GEORGE NEWS - Mike Leggatt from Wilderness is at his wits' end with Telkom after he has been trying in vain for the past four months to terminate a phone contract he has with the company. "I have tried everything, including taking my laptop to Telkom and getting them to do it, and still my account remains active. I had to go in there about five times. If you go on weekends, they always seem to be busy with staff training and when you get to the front, it seems as if nobody knows what they are doing," he says.
"It is desperately frustrating, and I cannot help but wonder how insanely difficult it must be for people with limited access to computers or knowledge on how to use them. The bills keep coming, even though I do not have a working telephone. It borders on criminal in my opinion."
He says a friend of his struggled for six months to close an account and his brother also several months.
Listen to Mike Leggatt explain his experience with Telkom.
The George Herald sent a query to the Telkom media communications department late on Monday. On Tuesday, they contacted the newspaper to obtain the complainant's cellphone number. Not long after that, Leggatt informed the paper that he had been contacted by Telkom.
"I finally received a call from Telkom asking whether I really wanted to terminate my connection with them, so, after four months and hours and hours of back and forth, it seems the end might be in sight. It will be a relief. I have not had a telephone for the past four months. It has been broken. Regardless of that, I still ended up having to pay R2 500 in phone bills - for what? I am not going to bother claiming it back. That is going to be a ridiculous waste of time as well. It is a horrendous setup that they have there."
Telkom confirmed that they have submitted the cancellation orders and will also request that Leggatt be refunded.
Telkom customers have been faced with dreadful service levels during the past few years and the George Herald has featured numerous stories of complaints about an ineffective call centre, ridiculously long queues in the walk-in stores and slow service, and complaints similar to that of Leggatt.
The company recently appointed a new head of customer service, Serame Taukobong, who has promised that a dedicated team will be prioritising improvements in service levels and communication with customers.
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