Getting Telkom to put ADSL line into holding pool

I want to transfer my ADSL line management to my ISP. I have emailed [email protected] and got the automated reply to say they will call me within 48 to 72 business hours to confirm my request. I did this last Monday (7 working days ago) but have had no call back. I called 10210 last Friday and they said they were unable to put me through to the cancellations/retention department but would pass a message through to ask them to call me but that has had no effect so far. I have since sent another email to tocfaxes but again only got the automated reply and still no callback.

Has anyone else had hassles getting Telkon to release an ADSL line? Any suggestions? Does "48 to 72 business hours" mean literally that, i.e. at about 8 working hours per business day that really means callback in 6 to 9 business days? I took it to mean 24 hour business days so I should have had the verification call within 3 working days which would have been by last Thursday at the latest.

Has anyone successfully got their ISP involved? I'm wondering if ISPs have any back channel communications to Telkom and might be able get the retentions department to process my request.

Has anyone had any luck getting things moving by visiting a Telkom store? My experience of Telkom stores has been even worse than my experiences of 10210.

Failing this, is there any ombudsman that I can complain to if this carries on? Simply ignoring requests to move a line seems a very effective but entirely dishonest/illegal way to retain accounts and revenue.

I am now definitely on a mission to have as little as I possibly can to do with Telkom. They are a nightmare to deal with.

- Julian

I haven't done what you want to do, but it terms of speedy service from Telkom, I always get it when I use Telkom CHat..Telkom chat

The last three of four times i used a bundle option ( eg ISP handling ADSL line rental and data), the ISP handled the request to transfer the line?

eg all you have to do is apply for the bundle on afrihost's page, submit your order and give it about 2 weeks. They will start charging you once they "receive" the line.

NetMpofu said:

I haven't done what you want to do, but it terms of speedy service from Telkom, I always get it when I use Telkom CHat..Telkom chat

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, much appreciated, but my results were laughable. Here's the conversation on chat that I just had. It's not a cut and paste, for reasons that can be seen from the last line of it, but it's only about 2 minutes old so, apart from the opening introduction from Telkom, is I'm pretty sure a word-perfect transcript...

[CHAT BEGINS ]


Telkom: Hi. What can I help you with today?

Me: I've been trying to get my landline (<number>) put into the holding pool for almost 2 weeks now. I've sent email to tocfaxes twice now and get the automated response but they never call me back to verify my instructions.

Me: I mean the ADSL line attached to my landline of course!

Telkom: What landline number?

Me: <number>

Telkom: What do you want to do with the number?

Me: Transfer the ADSL line attached to it to the wholesale holding pool

Telkom: You need to send email to [email protected]

Me: .... [ I was about to type "But I've already done that (twice)" but didn't get a chance because the Telkom rep immediately closed the chat before I could type a reply which clears the screen so I couldn't even copy & paste the session. ]

[ CHAT ENDS ]

Absolutely un-be-f***ing-lievable.

- Julian