Telkom

So it is time for my bitch and complaint session of the month, also known as my rant. Often my rants end up being about random things that have been on my mind, but this month my rant is directed at someone. Not someone as in a person, but someone as in a company. And it’s a company that pretty much everyone in South Africa bitches about – Telkom.

I have had my issues with Telkom in the past. For example, earlier this year when my parents Internet suddenly died and I was put in charge of contacting Telkom to resolve the situation.

“No,” they said. “It is not us. It is your router.”

“It is not our router,” I responded. “The router is sinking perfectly. If it was the router, the light would not be flashing. If it was the router, our computer guy and my boyfriend who works for an ISP would not tell us unequivocally that this is a Telkom problem.”

“No,” they said. “It is not us. It is your router.”

“Send a technician out then,” I replied. “We will PAY for the technician if we are wrong.”

“Okay,” they said. “We will send a technician to [ENTER WRONG ADDRESS HERE].”

“That is not where we live.”

“But your telephone number is [ENTER CORRECT TELEPHONE NUMBER HERE].”

“Yes.”

“Then you live at [ENTER WRONG ADDRESS HERE].”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“That is the wrong address! We have never lived there! The only other account that we have with you is for my father’s company which isn’t at that address and never has been!”

“Oh.”

*Glare*

This battle of wits continued for a solid three days of me phoning Telkom and telling them to send someone out to fix the problem to no avail. On day four, however, a technician miraculously appeared. Not because of my phoning in. No. Because Grant had convinced someone at work to phone in on our behalf and send someone out. The technician brought in a router and plugged it in… only to find that it didn’t work. Which is what I had been telling them.

“Oh,” was his response.

Half an hour later, it was discovered that our wire linked to the neighbour’s telephone pole and something had gone wrong. It took another 20 minutes to resolve and then we had internet again. Hooray! While he was fixing our line, I was standing in the front garden and happened to witness another guy who was driving past screech to a halt, swiftly reverse and stop in the middle of the road outside our house, climb out of his car and come running towards me screaming: “WHERE IS HE?” It turns out that we were not the only ones having Telkom issues in the neighbourhood.

So, knowing how much of a pain Telkom can be, when we decided to move to a new house and we learned that we were going to need a new phone number (the old tenants were migrating the line with them but, of course, leaving the infrastructure), I insisted that we place the order for the phone line ASAP. We went to Telkom in the first week of November and ordered the line and ADSL upgrade, and even though we were not impressed that we were going to be paying for an installation when all of the equipment was already there, we did not complain. We asked that everything be sorted out by 01 December, and on 01 December, lo and behold, the technician arrived. We were most impressed! We were told that it would take a couple of days for the ADSL line to be active, and we were pleased. Sure, we wouldn’t have internet for a couple of days, but we could live with that.

A week passed and we still hadn’t heard anything from them. Grant had been emailing the Telkom rep in Grahamstown and she was being really apologetic about it, but there was nothing that she could do. Each time we asked, she phoned Telkom and was told that it would take a few more days, information which she then passed on to us. By Friday (a week and a day after the line was installed), I was getting irritated. Not wanting to bug Surita more than was necessary, I decided to contact Telkom directly. I spent half an hour waiting in the queue before finally being seen to, was then informed that it should be done on Monday and that Surita would contact us. Most frustrating, but at least we had been given a date.

Monday came and went with no ADSL. On Tuesday (now a month after we had first placed the order) we were told that we had been given an installation date of 23 December. We were furious! Working at an ISP, we know what is involved in enabling ADSL on a line. It involves walking into the exchange, signing a couple of papers, finding the line, unplugging it and plugging it in elsewhere. It should take no more than 15 minutes and yet – 23 DECEMBER! Surita, once again, was most apologetic and promised to do all that she could to get it done sooner. Surita, we have decided, is magic. On Thursday we were told that the ADSL had been enabled and we were practically jumping for joy. It was still not working at home though, so Grant ran off to Telkom to get a phone and went back to the house to test it. Only to be met by the dull BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP that indicates a dead line. A dead line that told us that the installation that was done on 01 December had not been done correctly. A dead line that indicated that the bill that we had already received for the line rental might as well be torn into tiny little eetsy beetsy bits since there was no way in hell that we were going to be paying for a landline that we couldn’t have used even if we wanted to.

It is now almost a week later and we have finally been told that a technician has been sent to work on the problem. It has been most painful getting hold of Telkom to discuss the matter with them, since the Grahamstown branch is in fact closing and are therefore no longer answering their phones and phoning the main branch in Johannesburg leads me to want to shoot my work phone. Here’s hoping that this is the end of it, but something tells me that it really isn’t and that there are long struggles with Telkom ahead. In the meantime, I am not happy with the service I have received and if I were rating the company, I would give them 1 star. Not that it would make any difference, of course. Practically everyone in the country complains about Telkom and nothing comes of it. I was tempted to write a complaint on HelloPeter (something that I was reluctant to do because I have issues with HelloPeter, a story for another time) but I doubt that they would even bother responding to that. They have a terrible reputation and they are doing nothing to better it. And so I will just rant on my blog where no one is likely to pay attention, but at least I get my frustrations out in the open. /end Rant.