WORST CUSTOMER CARE EXPERIENCE I'VE EVER HAD!!! VERY DISSAPOINTED AND FUMING

My Name is Bianca, My cell phone contract service provider is Telkom, and would like to lay a serious complaint against their service. I am overall a very understanding, calm lady, but after the service received from Telkom, I never even knew how angry I could become from within me, and I am very unhappy as I do not like to see myself as such a person, that it got to a point where I was so angry I started crying because of my anger, which is a very unpleasant feeling to have.

I have been unemployed for a year, from August 2018 to August 2019, REGARDLESS OF THIS, I WENT OUT OF MY WAY AS A Telkom customer to contact them and advise them on my happenings, to make arrangements regarding payments, which I have always attended to as agreed upon.

I contacted Telkom more or less 5 months ago, requesting to cancel the debit order as I will pay the amount into their account every month, according to them this could not be done, instead I had to pay the money into my account 10 days prior to the debit order, which does not make sence, due to these arrangements the money would be out of my account even before Telkom would have been able to deduct it for my cell phone account.

I contacted Telkom again in August, advising them on the date my salary will get paid in, they confirmed on their side, the debit order date had been changed, and confirmed that the interest etc was going to get deducted.

End of October came, Telkom debited my account prior to my salary date, I got charged a R100.00 penalty from my bank due to the debit order that bounced, and R80.00 from Telkom side because of the debit order that had bounced. After my salary got paid in, another attempt for a debit from Telkom was successfully processed from my account. Now I was frustrated as a customer, because Telkom does not want to take responsibility for the penalty fees I had been charged, yet still take the necessary amount for my cell phone.

I contacted Telkom, spoke to two ladies, firstly the normal customer care agent, then I requested for a Superior, of which the lady threatened me, advising me I will have to pay an extra R240.00 at the end of November, because I advised them that I will reverse the amount deducted from my account, deduct the penalty fees they need to be responsible for, and pay the remains of the amount.

End of November came, same occurring situation, and as the superior advised they deducted the extra R240.00 on top of my normal debit order, before my salary date, by this time, myself as a customer, have been trying to go out of my way, making the effort to stay in contact with my service provider, but still Telkom keeps their own arrangement and ignores my request.

I again contacted Telkom very frustrated, after I have spoken to my bank and advised them to stop the debit order form going off from my account, as I have now taken my payments into my own hands, and will make payment for my cell phone contract via internet banking, I contacted Telkom on the 29th of November 2019, advised them I have stopped the debit order, asked for the banking details, the agent advised me how much according to them, I am outstanding, I explained to her my situation shortly, advised her they will only get payment as needed, including the penalty fees deducted which they will be responsible for.

After I have received an sms with Telkom's banking details, I made a transfer of R418.00 into their bank account.

Two weeks went by, then on the 9th of December 2019, I receive an sms from Telkom saying, "Your account for customer *** has been susPended due to Collection." I am now fuming reading this message, I contacted Telkom again straight away after receiving this sms, 08:33AM, first time in my life swearing to an agent telephonically because I felt like I have went out of my way, plus I MADE PAYMENT, and now having to deal with this situation, I advised the lady that I have made payment, asked for her email address to send her the P.O.P, she provided me with *** and said she will forward it to the back office, query it and get them to provide with feedback, I apologised to the lady for going off at her the way I did, as it is not who I am at all, and explained that I am truly so frustrated with this whole situation and inconvenience as I do understand that the people who was supposed to assist me as a customer, did not do their jobs accordingly and taken out on her unfairly for her colleagues who fail to be of service as expected and getting paid to be of assistance to customers. The call ended and I left it there, trusting, hoping this lady will truly help me.

The morning of the 10th, I found that my Telkom number has been suspended, I can feel my blood running through my veins as I am fuming from within, I called Telkom again, this time going off endlessly on the phone, re-explaining my situation, and immediately requested for a manager, I was on this call for over 35 minutes, I waited approximately 15 minutes for the manager to finish on the telephone call he was on for the lady to transfer me through to him regarding my situation, his name is Maguba, I eventually got through to him, even more frustrating needing to again explain my situation to him, all coming down to this explanation; he went in onto my history on my account on my payments, I explained I have sent through my proof of payment to ***, whereby he confirms that on his side that email address does not exist anymore. So I opened up the sms I have received on the 29th November when I requested for the banking details, I started reading out the reference number, the agent on that day advised me to use when I make payment, which was noted on the sms, "Good day, Dear Customer, here are the banking details, ABSA account, Account Name: Telkom Mobile 8ta, Account Number: ***, Branch Code: 632005, Reference Number: ***, Amount: R739.89"

According to Maguba this reference number was not even allocated to my cell phone contract I have with Telkom, but to someone else, according to me, this is seen as a false and ***** payment to someone else's account, and no, I as a customer am getting literally hunted by Telkom for payment, when in the meantime someone else has received my payment that I have made.

Maguba gave me a reference number *** which I had to use when I sent him the same P.O.P I sent to *** (which does not exist according to him), which I have sent to him after our telephonic conversation. He provided me with his email address which is ***.

It is now early afternoon, and still my number is suspended, I cannot communicate with anyone, and in my job title I need to be available at all times, now I am suffering as a Telkom customer, because the staff that are getting paid "for doing nothing" have even yet made errors on their side and being arrogant with me as a customer, which I believe they should take 100% responsibility for, for all these troubles and happenings that I went through.

I work as a ***** investigator within a corporate company, and having to experience this is completely unacceptable and irresponsible of Telkom.

I will never in my life recommend Telkom to be anyone's service provider, in the beginning I had many compliments to give about my service provider, but never after these happenings will I speak of great things any longer. I will not say a word, people will only see my reaction. I do understand that it is not Telkom itself, but the staff who were supposed to deal with my matter accordingly and failed to do so. I am very very very disappointed, I don't even think that is exactly how I could describe it, I feel a lot worse than that after this experience. Telkom could gladly cancel my contract and put it over to prepaid, without having to pay a cancellation fee, because even when I do pay, I will not receive my monthly data or airtime anyway, and I will not pay for something that I will not receive, especially after this customer service experience, the staff who dealt with my queries should take responsibility for the inconvenience I have experienced.

VERY VERY VERY DISSATISFIED!!