Something SA Should Do...

D

DOOMIE61

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2006
Messages
719
Reaction score
0
Location
Anywere
Im very clued up on your situation over there and thought that seeing that your phone bill is so high the best way to sort out high prices is that everyone in SA should join in and say "im not paying my telkom phonebill until you drop cost and bandwidth prices" that type of thing worked here in the UK for a number of things.... pretty much like a strike for the whole of SA ;)
 
Yes but people in SA aren't like that. People in SA are scared of big corporations and don't stick together.

It's sad really.
 
people need to work, they need to make money, it would be affective as one of those "dont drive your car for a day and use petrol to spite the fuel hike prices". These kinda things dont work too well.
 
Actually I don't see why someone doesn't start a chain e-mail or something about this. Give a few very harsh facts and say don't pay your Telkom bill this month. Keep it small and simple. People may take it up :)

I like the idea, hope it is possible.
 
DOOMIE61 said:
Im very clued up on your situation over there and thought that seeing that your phone bill is so high the best way to sort out high prices is that everyone in SA should join in and say "im not paying my telkom phonebill until you drop cost and bandwidth prices" that type of thing worked here in the UK for a number of things.... pretty much like a strike for the whole of SA ;)
Click to expand...
When did the consumers en masse refuse to pay BT? I dont recall it happening when I lived there.
 
we didnt have to do that for BT.. (they sorted themselves out unlike telkom) but we did it when the fuel price went to high and a few others aswell. its something you guys should seriously look at if you want the change your problems everyone should join in and help :) imagine if everyone refused to pay there phone bill :D oh how telkom would **** themselves then they will have to do something.....
 
DOOMIE61 said:
we didnt have to do that for BT.. (they sorted themselves out unlike telkom) but we did it when the fuel price went to high and a few others aswell. its something you guys should seriously look at if you want the change your problems everyone should join in and help :) imagine if everyone refused to pay there phone bill :D oh how telkom would **** themselves then they will have to do something.....
Click to expand...

I really doubt it. You'd have to get a truly significant proportion of the population to do it, otherwise Telkom would simply cut off your service and blacklist you. And the timescale doesn't fit - it does, unfortunately, take time to get things done - to reduce prices, to stop including local bandwidth, whatever. You can't expect to just say "I'm not paying", and have them immediately drop prices and rearrange packages.
 
what happened to that free local bandwidth movement or something, where everybody was encouraged to download that clients that would simultaneously download with other clients
 
Its a good idea.

What you would need to do is lodge a complaint with Telkom stating that you refuse to pay their bill until they comply with ADSL regulations, especially in regards dropping to ADSL line rental.

Then more importantly is forward a copy of the complaint to a credit agency like TransUnion ITC and instruct them that the Telkom bill must be marked as "in dispute".

For Telkom to take further legal action they would need to show that they made an effort to resolve your complaint.
 
Even just a thousand people not paying 300 rand would equal a loss of R300 000-00. Then comes the second month where people realise others were brave enough to do it so they follow suit.

How big is this forum again? :rolleyes:
 
Cathryn said:
I really doubt it. You'd have to get a truly significant proportion of the population to do it, otherwise Telkom would simply cut off your service and blacklist you. And the timescale doesn't fit - it does, unfortunately, take time to get things done - to reduce prices, to stop including local bandwidth, whatever. You can't expect to just say "I'm not paying", and have them immediately drop prices and rearrange packages.[/QUOTE

"You'd have to get a truly significant proportion of the population to do it" not really i just checked that you guys have just under 300 000 people with adsl so all of them not paying, that would be a massive hit for telkom.. i think, and you can use e-mail newspaper or anything to get the word around, remember telkom cannot survive without its customers..
Click to expand...
 
DOOMIE61 said:
"You'd have to get a truly significant proportion of the population to do it" not really i just checked that you guys have just under 300 000 people with adsl so all of them not paying, that would be a massive hit for telkom.. i think, and you can use e-mail newspaper or anything to get the word around, remember telkom cannot survive without its customers..
Click to expand...

I think you're overestimating how much of their revenue comes from adsl. I really don't think it would phase them to just cut off your service, blacklist you, and then start proceedings to get their money from you. They're not worried - legally, you owe them the money because they provided a service you used. They *will* get their money from you, one way or another.

A slightly more effective way, although even less likely to happen, is to get everyone to cancel their adsl accounts. Then they're still losing out on money, but the legal issue of you having used the service and therefore still owe them the money is out the way.
 
^ true, but could we not perhaps legally tell them that sorry we cannot pay them because they do not abide by the regulations? therefore what I pay for and what I get is illegal, somehow ? :) Im not a legal expert by any means :p but it makes so much sense to me :)
 
DOOMIE61 said:
we didnt have to do that for BT.. (they sorted themselves out unlike telkom) but we did it when the fuel price went to high and a few others aswell. its something you guys should seriously look at if you want the change your problems everyone should join in and help :) imagine if everyone refused to pay there phone bill :D oh how telkom would **** themselves then they will have to do something.....
Click to expand...
No - imo they were sorted out by Oftel - regrettably we have ICASA. If I said the I in ICASA stood for Incompetent I would be accused of giving them more credit than they're due.

Look how many thousands Telkom has already disconnected without a care in the world.
 
Cathryn said:
I think you're overestimating how much of their revenue comes from adsl. I really don't think it would phase them to just cut off your service, blacklist you, and then start proceedings to get their money from you. They're not worried - legally, you owe them the money because they provided a service you used. They *will* get their money from you, one way or another.

A slightly more effective way, although even less likely to happen, is to get everyone to cancel their adsl accounts. Then they're still losing out on money, but the legal issue of you having used the service and therefore still owe them the money is out the way.
Click to expand...

what else does telkom offer thats bigger than adsl?, think about it what money do they make on telephone calls not a lot. the thing i cant picture is telkom blacklisting all -+300 000 ADSL customers then asking all of them for there money and im certain 90% of the customers will argue and take it to court because of lack of service and the fact that there being ripped off. if they get there money what have they succeeded in doing?? yes they got there money but only one months of it.. then theres telkom media that will backfire (and correct me if im wrong telkom spent 2-3billion just to start up andit use's adsl) why because they blacklisted all there customers that were going to buy that product, and not to mention there net profit loss and share's will drop.. so yes they could but, financially i cant see telkom doing that rather just decrease the price..... think about it why go to such extremes when all customers want is better service and more for there money..
 
DOOMIE61 said:
think about it what money do they make on telephone calls not a lot.
Click to expand...

Have you checked the price of a bog standard telephone call through Telkom? :eek:

If we could get every diginet customer to cancel those lines, well..... unfortunately, it is worth more money for the business to have the line running than not.
 
Telkom gets 80% of revenue from big business and government. I think they'd love to lose all the small accounts as these have the greatest support cost.

Big business doesn't care about cost, it just increases its prices to cover additional expense.

Government holds 47% of Telkom, so increased revenue just means bigger dividends. And government doesn't care about costs, it just increases taxes.

Until there is a viable alternative, this kind of threat can't work. when there is a viable alternative, the action will be to move. A non-viable alternative will leave status quo ....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X