ASK GEORGIE!

JP COHEN OF JOBURG WRITES: Please HELP because after 61 days of waiting for Telkom, enough is enough!

Sixty-one days since our last working telephone line, 61 days of sheer frustration, stress, inconvenience, huge cellphone bills and utmost incompetence on behalf of Telkom staff.

Our telephone line stopped working on July 30, and on August 14, I cancelled the line and requested a new line be installed.

That was the start of it all… oh boy! Four reference numbers later, four visits to a Telkom direct store at Greenstone shopping centre (rude and incompetent staff), three escalation numbers, two notices of “your order is receiving attention”, seven SMSes that “a technician will be dispatched to your premises” – thank G-d I did not hold my breath – three unanswered e-mails to Telkom client service (does it even exist?), and a complaint on the website which was virtually impossible because a) it does not allow you to complain and b) once you have lodged a complaint either telephonically or at a Telkom store, it won’t let you do it again online. Typical and true.

To top it all, I received a Telkom bill with an item of R186.30 for “service fee”. At first I laughed hysterically but really, “service” fees? Sixty one days without a working landline and they have the cheek to bill me for “service” fees.

The so-called “supervisor of technicians” hasn’t bothered to supply any service, nor has the person who subsequently wrote to me from Telkom giving me nothing more than an escalation number (ARS 287 886), and so for the other one who gave me the last escalation number 750200, not to mention the original escalation number of 715966… So many numbers I feel like an accountant!

When a technician did finally arrive to install a number allocated to us, we were told “there is a problem with the underground cable”… It takes 55 days to fix an underground cable? Has everyone gone on long leave?

So please, Georgie, help us get a line and put a stop to the total incompetence at Telkom.

Have you ever called the Telkom telephone directory (1023) and asked for the phone number of Telkom head office? It doesn’t exist on their system so they can’t give it. I nearly did myself a massive injury falling off my chair.

Not one for being a techno savvy kind of guy, I did resort to social media but here’s an astonishing fact – my complaint on Hello Peter was just one in 4 000. Yes, I couldn’t believe it either, 4 000 complaints online about Telkom.

Neotel looks like an awesome option right now but after being a Telkom client for over 20 years (and insanely enough I have them as my ADSL service provider) I thought it can’t be that bad – well it’s worse.

Enough is enough… with a marketing degree behind my name, I really do believe a more appropriate name for the organisation is HELLkom.