hating telkom

now i know why there is so much anger around telkom.

i moved apartments a few weeks ago, and wanted my phone and internet lines changed. first telkom have lost the fax we sent them to get the line changed!

then i finally found a helpful lady who gave me a reference number, and told me to phone another number for the installation date.

i have called this number every day this week, and the number is constantly busy. it's impossible to get through to them.

so i called back the helpful lady's number, only to find that this telkom number no longer works.

so i went to the telkom website, and sent a webbased message to the telkom customer support - and haven't had a reply yet.

and i found the adsl number (another one) to call telkom, and managed to get through to someone, and they said that the installation date hadn't been set, and that i must carry on calling the number that is always busy.

i also asked the telkom lady to get customer support to call me, and she said that they would call within 5 minutes. that was 24 hours ago, and i'm still waiting. i'll probably wait forever until telkom actually has the decency to have some customer support.

and then i called the same number this morning, and they said that they can't / won't/ don't want to help and that i must carry on calling the number that is always busy.

so it's now the 7th of the month, i'm paying for my internet line (in south africa internet is expensive for 24x7 connection) and i don't have a landline, so i'm using my cellphone to make every call - including holding on to telkom's queue's for ages, and paying per minute, although i'm calling an 0800 toll free number.

so this is a special thank you to telkom for getting my blood pressure rising, and not giving me the customer service that any half decent company would have.

i await the day when the second national phone operator begins operating. if they're only good and not excellent, they'll be 10 times better than the telkom service.

anyway, back to calling telkom - wish me luck!!