Telkom – South Africa’s secret service

WORRIED PENSIONER writes:

There was a time when, if your landline became faulty, you could phone Telkom to report it and within 24 hours there was a white truck at your gate with a friendly and smiling technician who was so willing to assist you.

Today, how different things are.

After a really heavy storm in the early hours of December 9 last year, my telephone died completely. That was eight weeks ago. Like your previous correspondent, I too am a pensioner living alone, so my landline is basically my lifeline.

Also read:

• Only empty promises from Telkom

Try as I might, I was unable to get any response from Telkom via my cell phone, so I asked a good friend to report the fault to Telkom for me. She did this, and

we were given a reference number, 516crz191216.

She was told if a technician came to my house to repair the line, I would be expected to pay R250. I agreed, because I really need my phone.

Yet, not a single word nor any manual assistance was forthcoming from them at all for the following four weeks – although I made every effort on my part and

contacted them via email and with friends’ assistance just about every day.

Around about January 15 my friend phoned to report the fault yet again. She was told the fault reference, 516crz191216, had been successfully resolved. Really? She was then furnished with a new reference number, 134crz400117. This time I did receive a response. I was told via SMS that my report was in hand and that the fault would be resolved within three days. Wonderful news.

Only thing was, my phone remained silent after this period of three days. Then the message came on my cell that the fault was 25% resolved and that I must not reply to the message.

Two days later, another message came through that the fault was now 50% resolved and “Do not reply to this message”. Then after another two days, I received the message that the fault was now resolved, and if there were any further problems, I must phone 10210 to report them.

My phone is still lifeless!

On January 27, my friend phoned Telkom yet again to report the fault. My new reference number is now 151crz300117. My friend was told that if a technician needed to come to my home, I would need to find R278 – that’s another R23 more than the first quote, but we readily agreed to pay this amount if they would just please come and repair the fault.

Yesterday (Sunday), I got an SMS to say, “Dear customer, we are attending to your fault, which is 25% resolved, do not reply to this message” and so the pattern continues!

I am at my wit’s end!