I have a friend who was called by Telkom and offered this 3-month free trial. They were told they had "been selected and qualified"
Sounds fishy. I have not heard of Telkom actively phoning people to sell this free service. Are you sure the technician was a real Telkom employee, and not someone planting a listening device in your friends home?
They have been calling the Telkom Call Centre Number almost every day for 2 weeks, including weekends, to try to get their ADSL Account Details. The call is never answered. The longest they spent on hold waiting to speak to a consultant before giving up was a half-hour.
Very strange, in the last 2 years, I have called Telkom at least 2-3 dozen times, and have not been on hold for more than 10 minutes, with the average pick up time being under 2 minutes. This is in the JHB region. Perhaps different regions are served by different call-centers, with different response times?
We finally got a consultant on the line and they refused to assist us, saying that we had to call from the home telephone that we're requesting the account details for, and then wouldn't give her the information because her husband is the account holder.
Sounds about right. They won't just divulge personal information to anyone who asks. You have to verify your identity as the account holder, before Telkom will take any action on your account, or provide sensitive information. Otherwise any Tom, Dick or Harry could whatever he wanted to on anyone's account. All you would need is their phone number, and their name, which is already stored on cellphones (including stolen/lost ones).
I'd like to advise her to cancel the Telkom Bandwidth and just get her bandwidth from another provider (we get free 5GB accounts from our company) - How much is the Telkom 1MB Line Rental (with Voice Line Rental) per month alone without the Uncapped Package?
Voice Line Rental - R152 per month
1mbps ADSL Line Rental = R289 per month
I'd recommend she sort it out with Telkom. Let her husband do the calling and talking to Telkom, since the account is on his name. It really is a good deal. I've set this up for a few family members and it works well.
Read here for more info:
Free 3 month promo for Telkom 1mbps ADSL uncapped all-in-one account.
When I told her that the monthly cost would be R658 per month she almost passed out since they told her on the phone that it would only be R399.
If your friend already has a Telkom line, and has had one for a while, then she is already paying monthly voice line rental of R152, which could be included as part of a Closer package. So on top of the R152, she will be charged R399 per month, for 1mbps ADSL line rental plus the data package.
