More Telkom woes
Alida de Beer
In response to recent articles about frustrated Telkom customers who struggle to have their phone contracts cancelled, more people in the same boat have contacted the George Herald.
Their stories are all similar. After cancelling their contract online (which is apparently the only method that can be followed), they keep on being billed for several more months. And if these bills are not paid, it reflects on the customer's credit profile.
Erika Brown cancelled her contract in December 2017, but the bills kept on coming. Eventually, at the end of May, a Telkom employee helped her via e-mail to log a dispute to get her money back. She is still waiting, but after the newspaper enquired regarding her case through the Telkom media desk, it was promised that her complaint would be investigated.
Telkom did not respond to another query on behalf of a new George resident, Adriney Friedrich, whose efforts to cancel a new contract were fruitless. In January, she signed for a deal (on special offer) at the Telkom shop at the Garden Route Mall for a land line, with the understanding that she would be able to call her children and other family overseas. After installation of the line, she was not able to make international calls and Telkom could not help her activate the international facility. She is battling to get the contract cancelled and has been paying the monthly bills (which amount to more than what was promised by the special offer) up until the end of May, when she decided to stop.
Telkom's response was, "Telkom is aware that some customers have encountered difficulty in cancelling services due to a system issue earlier this year. In April 2018 we introduced an online process for cancellations which has improved outcomes, although we acknowledge that there can still be hiccups in the process. Customers whose accounts have been suspended due to arrears will not be able to use our online cancellation system. We are working to resolve these issues and apologise to any customers who may have been affected."
Telkom referred customers to an online document that sets out the same online method of cancelling a contract that has proven to be ineffective.