You will all carry error costs on contracts

I have data sim month to month contract with Telkom. Due to unforeseen circumstances my debit order for October bounced and I was charged a penalty fee for that. Nonetheless; I made a payment of R500 on the 17 Nov and my balance was confirmed by their "collections" via SMS on 19 Nov to be R603.49 due to Telkom on 29 Nov (also verified on the Telkom self service portal). Lo and behold, an amount of R 1103.49 was debited from my account today being the 25th. I call their call center and I am told in not so many words that Telkom outsources their collections and therefore does not have the money to facilitate a refund which takes 7 days. I therefore have to wait 7 days for the funds to reflect on their end, of which then a refund will be facilitated. In summary I have to carry the cost of the error for 14 days, an error that has nothing to do with me.

During the call, the operator told me that their collections collected the full amount because they did not know of the payment I made via the self service portal. I proceeded to tell her about the SMS I received confirming the balance. I asked she put me through to collections so that I can communicate with them about the matter and find a less costly solution on my end of which she told me I have to do it myself on another call with my resources as she does not have the resources to do so on her end. (Please note the costs I have to carry as a customer).

I then asked she put me through to her team leader so as to escalate the matter and find a solution today, she proceeded to tell me that the team leader will have to call me back as their process does not allow her to transfer my call to her team leader and didn't give me her team leaders name. I am therefore subjected to wait for when/if the team leader contacts me with an attempt to resolve the matter. (time costs).

The amount of distress and financial constraints I have to endure because of this is too high. When I took up the contract, Telkom did not inform me that, my personal information will be entrusted to a service provider who will handle their collections nor did I agree to such. As it stands, I do not know who has my personal information and what they will do to it or how they are keeping it. I am very unhappy with how this matter is being handled, the cost of living is very high and R500 is a lot to me for it to go missing for 14 days.

I have no right to demand recourse with "collections" because we have not made any agreement prior to this incident.

From this whole thing I am coming to terms with that if any error occurs between Telkom and their "collections", you as the customer will carry all the costs associated with correcting that error. Please be aware of this when you take out any contract with Telkom