Where to now?

I am so frustrated with Telkom... I don't even know where to start.

My woes began on 24 January 2019 when I received a call from a debt collection agency (Nicholas Ngwenya), saying Telkom has handed me over as I owed them money! This was very surprising to me as my number, ***, was ported over on 2018-06-05 and my account was fully paid up at that stage. I emailed the person that called me with the information I had: a screenshot of the porting info of Telkom's CRDB database, showing the date of porting. It appeared that the technical side was done but the admin side was not and they had continued billing me.

On 2019-02-06, I got another call, once again asking me when I was going to pay. Are you kidding me? I had honestly thought this was resolved. They confirmed seeing my email in the system and that no one had done anything with it - Telkom were effectively billing me for a number that was no longer on their network!

I then found an article on MyBroadband about issues with cancelling Telkom accounts and it provided an email address for Telkom's National Customer Care, ***. I emailed them on 6 February 2019, asking them to please assist me. I included the screenshot of their system and my porting documentation. I also added this "I truly believe that the issue is that the technical dept did not notify the admin department of the number porting and they have continued to bill me. I just can’t explain not receiving any invoices. I also logged on to the portal and my line no longer exists there. I am happy to pay any outstanding amount that I owe up until when the number was ported"

On 14 February 2019, 8 days later, I got the following email response:

From: National Customer Care <***> Sent: Thursday, 14 February 2019 15:25 To: Mike Truter Subject: FW: Telkom *** Importance: High

Good day Mr Truter, We have received your escalation . Please be advised a dispute has been logged and we will advise when it is resolved. Apologies for the apologies and delay caused Kind regards Telkom escalation

Great, so a dispute was logged. This was the last I heard from Telkom. No more debt collection calls, etc. so I thought I was in clear.

Fast forward 11 months:

I approached my bank last week to get a student loan for my daughter's second year of studies and was declined! The reason stated: I have a judgement against my name from Telkom! I made contact with TransUnion and they said that I don't in fact have a judgement against me but I do have a listing for my Telkom account that shows it has not been paid for almost 2 years. This apparently is a negative factor for banks, particularly FNB. I asked them how to solve this issue and was told that I need to get a letter from Telkom showing my account is paid up and closed and they would remove this from my credit record.

Now understand this: This loan should have been a no-brainer as I have an impeccable credit record and was a formality. I have to pay R34k by 24 Jan for registration, with the balance (R52K) due 28 Feb. Can you understand my frustration? I had to find R34k somewhere in 2 days... Thankfully I was able to but now need to get this issue sorted before 28 Feb, when the balance becomes due.

So, back to Telkom. I made contact with Telkom via the online chat on their website, on 21 January 2020.

I explained the story and provided my details, asking for a letter to say I don't owe money and my account is closed. I was told the following by Nyamezela: "I have sent the request through you will be contacted thruogh email"

I then asked two more questions: "Do you know how long it will take before I am contacted? I am a little pressured for time in terms of getting the student line" and "Do you have a reference number for me in case I need to follow this up?"

Nyamesela rep**** "No" to both questions.

It is now 23 January 2020 and I have not heard from them. I have no reference number to follow this up with. I don't know with what dept it was logged with, if at all.

What am I supposed to do now? I don't have ANY faith that I will hear from Telkom based on previous experiences. It feels like I am facing a faceless monster and I have no tools. I am DESPERATE for this letter from Telkom so that I can get this removed from my credit record. I need to pay for my daughter's tuition and I am really worried that I won't be able to.

Where to now?