Telkom to WebAfrica transfer problem

[Waansin]

Telkom to ISP transfer problem

Slightly off-topic, but I really want to moan a bit.

I am trying to get my ADSL line transferred to WebAfrica for their MyBB Complete 7 special, but Telkom says I am still under their 24 month contract. Turns out that they look at my first billing date as the start of the contract.

Now I would think that would be Nov 2007, which is when I first got the Telkom line installed and the ADSL was installed shortly thereafter. However they seem to think it is Dec 2008; when I moved the line to my new address. I did retain my original phone number as it is on the same exchange.

Upon speaking to the very friendly WebAfrica support person: she said that Telkom had spoken to me regarding this! Lies, the first time Telkom spoke to me was today when I visited a Telkom Direct shop. The friendly lady at the Telkom Direct shop is going to take the issue up with her manager and will likely only get back to me by Friday.

Questions:

• Does a Telkom 2 year contract restart from scratch when they transfer/move your line to a new house?
• Besides waiting for the Telkom Direct employee to get back to me, is there something else I can do or something you could do to help me sort this issue out?

Thanks.

 

[Waansin]

Went to the Telkom Direct shop again today to drop off an old Telkom Invoice from March 2008 to help my case. The lady behind the counter thought it would be funny to state how simple and quick it would be to "cancel my contract" and "downgrade" my line to remove my existing 384Kb/s ADSL and then get WebAfrica to do their thing.

Personally I was shocked that she would even suggest the downgrade option. I'm planning to get Telkom to fix the error that is causing them to believe that my 24 month contract period is not finished and then I will get WebAfrica to do their job without interference from me.

Any insights?

 

[DapperDanMan]

AFAIK the contract starts on the date you take possession of the router that they give you.
And if you want to change a Telkom contract from a 24-month agreement into a month-to-month agreement then all you have to do is pay in the difference of what is left of your 24 installments on the original price of the router. Nothing else, AFAIK.

Note: If you cancel the ADSL portion on your line and let WebAfrica "do their thing" your line will be without ADSL sync for typically 1 to 3 weeks because Telkom's administrative systems are not flexible enough for this! So get it transferred instead.

 

[Waansin]

AFAIK the contract starts on the date you take possession of the router that they give you.
And if you want to change a Telkom contract from a 24-month agreement into a month-to-month agreement then all you have to do is pay in the difference of what is left of your 24 installments on the original price of the router. Nothing else, AFAIK.

Strange that they did not offer that as a possible solution. It does make sense though and I have definitely had my ADSL router for more than 24 months. They did replace it in Sep 2007 though, under warranty. But that date never came up and it should not affect my contract start date.

Note: If you cancel the ADSL portion on your line and let WebAfrica "do their thing" your line will be without ADSL sync for typically 1 to 3 weeks because Telkom's administrative systems are not flexible enough for this! So get it transferred instead.

I also thought that option was nuts. Absolutely crazy. Thanks for the comments.

 

[Waansin]

Update

Was phoned a few days ago by a Telkom customer service rep who told me that the contract is no longer on my account.

The first time this lady tried to cancel the contract my entire phone line got cancelled. It is really hard to phone and complain when your phone no longer works (luckily she was still at work and reversed everything). So she spent a few weeks trying to get all of these issues resolved.

According to her they have to cancel the contract, which automatically generates an early cancellation fee. This fee is the prorata cost left over for the ADSL router and the lost revenue of the ADSL line rental. In my case about R1400 . I will have to get this fee reversed or refunded when they bill me since my contract should have ended about 10 months ago and they are in the wrong.

Throughout this entire mini saga Telkom never once contacted me to tell me why WebAfrica could not transfer the line. I had to waste my time visiting the Telkom shop and explaining my issues. Also, good luck finding a Telkom consultant who actually knows how to do their job. I wasted many hours at a bad Telkom shop and a few weeks of waiting before I moved to a different one (Walmer Park has good consultants if you're in PE).


I would've assigned the "indifferent icon" to this post, but that particular one is not an option.

 

[WaNewton]

Hi Waansin,

I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience in trying to transfer your line to Web Africa. If there is anything you need further help with, please feel free to contact me.

 

[Waansin]

Hi Waansin,

I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience in trying to transfer your line to Web Africa. If there is anything you need further help with, please feel free to contact me.

Thanks. WebAfrica have been most awesome through this trying experience. The blame lies totally with Telkom who screwed up their records and have taken months to rectify things. WebAfrica have already resubmitted the transfer (and I hope the upgrade) request and hopefully sooner rather than later I will be surfing along with WebAfrica.