Baffling not to get service after tedious Telkom run-around

I WRITE out of sheer frustration not knowing where else to turn in an endeavour to have my private telephone and fibre-optic internet service restored.

On a number of occasions in recent months, my telephone service has been disrupted and after numerous calls to the Telkom complaint line from my mobile telephone, going through the lengthy process of obtaining a live voice to listen to my complaint, it has in the past eventually been restored. Restoration of service is always followed by numerous unnecessary calls to establish my satisfaction. Regarding this latest disruption of service, satisfaction seems a long way off.

On Monday, September 7, two calls were made to report the complaint, which originated the previous day, each requiring the usual waiting time after being warned that call pressure was high.

On Tuesday I was given details of two people to contact , to be advised that telephone complaints were not their responsibility. I was given a number to phone someone else in Pretoria as my “fibre box” was switched off from there.

Apparently an order, of which I was not made aware, was given to revert my fibre-optic cable to copper.

Numerous attempts to call the Pretoria number, eleven in all, which can be verified from my cellphone, remained unanswered.

In-between, I also made a further eight calls to the complaints phone number 10210.

Two technicians arrived at my flat and said that they came from the Bellville South office as out of the 26 technicians employed for this work, 20 had taken their “packages”, and they were left trying to cover all the problems.

They looked at the equipment, but could not assist as the “optic fibre people” had switched off my connection. They agreed to speak to them within the hour and hoped a connection would then be re-established.

Yesterday, I called 10210 again and eventually complained to a woman who checked my fault reference number, to be advised that the problem had twice been closed as the service had been restored. Nonsense, as I would not still be waiting hours trying to get some sense from the organisation.

After attempting to follow all her instructions to disconnect and reconnect various components of the system without success during a half-hour mobile call, she advised that the prob- lem was not for her department and after giving me another 0800 number to call, agreed to connect me to the correct employees. The connection did not materialise and the call was terminated.

I then tried to call the 0800 number she gave me, but, needless to say, there was no response.

Incidentally, apart from the calls I made and noted above, other family members also took it upon themselves to assist by reporting the problem from their telephones.

In the meantime, I remain without a much-needed telephone line and internet service. Where do I go from here?

Sandak-Lewin writes from Cape Town in his personal capacity

I contacted the two people and was advised telephone complaints were not their responsibility