I recently decided to make the leap into ADSL land. I called Telkom to order the service on May 26 2005. After waiting about 15 minutes on hold I then got through and they quickly sorted out the order. Painlessly giving me a 15 to 21 day lead-time and telling me that the line test should take 48 hours and that someone would be in contact with me regarding the service. Needless to say no one called me. I then called them on various occasions each time to be left on hold for 5 - 25 minutes, mostly closer to 25, each time being promised someone would call me back in the next 24 hours. No one did. I was then told to speak to George Hill. I called him but his number only rang through to the original call center number where again I had to hold for 20 minutes while they were experiencing consistent "high call volumes". Here I say if Telkom offered a better more informative service or hired more people maybe this would not be the case. Eventually after trying for 3 days to get hold of Mr. Hill I was told that he has been and is still on leave. I finally called some other numbers at Telkom ISP and ended up with having to call a new person, Mr. Peters. I was told on many occasions that he would call me back but he also did not. Finally I managed to speak to a lady called Galima who for a brief moment in this ordeal helped and also called back, only to tell me that from my original order date of 26 May she had managed to confirm an installation date of 4 August. I asked if this was the earliest possible date to which she replied if I wanted a better date I would need to speak to Mr. Peters who to this date has still not called me. I phone Telkom on a daily bases only to find out that they are the biggest pain in the you-know-where to do anything with. I can tell you that the work they need to do would probably take 30 minutes. And if they can not find 30 minutes in there day to dedicate to installing my service sooner than 2 months after the order date, I can only believe that this is the sorriest telecoms company in the world and I am embarrassed to have to use there services. I keep reading how they are screwing the public and I now know how it feels to be trampled by a big corporate.
To top it off I have already purchased all the equipment to be ready for them when they arrived so in order to move to another service provider I would now have to go and buy more equipment. Telkom you have made what could have been a simple process into the worst buying decision I have ever made.
Update : 11 July ... They installed the line 1 week after a post I made on this list on 7 July. I maintain that someone must be reading the comment in this list as the instalation was said to happen on the 4th August, but was installed right after I moaned here. It rocks once it is in though.
To top it off I have already purchased all the equipment to be ready for them when they arrived so in order to move to another service provider I would now have to go and buy more equipment. Telkom you have made what could have been a simple process into the worst buying decision I have ever made.
Update : 11 July ... They installed the line 1 week after a post I made on this list on 7 July. I maintain that someone must be reading the comment in this list as the instalation was said to happen on the 4th August, but was installed right after I moaned here. It rocks once it is in though.
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