! Telkom does not deserve them!

I am very well aware that I am only one of the thousands of other Telkom customers who have been through the same nonsense and stress as I have, and it has to end. This should not be allowed to happen.