Telkom launching new way to cancel accounts

Many readers have contacted MyBroadband in recent months about Telkom cancellation issues.

These readers filed for cancellation of their Telkom packages, but they continued to be charged for the services.

Telkom said it was working to improve the accessibility of its support mechanisms to customers – starting with a feature which will allow customers previously unable to cancel their accounts to process the matter online.

“We are in the process of launching our pre-login capability which will allow customers to log a cancellation case without first logging in to the Telkom website,” Telkom said.

This follows users stating that they could not apply for a home loan or credit as Telkom had blacklisted them with credit bureaus for not paying their accounts.

Telkom has acknowledged that errors in the migration of its cancellation system resulted in users being incorrectly blacklisted.

“We have reviewed our process, adding more checks to minimise incorrect listings,” Telkom told MyBroadband.

“We are also checking listings done during the manual cancellation process period to fix incorrect listings.”

Standard cancellation

Telkom has stated that its cancellation process is now working correctly, and advised customers who wish to cancel to do so through the Telkom online portal.

“Our process is that all cancellation should be done through our online portal as supporting documentation is required to authenticate the customer,” Telkom said.

The company added that it is exploring other channels such as the Telkom App and digital in-store submissions for cancellations.

“The number of cancellation-related escalations has decreased since the launch of the online cancellation platform,” Telkom noted.

“Our turnaround time has decreased from over 10 days to an average of 48 hours to handle cancellation cases or requests.”

If a customer is able to log in to the online portal and cancel their account this way, there should be no problem going forward and they hopefully won’t have to worry about credit bureau listings.

However, those who cancelled through other methods before or during the migration to newer systems no longer have Telkom accounts and are unable to access the online portal.

In this case, Telkom recommends that users escalate their complaint with Telkom’s cancellations department by visiting www.telkom.co.za and navigating to:

Help > Talk To Us > [Scroll Down] > Send us an email > [Select cancellations under department]

“These cases are handled within 24-48 hours by the retention escalation team,” Telkom said.

“We encourage all customers who have an online reference number and are still struggling to get their service cancelled to log an escalation. Our turnaround time is 48 hours for this.”

Telkom said it is confident that with the interventions it is putting in place, there will be a significant decrease in the number of cancellation-related complaints.