Telkom and their hidden account limit

The_Ogre

The_Ogre

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So this morning my wife tells me she can't connect to the net with her tablet.

So I log into the router only to see the connection status is "Connecting", so I think nothing of it and give it a few minutes. After about 5 minutes I rebooted the router, thinking that it might resolve the issue.

It still just gets stuck on "Connecting". This is when I realise that maybe my line is dead.

Lo-and-behold, I pick up the telephone and I hear "Your telephone line has been suspended for not payment..."

I blow a gasket, because I make sure I pay my account every month. So I gave them a call a few minutes later, only to be told that there's a limit on my account of R1 500 and we've exceeded the limit.

So I was like WTF, if I wanted a limit I would have asked for one!!! My wife uses the landline phone for her little business during the day.

Was it just me that never heard of this limit? I am now forced to settle my entire bill for August (which is only due on 26 Aug, mind you) before they'll reconnect the line.

This is extremely frustrating. :(
 
Wait a bit, because your voice costs was over R1500 your adsl portiion was also suspended. :mad:
 
How long do you have the line?

I know when i applied for a line there was a restriction for a couple of months which was relaxed thereafter. I was told about it upfront and actually aked that it be lowered as i dont use the line for anything but ADSL
 
When I setup my account I was told that the limit is R1500, and if my bill reached that during the month the line will be suspended.

They base it on your credit score, etc and you can also ask for it to be raised.
 
ja it makes no sense how the voice call limit causes the ADSL portion to flonk out but it does. Best to have a fairly high limit sadly.
 
Had the same issue a couple of years back. i still had ISDN line then.
I eventually asked for them to increase the limit. Had to increase a couple of times.
So yes, it has been around for a very long time. I reckon about 15 years if not more.

I don't have that problem anymore as my Telkom account is basically the same every month.
I have one of those Telkom call plans that gives me a 1000 mins during day and free calls after 19:00 and weekends.
I basically pay about R1050.00 every month for Telephone line, 4Mbps ADSL and the call plan.

It is a farking pain though and buggers you around now as well ito payment.

I sort of understood it with dial-up where the pc could dial and connect without your knowledge and runs up a big account, but not sure if it still relevant with ADSL being the norm.
Maybe calls to cell phone accounts? That could bump an account quickly.
 
My issue with this limit issue is that had they told me about it I would have made sure I stay below that.
 
Also heard about foreiners having lines installed, running up the bill with international calls and then vanishing. thats why the first 3 months the limit is less (or so i was told)
 
Shiraz said:
Also heard about foreiners having lines installed, running up the bill with international calls and then vanishing. thats why the first 3 months the limit is less (or so i was told)
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Yeah, but I had my line about 4 months now.

Also the only variable in my case is the phone, the total ADSL and related costs are a constant. The only variable is the telephone costs, which my wife uses to call landlines, but we have that 1000 (or whatever it is) minutes plan.

So the delta between that and this so called R1 500 limit is incredibly small.

The least they could have done is inform me of the limit.
 
Last edited:
YingYang said:
Yeah, but I had my line about 4 months now.

Also the only variable in my case is the phone, the total ADSL and related costs are a constant. The only variable is the telephone costs, which my wife uses to call landlines, but we have that 1000 (or whatever it is) minutes plan.

So the delta between that and this so called R1 500 limit is incredibly small.

The least they could have done is inform me of the limit.
Click to expand...

I agree. as a courtesy they could have notified.... even asked you to pay in some bucks to bring your account down by slightly so that it is not cut
 
YingYang said:
The least they could have done is inform me of the limit.
Click to expand...

I like the idea of an automatic limit - we've been asking for something like that on the cellular operators for long enough. But they really should notify you, both initially when they set it, and later when you've reached it.
 
Tacet said:
I like the idea of an automatic limit - we've been asking for something like that on the cellular operators for long enough. But they really should notify you, both initially when they set it, and later when you've reached it.
Click to expand...

Both lines that I had installed in the last 6 months I was notified about the limit, I think this may just have been a failure on the part of the telkom rep that set up the account.

They also made it very clear that I could request an increase on the limit in the next few months.
 
RoMark said:
Had the same issue a couple of years back. i still had ISDN line then.
I eventually asked for them to increase the limit. Had to increase a couple of times.
So yes, it has been around for a very long time. I reckon about 15 years if not more.

I don't have that problem anymore as my Telkom account is basically the same every month.
I have one of those Telkom call plans that gives me a 1000 mins during day and free calls after 19:00 and weekends.
I basically pay about R1050.00 every month for Telephone line, 4Mbps ADSL and the call plan.

It is a farking pain though and buggers you around now as well ito payment.

I sort of understood it with dial-up where the pc could dial and connect without your knowledge and runs up a big account, but not sure if it still relevant with ADSL being the norm.
Maybe calls to cell phone accounts? That could bump an account quickly.
Click to expand...

I have precisely the same account setup - and also had to up my credit limit (which I too never knew existed), when I upgraded [lol] from capped to my 4mb uncapped. That change blew me through the limit - but fortunately, received an sms warning me of outstanding payments etc., so I had it sorted before anything was cut. Bumped the limit up to R3k.
 
I was caught out by this as well this month ...

And of course, while my account is emailed to me every month, but there was no advance email warning that the line would be suspended if the balance was not paid. And of course, there is a R180 re-connection fee.

Telkom really needs to be more transparent about some of these issues, I will see if I can find the right people to make some suggestions to ...
 
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