By Danny Glenwright
Dear Telkom,
You dirty old monopoly, you. You really got me.
I’m actually writing to congratulate you. You were in the running for a few weeks but today I made it official. You have taken the prize for the poorest service I’ve ever received. And considering I’m a journalist who has lived, travelled and worked in more than 40 countries — 20 or so in Africa — this is no mean feat.
It started out so well. You were recommended to me by a fellow Canadian friend when I moved to South Africa in July. She said for what I wanted (landline and home internet) you were the best (and only) option. Looking back on the past few months knowing you, as I put the word “best” on paper to describe you, I almost expect the Word document I’m writing this on to underline it in green and tell me it’s a fragment (consider revising).
Going back to that day in August when I first met one of the many unfriendly, unhelpful Telkom staff I’d grow to become familiar with, I suppose I should’ve guessed what I was in for when I was told it would take up to one month to process my application for a landline. When I lived in the occupied Palestinian territories it took me less than a week — and Palestine is a war zone. But what could I do, I had no choice.
When, eventually, my landline was due to be connected one month later, I learned about your strange working hours. I had to take vacation time from work because I was told Telkom staff only work Monday to Friday from 8am till 5pm — the exact same work hours as me. And of course you don’t take appointments, it’s your choice when your staff show up (if they do). So I took a precious day off to wait for you. I had no choice.
Then I had to apply for the internet, which I was told could also take up to one month. When I moved to Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world, I had working internet set up within one week. It took you more than two months.
But the fun only began once I was up and running. Because up and running for you, I learned, is actually down and crawling. At this point it was the end of September, I had been in South Africa for more than two months and I still had no working landline or internet. Although your staff swore up and down you were connected and working, you were not.
The last weekend of September was a special time for us. I hadn’t spent an entire weekend with someone in months. I hadn’t spent so much money (Vodacom airtime) on someone in years. That weekend I learned that your “customer service” after-hours phone numbers (and there are so many of them) play only one horrible song on repeat while the poor sods who are forced to phone these lines sit and wait. I spent two hours listening to it on Friday night, three hours on Saturday morning humming along, and two more hours on Sunday morning wanting to slit my wrists. Nobody ever answered. I decided it might be faster if I got in my car and drove to the nearest Telkom store for help.
But your employees do not speak the language of fast. I was given another five-digit number and told they could do nothing for me, keep calling. Eventually someone answered and I spent one hour chatting to him, trying to solve my problems. He agreed I had many problems, gave me a reference, and told me he could do no more to help.
By this time I had myself quite a nice collection of Telkom reference numbers, but I still had no working internet or phone. I decided to lodge an official complaint with your complaints department. I was assured someone would call me the following day to sort me out. One week later I had heard nothing.
Telkom, I wanted to give you another chance, I really did. So the following weekend I tried calling again. Again no answer. Again that same song. Again I drove to the mall. This time there was a big sign on the door in scribbled black felt pen: “System down, come back tomorrow.”
Ah Telkom, you seem to have so many problems. I began to think I should also look into a carrier pigeon like the one which last year delivered 4GB of data faster than you.
It was at this time I received a Telkom bill in the mail. You were charging me R1 363.97 for services rendered. In our long and tumultuous relationship, Telkom, this was the moment I will always remember when I first started to really dislike you. You see, I had no choice.
I lodged another complaint. It was mid-October. I was assured, again, that someone would call. No one did. I still had no working internet and phone. One week later I called back. I was told by the person who eventually answered that someone in her family had died and she was too upset to deal with my complaint, could she call me back the following day? Of course, I said. But that day came and went and no one called. At this point, Telkom, you must agree it was getting a bit farcical.
Then one day at the end of October five different Telkom staff phoned me over the course of four hours. All of them asked me the same questions, interrupting my work day over and over.
“Do you have working internet and phone?”
“No”
“Has it ever worked?”
“No”
It seems your various employees are as disconnected from one another as my phone line is from my ADSL.
The last person asked me this string of questions and then asked for my landline number. I told him. He then said he’d been trying to reach me on that number for days. I asked him how he expected to reach me on that number when I’d just told him it had never worked. I slapped my forehead for him. I had no choice.
Someone came out the following day to fix things. I took more time off work. Miracle of miracles, my phone and internet were functional for almost a full 24 hours (although the internet speed reminded me of my days in Freetown), but then they both ceased again. I started the process over. I had no choice.
Telkom, I have now been in South Africa for four months. In that time I have had a working landline and home internet for no more than four days yet I have received two bills from you asking for my money. Telkom, even the guys who wash windows at South African robots provide a service. I’m still waiting for you to provide one. I have no choice.
Sincerely yours,
Unconnected and unreachable in Johannesburg
That’s the unfortunate part of our country. Our serrvice delivery is at the lowest – queues are a part of our daily lives, and when someone even manages to get something as simple as an ID within 3 months, then the media reports about such an event as a ‘speedy delivery’ … and we’re such a PC society that we accept it and smile … telkom is nothing compared to some of our hospital and other governmental department. God bless Africa!
Creative, funny, effective way to write a complaint. You need to patent this gem. Lol. You’ve got me smirking secretly at my office computer. Glad you’re ok, we’ve missed you. Xx
This sounds a lot like what happened to us.
We “had internet” for about four months without actually having access. They eventually came to fix it, then it was up a few days before it went down again. We got it up and running again and things went well for a while. Then we went away on vacation. When we came back, we found that our internet had disappeared and we’d been somehow been connected to a different line. A small business nearby was receiving our calls and our family and friends kept calling that business looking for us. It took them a few more weeks to sort that out. And few months later, our landline and internet again mysteriously disappeared. It took a lot of calling and nagging to get it back up.
We considered switching to Neotel, which at least has better customer service (so I’m told) but we didn’t really have a choice. For avid online gamers, an ADSL line is essential. That is the *only* reason we’ve actually stuck with Telkom. We have very little positive sentiment towards the company.
Don’t you have monopolies? Especially ones with no shame…
Danny,
you have summed up for me my entire experience with Telkom, yet I now have a connection, but I too have a collection of reference numbers and promises of phone calls back. And hours spent on the phone dealing with their incompetent call centre operators!
F A R C I C A L is the exact word for it. Only Telkom and Standard Bank have actually caused me to shed real tears.
I detest everything about Telkom and my stomach turns when I have to call them.
Why not get mobile broadband through GConnect? That’s where i went to for my ADSL.
BTW: MTN is another famous one for bad service! Try dealing with those call centre agents!
Ah, that’s ‘disputed’ territory, not ‘occupied’ Palestine.
sucks to be you man, we got our telkom landline installed in a week! no hassles, nothing. i just pray the ADSL installation will go as smoothly. probably not. i feel for you dude!
Knowing this author as I do, telecoms and he just do not mix. However, I would have to say that this is truly the worst of the lot he has endured, and the company he is writing about deserves this most eloquent complaint to be so well publicized. I would imagine we will see a new comer to the market soon. Afterall, where there is money to be made, politics seems to be secondary.
I’m not surprized, I signed up for ADSL last year November, I got reference numbers, I even got an sms demanding payment,etc., etc. To date I am still waiting for one of the lovely Telkom people you mentioned to show up…. a year later….
i feel your pain.
you forgot the bit where you cannot use a foreign credit card to pay your telkom bill online. i’d wanted to stay out of the south african banking system, but no…. i ended up getting a card for no other reason than to a) pay my phone bill and b) buy electricity.
i’ve lived in liberia, cote d’ivoire, and most recently senegal, and you get SERVICE WITH A SMILE in all three places.
that said, when i returned to south africa to set up new service in september, i got blank stares in sea point, but service with a smile on adderley street. this woman was obviously new — i watched the other telkom employees shift me to her when i walked into the store.
i already know that my name on there incites a “this is a problem customer” screen, and yet this woman held my hand and walked me through my new service. she also followed up by email and called my cellphone and landline to make sure that everything was working.
they need to clone this woman — her name is heather hendricks, i have her card — or, at the very least have her train people up and down the country, even though she’s fairly new. because she was awesome.
subsequent trips there where i’ve had to deal with other people have been filled with fail.
2010 telkom: 1990 british telecom. ugh.
Dear Faranaaz: There si a neat way to get rid of Telkom Internet. I signed up with iBurst wireless Internet some month ago. Although I live in an area that is, accoridng to their map, only in a “Fair” reception area, I ge fast and reliable service for R175/month at a varying speed,somewhere under 1 Mbps. I could improve the speed if I purchased an inexpensive antenna which would put me in the reception category “Good”. Furtherrmore, the advantage of wireless Internet is that I coulg get reception anywhere in the country by on a laptop when movinga around.
So call Iburst and get rid of Telkom!
Telkom, hello? We await your response.
There is an alternative. Cell C offer a very affordable 20Mbit connection which is on from the moment you buy it, and its mobile.
This all makes me think that I’m quite lucky to live out in the sticks – the engineers here actually make stuff work and trips to the physical Telkom office are mercifully rare. Not to say that everything works as it should – for instance, try to get a second line. That drew an incredible response from the dreaded Telkom – we are not considered viable!!!! Clearly they had done a full survey to ensure that they understood how much money we would be spending on our business line, and had decided that it just wouldn’t be enough!! Absolutely as bad as British Telecom were in the old days … need replacing in toto
Every aspect of this country is rotting except for SARS
It can be better if we can remind Malema and his company about the impact of having organisations run or partly run by by the government. If Telkom was not monopoly organisation under the government it should not have been alone in lan communication
Welcome to the our Third World of government-owned monopolies, whose mission statement appears to be: “There’s no-one else, so we can be as inefficient as we want and charge as much as we want.”
I had a similar experience but the lovely Telkom also charged me an extra R500 for a bounced debit order (I hadn’t budgetted for the extra charges), in addition to my bank’s R175.
R500 more for NOT paying?!!!
Farcical is far too light. No matter what order you put them in, there are no words in the English language doesto describe how pathetic Telkom’s service is.
I hope and pray that 8ta is a colossal failure that severly damages Telkom!!!
Think I’ll rent out the letter to Telkom that worked…
I took advantage of the lines left lying along the pavement and threatened to send my son out to trip over them, then sue them for public liability. I received service the following day, but nothing like the discount I deserved for having been cut off for six weeks.
My ten worst service providers are:
1. Telkom — each time you ring you connect to a different call centre and a different Themba.
2. Dept of Home Affairs — another rude letter that worked a charm. Any takers? But it was addressed to probably their last white, Afrikaans employee (with apologies to all readers).
3. Eskom/municipality — five 4-6-hour power cuts in as many weeks.
4. Absa — consultants know less than the lowliest clerks. Must admit, the clerks do better!
5. Standard — refused to send on the letter of instruction requested to transfer money to my son from my Money Market a/c, insisting they do it all in-house but what I wanted was impossible.
6. Ethekwini — the budget cuts are so scary, a cholera epidemic wouldn’t surprise me.
7. East Coast Access — quoted a price which I accepted then said it was only for the first two Gigs.
8. Quality Vacation Club — no longer sends out invoices or statements.
9. Discovery — changed my self-payment gap three times in three months.
10. Government — for wasting money in the face of dire need in the population.
Oh darn, how could I forget number 11: the SABC, with its ‘sue via sms’ debt collection policy? Did no one tell it that change of address letters can be considered official instructions?
Telkom is pure, unadulterated evil. I’m reliably informed that they actually employ minions from the bowels of hell (not) to do their bidding. As a result of past experiences, I haven’t had a Telkom account for six years now and my life is considerably more pleasant for it – though an element of rage still flickers on mention of the word, I must admit.
Danny, if you are in an area that receives coverage, I suggest getting a Neotel account. I have a NeoFlex 5GB package which costs R500pm. Not the cheapest or fastest, but is generally reliable, took 2 days to organise and customer service is decent (which is to say, outrageously fantastic in comparison to Telkom). I’ve also got a “landline” which does what it says on the box just fine.
Telkom’s profit dropped 90% last year. Anyone gonna guess why? Their little venture into cellphones is going to be the financial millstone that finally sinks the company. Then the taxpayers will bail it out and we’ll be back to the SAA / Eskom scenario.
I am Most fortunate besides the time it takes to get a call answered I have had great service from telkom. The adsl is the cheapest on the market.
That said try getting a telphone and internet installed in Madrid Spain more first world that SA or Sierre Leone. There you pay to keep your acount open, service or not. No way you can complain to get dscount or refund. You keep on paying rental until they install your phone.
The only way to draw their attention to your plight is when one stops paying.
Oh I do SO hope that somebody in Telkom’s ‘management’ have read this piece and the responses!
I have to agree with you on Telkom being the worst serrvice provider.
Home Affairs like most other Goverment Depts have to rely on the Telkom lines for their data and it will take Telkom anything between a week and 3 months to fix any problems you may have with data lines. They will even insist that everything is right with the lines while still charging you exorbitant rates.
All the monopolies or “Para stateless” would be the more politically correct word, are simply a method to milk the public. The word service means how can I, as an employee of this monopoly enrich myself? Eskom, Telkom, SAA, all of these tax sucking enterprises are there not to help SA but their own. I had problems with Telkom once, I made such a scene in the local Telkom office that one lady still leaves the office when I get there and this happened 3 years ago. In the old days when you could still contact the “service department” directly we actually got quick service, all we used to say is that there is a bottle of whiskey left over from a party and no one drinks the stuff. Land line installed and working whiskey gone.
Welcome to SA. You can avoid the crime with a bit of care, but the appalling driving and sh1tty attitude to customer server are all around you, all the time. It was the main thing that drove me away, and I’m still receiving dental care from gritting my teeth in exasperation every day for years on end…
Problem is, SA is remote. People in shops and offices who do this stuff probably have never travelled to the other side of their own country, let alone to the overseas. So they have just no idea of how differently things operate in the outside world.
@Danny Glenwright – Telkom is atrocious, I never asked for my deposit back, figuring it would cost me more to ask than to just cut my losses and run but before you give Telkom first place in our pack of disfunctional parastatals please take a Metro train for a week. If Telkom service is beyond belief then Prasa (metrorail) somehow manage to give “service” reminicent of the twilight zone where a shrug is the standard answer to any question, if they are not “apologaaising for the inconveeneance” and my personal favorite: the missing train, that, together with an environment on train and on platform that looks like a biohazard suit would not be a bad idea. Oh and the clocks, they all show different times and display boards are, eh, not to be trusted, neither are the anouncements (apologies).
Funny thing, no-one writes about them much, they either enjoy angelic/mafia protection or all journos travel by car.
Oh well join the club dear Danny. Thanks for getting this article out and articulating your dismay at Telkom. It has to be one of the worst “service” organizations in the world.
There has been promise for years of good competition but as yet, we are still deprived of even the most normal efficient landling and internet services.
What does it take to get these guys to give us basic service?
Apparently they have “upgraded” their system but it’s probably one of those contracts they give to their buddies and so doomed to fail.
I’m off to slit my wrists!!!
Well [modern] SA is not only the least literate country in Africa but also apparently one of the least comms-savvy.
Usefull places to research comms offerings are at MyBroadband.co.za and MyAdsl.co.za
Actually they are all bad – but then many providers rely on the Telkom infrastructure. And some are off-shoots of State enterprises like Telkom and TransTel…
The newly laid undersea cables should make a difference…
MLH, I see that you reside in the Kingdom of Sutcliffe. Shame! I relocated to a spot just South of ‘the border’ and …well …um …different municipality, SAME S*#T!!
Standard Bank should be burned to the ground, with, or without their soon-to-be-retrenched [if the commies will allow it] worse-than-useless staff members!!!! Had to get that in.
Bunch of whingers, the lot of you.
I’ve had no real problems from Telkom, or with their ADSL. Now 9GB/month, for Petes sake! We never get to use more than a third of that. It could be faster, but we’d make do with less quantity.
I had to laugh out loud. So this has been the case for me and my partner. So Telkom comes and fixes our ADSL line and then they disconnect the ADSL in the main house. So they return and we are so sure that the ADSL in the cottage will not work and the guy leaves and, guess what the line is not working. So several months of this we watch him work again and then we made sure he did not leave until we tried both ADSL lines and they all were working. So I have felt like a mouse too, cheated and beaten over my money and services unrendered- can I propose that with Hello Peter, lets still share this information on a broader network and make sure that we stop giving our money to these scums. I have sent word on bad restaurants in Jozi and I make time to make sure my 10 friends tell their 10 friends and we need to get these people out of of business rather than make it some defunked cultural BS. I am unreachable-please try again. In fact my voicemail is in a languauge I do not understand- thanks but no thanks to Telkom. Let’s find alternatives.Lets get this into a space for all to see and also it is great for competition and still we can boot them out. Why continue to pay for bad services. We need to rise as masses and stop this bad trend!
I have ADSL well – after Telkom personnel installed this they asvised me that, to get it operational, they had to “switch on” at the local exchange. I then received a call from the technician at the exchange advising me that the “line length” from the exchange to the point of installation exceeded the maximum. (The exchange is situated in a suburb of the same town in which I live!) Telkom then removed the instalaltion which they had just installed. I ignored this and submited a new application and a different Telkom employee arrived to do the installation. I decided to inform him of the previous experience and he, via some type of instrument, measured the line length to the exchange and ageeed it was borderline and he could not do the installation. However, I offered him a gift, he made a call from my home to someone in head office, and he had the line installed and running in no time. I am ashamed of having done this but had no choice.
@Andrew
Trouble with being out in the sticks is that the lines themselves are more vulnerable. I had Telkom ADSL for a while, then the copper thieves moved in. Lines down for several weeks, replaced, up for a few days, then stolen again. Over the next year or so the story was the same thing over and over again, then Telkom gave up. The miserable ends of the lines have been hanging from the poles now for over two years. The only Telkom service nowadays is from the billing department.
@David
“I would imagine we will see a new comer to the market soon. Afterall, where there is money to be made, politics seems to be secondary.”
Um, that’s what we’ve been saying (in hope) for the past 16 years.
My landline wasn’t a problem, that was up and running within a week … my adsl, though … Telkom took their own sweet time. That I couldn’t understand; it wasn’t a new LINE, just a switch that had to be thrown somewhere, surely?
I just use their line, and have a different ISP. Very happy with the arrangement, esp since a colleauge who went for the Telkom Simpler has been cut off repeatedly in the past couple of weeks.
Good luck, Danny! Friend of mine has Neotel, and is very pleased with the company.
The prize for bad service must surely go to the City of Joburg. We bought our new house in March (yes, 9 months ago!) and still have not been able to get a rates account.
Not even an account number, never mind a statement. Nothing!
The problem has been “escalated” which doesn’t mean anything, because nothing is happening. Nada. Zip. No rates account.
Neotel’s an excellent alternative. They might not offer the same data speed, but they’re reasonably prices, fast, friendly and reliable. The frustration of Telkom is simply not worth any of the ‘exclusive services’ they supposedly offer.
@Tambu – It would be nice if giving the cold shoulder to bad service did indeed allow the company to die a natural death but, unfortunately, in South Africa, you guessed it, if the parastatals do not make money they are bailed out with tax money or loans from the World Bank that the taxpayer have to pay the interest on. So, choice? Ummm, not much of that in South Africa, we support whom the govt decree we should support.
Ah how this moved me. I (mea culpa) had my line discontinued. I went in to have it reconnected. After many months of nada I they agreed to come and install it they checked my cell number I told them they had it wrong they said they had corrected it. I took time off work. They did not arrive. The next day they phoned me sternly at work to tell me the number they had not corrected belonged to someone else so they had not been able to come and install my ADSL. I asked why they had not phoned me on my work phone, they said they didn’t have it, I said, “then what number do you think you are speaking to me on now …” deathly silence slightly better than Johnny Clegg music I guess. They have just phoned me now on my cellhone to let me know they are coming tomorrow, watch this space …..
I moved from Loxton in the Karoo to Bethlehem in the Free State. I was asked when I wanted ’phone plus ADSL installed. And it was done on that promised date. Lightning. lines down, fixed within 24 hours (this has happened on a number of occations). Maybe its because I’m friendly and respectful? Thanks Telkom for my good service
Did Telkom get this letter btw? They’re such criminals for sending you statements when they know very well, you haven’t used any of their services since they haven’t been installed
Just as the effectiveness of an organisation starts from the leadership so does the rot. Most employees in most organisations are only able to reflect what is passed down to them from the leadership.
If a commercial organisation has poor leadership the market will punish it and it will go out of business.
Parastals however are part of government and are viewed by corrupt governments as part of the ‘rightful’ spoils of election. Thus their commercial purpose plays a very poor second fiddle to their political purpose consequently they will not be allowed to go out of business and tax money will be used to prop them up whenever needed.
While I have genarally always had decent service from Telkom, my ADSL line was connected within 2 days of calling, there was a mistake with the speed they connected me at. I had ordered 512kbs and they provided 384kbs. WHen I called to have changed the lady on the phone began to tell me that they do not offer a 512kbs speed, it had been discontinued. I tried explaining to her that this was impossible as every ISP was selling 512kbs and if anyone had bothered to tell them this. She became quite indignant and rude telling me that she has worked for Telkom for 10 years and how dare I try and tell here what the Telkom products are. Again I tried to reason with her and she lambasted me with ‘don’t tell be about my job…’ I relented and hung up, calling again to get another agent who gladly fixed my problem for me and 30 minutes later I was operating at 512kbs.
Please use Neotel as their service is very efficient. I cancelled TELKOM services due to the bad service delivery and no connection everytime it rained. It also helps with my home security as now I can immeditaly recognize the criminals when they ring my doorbell and pose as “telkom employess” wanting access to test my telephone services.
Welcome to Africa Danny, actually, welcome to SOUTH Africa where there is an appearance of normality but just beneath the skin service delivery is pathetically poor id government has anything to do with it. 5 out of every 8 South African’s can tell you a Dept of Home Affairs or SAPS horror story but the majority will still carrying on voting for the ruling party much like a battered woman who sticks with her abuse husband because she cannot envisage a life of true freedom and would rather stick with the abuser.
In respect of Telkom, I support the death penalty – for everyone at Telkom. They’re all guilty and deserve death.
This country is just getting worse and worse.
LOL – I’ve been frustrated by the constant ‘bombing’ of my Vodacom 3G connection and was seriously considering again installing a Telkom line and applying for ADSL. Now I think I shal RE-think…
It’s not the Service I am complaining about at Telkom, there is no service. I am complaining about not been able to complain.Nobody in TelkomSA seems to care if our company’s Emails / internet has been down for 14days on a line fault ref. A 24/48 turn around is not a issue with them. I wonder when our service will be restored. This year i hope.
Talking of phone monopolies and their evil ways, M&G please stop that irritating and invasive noise from the Vodacom ad.