Telkom monopoly cheats ‘the little guy' once again
I recently received my latest Telkom invoice, and noticed that we were being charged interest. This was strange since we usually pay our account on time.
The “due date” on the account was October 3 and we had paid on October 4. That's a R15,80 penalty, for one day on an account of R1 095,74.
When I called Telkom, I was told – to my absolute horror – that the moment the account is late, the interest gets calculated from the date the invoice was printed (about 21 days before the due date), and not from the date the customer paid after the so called “due date”.
This makes no sense, especially because it takes a good few days (sometimes weeks) for accounts to arrive by mail.
Is it just me or is anyone else sick of monopolies? This is no way to practise ethical business.
If there are penalties to be paid, at least follow some ethical charging structure instead of subjecting us to this continuous financial abuse.
I plan to take this up with Telkom's head office, though I expect the conversation will be one-sided, as with any other institution where the “small guy” has a complaint against the “big guy”.
Published on the web by Star on November 15, 2005.
If you can't access it, how did you get the link? Just wondering...
And I c it like that as well...